A breakdown of "Other High-Energy-Physics Research" follows:

1 Fiscal year 1968 termination date. Contractor has been notified. 2 The 20" Helium BC was constructed by Northwestern University under ONR sponsorship. Argonne National Laboratory has proposed to operate the chamber in conjunction with research at the ZGS accelerator, and indicates a $250,000 incremental funding need. 3 Fiscal year 1969 termination date. Contractor has been notified.

Dr. JOHN S. FOSTER, Jr.,

Director of Defense Research and Engineering,
Department of Defense,

Washington, D.C.

DECEMBER 16, 1967.

DEAR JOHNNY: The Commission has recently received notification on the current status of the FY 1968 and FY 1969 Atomic Energy Commission budgets. While we do believe that the DOD programs in elementary particles, nuclear structure, and nuclear astrophysics, currently scheduled for termination, as indicated in your letter of October 10, 1967, are deserving of continued support, this is to notify you that it will be difficult if not impossible to accommodate. any of this research in the Atomic Energy Commission budget for FY 1968 or FY 1969.

This is to urge that you do whatever possible to maintain the viability of your university programs.

Cordially,

GLENN T. SEABORG, Chairman.

Mr. DADDARIO. Well, beyond a blow-by-blow account, as you look back on it and see these things happening and you recognize that it does cause pain and anguish in various places, all of this is proof of the necessity of putting our science house in better order. Our question really goes to how we might do better. What we are looking for is recognition of these events and foresight in preventing the anguish which comes at a time when an agency wishes to get rid of something which this country needs.

I think it is important, Dr. Seaborg. This committee, when it looked into the restructuring of the National Science Foundation, as a result of the hearings, did conclude that many of the mission-oriented agencies should maintain their own research abilities. I guess that this committee would not be in favor of one central science agency now; however, it does appear that there is something that needs to be done about this general overall theory that everybody ought to do as much basic research as they want to do, because when the squeeze comes on many things not so important to their mission

objective that they will transfer the funds so that it be done somewhere else.

Dr. SEABORG. Well, I agree that there is a problem that is exemplified by this transfer of the support for certain functions from the DOD to, as it finally happened, the NSF. And I can give you another example that is of concern to me, and that is the closedown, or the impending closedown of the Naval Radiological Defense Laboratory near San Francisco.

I think that this is a laboratory with a great potential, a long history of accomplishment, and staffed with very competent people who are going to be-whose ability to produce I think will be diminished as a result of the process. And it would have been nice to have had a better mechanism for deciding whether it was indeed to the advantage of our country to close down that laboratory at this time.

I don't deny that better coordination is required. I rather feel that perhaps at this time it might be accomplished by giving more power, somehow, to the Office of Science and Technology, more strength, more ability to operate in this area. Perhaps even to the extent of being involved somewhat in the budgeting process for the support of science in the United States.

Mr. DADDARIO. We certainly cannot continue to dump things onto the OST without giving it the tools to do the job, additional people, facilities, equipment, can we?

Dr. SEABORG. I agree with you. Additional people and budget would be required in order to do this. But not a large number in comparison, in terms of cost, with the $16 billion, is it, research and development that the Federal Government is supporting, or more relevant, the $2 billion or so basic research that the Federal Government is supporting throughout the country. It could be a small increment to that cost and would help probably save more than the additional cost would

come to.

Mr. DADDARIO. Dr. Seaborg, you made a point earlier about the coordinating mechanism which exists, AEC-NASA.

Dr. SEABORG. Yes.

Mr. DADDARIO. That would appear to be a particularly simple one, because NASA has an objective and AEC has the power capability. I think the creation of that office where Dr. Finger worked for many years

Dr. SEABORG. Milt Klein is the head of it now.

Mr. DADDARIO. Milt Klein is presently the head-has been a wise move. I have been particularly interested in seeing how Dr. Finger will transfer these talents to the creation of new housing at HUD.

