ities." Instead of budgeting its construction costs on a year-to-year basis—the normal practice—in this budget DOE asked for enough additional money, more than $880 million, to finish the facilities in the years beyond 1998. Subtracting that money out of the request leaves a flat budget for science and technology in fiscal 1998—one that would be 5.3% less than it was in 1994.

The AAAS analysis shows that the fed­eral R&D budget request for fiscal 1998 totals $75.0 billion, up 1.8% or $1.3 bil­lion from the current funding level. With inflation projected at 2.6% over the com­ing year, AAAS points out this represents a decline of 0.8% in real terms. When it subtracts DOE's out-year facilities fund­ing—an item Congress is unlikely to ap­prove—AAAS says the R&D budget would decline 1.9% in real terms.

"Despite the president's proposed in­creases," AAAS concludes, "federal R&D funding would continue its downward slide of the past several years [in fiscal 1998]. Constant-dollar R&D funding lev­els in all agencies except the National In­stitutes of Health and the National Sci­ence Foundation would be lower than they were in fiscal 1994."

It might get worse. Congress may well not give the agencies as much mon­ey as the president requested.

Janice Long

U.S., Russian presidents agree to seek action on chemical arms pact

At the recent Helsinki Summit, President Bill Clinton and Russian President Boris Yeltsin agreed to intensify efforts to get their respective legislatures to expeditious­ly ratify the Chemical Weapons Conven-

Clinton (left) and Yeltsin agreed to push for ratification of the chemical weapons treaty.

tion. The treaty bans the production, pos­session, and use of chemical weapons.

Yeltsin submitted the treaty to the Duma, the Russian parliament, on March 17. In the U.S., the accord has been held up in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, whose chairman, Jesse Helms (R-N.C), has been trying to get the Administration to agree to reorganization of the State Depart­ment and to conditions in the resolution of ratification—the document senators actually vote on.

After negotiating with Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. (D-Del.), the ranking minority member on the Foreign Relations Commit­tee, and with Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright, Helms said last week he will hold hearings the first week after the Sen­ate returns from a two-week recess on April 7. He has set no timetable for a com­mittee vote on whether to ratify the treaty.

However, Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott (R-Miss.) has made full Senate floor debate on the treaty's ratification a top leg­islative priority. Although Senate Demo­crats had tried to get him to commit to a specific date for debate, Lott would only offer his "intent for this issue to come up when we come back after the recess." He did say he intended to continue to work with Helms and Biden "to get this issue to the floor this April.''

The White House insists that the Senate must act on the treaty the week of April 14 "to allow us to do all the things necessary to deposit" the instruments of ratification with the United Nations in New York be­fore April 29, says an Administration offi­cial. The U.S. must make the deposit by that date to become an original party to the accord, with all the privileges and obli­gations that entails. But to meet this dead­line, the Administration needs adequate time to prepare required reports and certi­fications that all conditions attached to the ratification document can be met.

The Ao^ninistration of-ficial tells C&EN the White House has not yet begun to certify already accepted conditions to the ratification resolution. But the official expects the process to move swiftly once the treaty is ratified. The White House also expects the UN to move quickly to register the ratification document once the U.S. deposits it.

Although some of Helms's conditions have been accepted by the Ad-

ministration, many remain to be negotiated. Helms and Biden and their staffs have been meeting to iron out some of the treaty issues of concern to Helms, as well as respond to the senator's insistence that the State De­partment be reformed and reorganized. These talks are separate from, and less pub­licized than, those being held by the Nation­al Security Council and nine Republican senators—including Helms—chosen by Lott (C&EN, March 17, page 20).

One of Helms's conditions for releasing the treaty from his committee is a commit­ment by the Administration to consolidate or merge several agencies, including the Arms Control & Disarmament Agency, into the State Department. Vice President Al Gore is overseeing an interagency study of the issue. He has publicly acknowledged that satisfying Helms is one reason—but not the only reason—for this review. But, Gore notes, State Department reform may not necessarily result from the assessment.

Lois Ember

Nalley elected ACS Region V director In a special election for a post on the American Chemical Society Board of Di­rectors, petition candidate Elizabeth Ann Nalley of the Wichita Falls-Duncan Sec­tion has been elected Region V director. (Region V consists of a large part of the midsection of the U.S.) She will serve the remainder of the 1995-97 term of former Region V Director Charles B. Lindahl, who died last April, and a full 1998-2000 term (C&EN, Feb. 17, page 51).

Also vying for the post were Clara D. Craver of the St Louis Section and Paul R. Jones of the Dallas-Fort Worth Section. Because no candidate in the three-way election captured a majority of first-choice votes, ACS bylaws required a count of second-choice votes from bal­lots of the third-place candidate—-in this case, Jones—to be added to first-choice votes of the leading two candidates. With that, Nalley received 2,516 votes and Craver 1,664 votes from a total of 4,256 ballots cast

Nalley is a professor of chemistry at Cameron University, Lawton, Okla. She has served on numerous ACS commit­tees; most recently, the Committee on Chemical Safety and the Committee on Membership Affairs. Among other hon­ors, she was the 1996 recipient of the Henry Hill Award, presented by the ACS Division of Professional Relations, and of the 1996 Cameron University Faculty Hall of Fame Award

William Schulz

MARCH 31, 1997 C&EN 9