Dr. SEABORG. I have talked to Dr. Finger about that, and he feels that the background and experience he gained in that AEC-NASA position has made him familiar with tools of management of programs in science and technology that will stand him in good stead in his present very difficult and important assignment.

Mr. MOSHER. Applying those tools to what is essentially social problems is going to be a very interesting experience.

Dr. SEABORG. Yes. I was thinking more of the system's analysis approach to social and administrative work. He, of course, will not be administering technology to the extent he was in the AEC-NASA

office, although one of his problems is to find out just what the role of technology can be to improve the urban situation.

Mr. MOSHER. Well, he will be dealing with labor bosses and city political bosses. That is a difficult area.

Mr. DADDARIO. If we could follow that just a bit, Dr. Seaborg, that would appear to me to be one of the relatively simple cases where coordination between two agencies does fit very well. But take all the things that you are doing. You take desalting, which is now in the Office of Saline Water; thermal wastes, which is dealt with by the Federal Water Pollution Control Administration; medical applications of radioisotopes which you have referred to at NIH.

Now, who judges all of these projects and who comes up with determinations about where they ought to be done and who ought to put the greatest effort into them? Is this a place where we can learn a lesson about how better to put our house in order?

Dr. SEABORG. Well, I could have used our relationships with the Department of the Interior as another example of coordination, because we do have, and have had for a number of years, close coordination there in the nuclear desalting effort.

We don't quite have a joint office, but we have had a close collaboration with the Office of Saline Water in the Department of the Interior, and have worked with them on the various projects that we have under consideration in the various parts of the world.

Mr. DADDARIO. Well, is it presently satisfactory? Can you see the problem proliferating so that it will become more complicated and make it more difficult to use this simple coordinating mechanism?

Dr. SEABORG. I think that no matter what the overall mechanism was for coordinating science, in examples like the ones that I have cited, including our work with the Department of the Interior, we would need this bilateral coordination and collaboration. This would still be required, I am sure, because of the details and the complexity of the projects that are involved.

Mr. DADDARIO. Well, certainly we will always need coordinating mechanisms. But part of the management is not just coordinating programs and activities once they are underway, or as they get under

Mr. DADDARIO (continuing). But how you establish the priorities. Dr. SEABORG. And how you find the places where there might be coordination, perhaps.

Mr. DADDARIO. That's right.

Dr. SEABORG. Yes. Well, I think that an increased role for the Office of Science and Technology, and in cases like the collaboration between the Department of the Interior and the AEC, a role for the Federal Council for Science and Technology would be very helpful. And I believe the Federal Council for Science and Technology probably could play a bigger role in identifying areas of the type that we don't now see, but of the type that might usefully involve collaboration or coordination of this sort.

Mr. DADDARIO. Well, we will take a simple case of an atomic plant, say on the Connecticut River, Haddam. Who has the responsibility for getting the information on stream ecology to allow for a decision to

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be made on waste heat discharges? How much should be allowed and who is in charge? How is that done?

Dr. SEABORG. Well, you used an example that is, you might say, a case where the question of responsibility is sort of in a state of transition.

The Atomic Energy Commission has, under the Atomic Energy Act, the responsibility for regulation with respect to radioactivity and the level of radioactivity in the effluents, and with respect to the area of nuclear safety. The Atomic Energy Act does not include and did not foresee a role for the AEC in the regulation of thermal effects.

The way this is handled now is regulation by a combination of State control and agencies of the Department of the Interior such as the Federal Water Pollution Control Administration and the Fish and Wildlife Service. These agencies are consulted by the AEC during its licensing procedures.

There is legislation in Congress now which the AEC supports that would spell out a better definition of just where the responsibility for regulation with respect to thermal effects should lie. And this includes a number of possibilities, but one bill, for example, places the control with local State agencies, but includes some coordination at the Federal Government level in the Department of the Interior.

Mr. DADDARIO. Who does the research necessary in this particular area so that we know these regulations are going to be properly applied, or so that the regulations can be formed from proper consideration of what the situation is?

Dr. SEABORG. So that we have the information that is required, the Atomic Energy Commission is supporting some research in this area, the effect of heated water on fish and aquatic life. But probably more research should be done on this.

This is a problem, I might say frankly, that has become recognized only very recently, and plans are evolving and need to be evolved in the future for dealing with it.

Mr. DADDARIO. I would imagine that when you say plans, that this should also include the management mechanisms through which this would be done.

Dr. SEABORG. Yes. And to illustrate the complexity of the problem, I should point out that the matter of thermal effects is of concern in a case of any plant that produces electricity through the thermal mechanim; that is, this includes fossil fueled plants. And the hope is that as the national picture evolves, that all plants would be subject to adequate regulatory mechanisms to take care of the problem.

Mr. DADDARIO. Dr. Seaborg, in your report you refer to the work that is being done in your Agency, and this amazing figure of "500 Pacific Oceans of petroleum," as a point of reference.

You are also concerned about the great impact of population. As all of this data is put together and as we begin developing our capabilities, should we not also recognize that this will put a tremendous strain on our governmental capability. This is probably as good a time as any to begin looking ahead: to what will develop through our scientific and technological activities, to the way which they will be applied and managed to use by our society.

Dr. SEABORG. Oh, I couldn't agree more. I think we should be doing more in the planning, if I interpret your question correctly, now on how society will accommodate to all of the scientific and technological developments that are coming along.

I might make a remark as a sort of humorous aside, about this 500 Pacific Oceans filled with high grade petroleum-and you stated it quite accurately, because I used this as a comparison to indicate how much energy there is in the heavy hydrogen of the world's waters. I have been quoted as saying the AEC is working on the production of 500 Pacific Oceans full of high grade fuel oil.

Mr. DADDARIO, That would create some pollution problems.

Dr. SEABORG. Yes.

Mr. DADDARIO. Mr. Mosher?

Mr. MOSHER. Dr. Seaborg, I am interested in one sentence-well, I am interested in all of your sentences for that matter. It is a very stimulating statement. I refer to this sentence on page 7:

But I believe that there is widespread public recognition that the idea of merging work on civilian and military applications remains valid and indeed compelling.

Now, I assume that at that point you were talking about the AEC, specifically, and we all recognize that the AEC is unique among Government agencies. Were you implying that that merging of work on civilian and military applications should be emphasized to a greater extent throughout the Government?

For instance, I believe I am historically accurate in saying that NASA would never have been created had not Congress been assured and the President insisted that NASA be a civilian agency.

Dr. SEABORG. Yes.

Mr. MOSHER. And then there is the recent Stratton report that goes out of its way to emphasize that the civilian work in the proposed NOAA should be separated from the work in the Navy.

Dr. SEABORG. Oh, yes. I didn't mean to make that broad an interpretation. I see that it could be read that way. I meant the civilian and military applications of nuclear energy.

I was thinking really of the continued validity of the philosophy behind the McMahon Act, going clear back to 1964, that there is value, and I think continued value, of tying together the peaceful and the civilian use of atomic energy and the military use in a civilian

agency.

Mr. MOSHER. But you were not implying that this principle should be extended?

Dr. SEABORG. Not at all. No; definitely not.

I just had reference to nuclear energy. And, of course, there are many cases where they just dovetail like this, like the development of nuclear weapons and the development of the peaceful nuclear explosives, the Plowshare program, so forth.

Mr. MOSHER. Mr. Chairman, for lack of time I won't ask another question at this point.

Mr. DADDARIO. Mr. Brown?

Mr. BROWN. Dr. Seaborg, if you had to make a rough guess as to how the AEC's funds are divided between basic research and applied research and technology, what would you give as a rough figure?