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Bill Clinton’s plan to revive the American economy will breathe new
life into energy conservation and civilian technology, while nuclear energy,
military research and development and perhaps NASA’s space station are likely
to fall on hard times. Clinton’s proposals now go to Congress, which has
to approve his budget.

Clinton wants to impose new taxes on all forms of energy except renewable
sources such as solar, geothermal and wind power. The amount of tax will
be based on the energy content of each fuel. Coal, natural gas, hydroelectric
power and uranium will all be taxed at a rate of 25.7 cents per million
British thermal units, which is equivalent to just under one-tenth of a
cent per kilowatt-hour. Oil will be hit with a higher rate of 59.9 cents
per million BTUs, adding about $3.50 to the price of each barrel of crude
oil. This is intended to discourage reliance on imported oil.

Hazel O’Leary, the new Secretary of Energy, says that the tax will promote
energy conservation and a cleaner environment. ‘By boosting energy efficiency,
we expect to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by about 25 million tonnes
in the year 2000,’ she says.

Under Clinton’s plan, the Department of Energy will pour $2.5 billion
over the next five years into projects aimed at promoting energy conservation
and renewable sources of energy. Nuclear energy will not be so fortunate.
Over the next five years, the department plans to eliminate research on
advanced nuclear reactors and shut down one of the country’s two uranium
enrichment plants. It will cut $4.5 billion from nuclear weapons programmes.

As he promised during his election campaign, Clinton last week began
shifting billions of dollars into civilian programmes to promote advanced
technology. The biggest beneficiary will be the Department of Commerce’s
infant Advanced Technology Program. Set up only two years ago, the ATP hands
out money to private companies to help them develop promising commercial
technology.

Until last week the programme was intending to spend $68 million this
year. Last week Clinton proposed to give it an extra $103 million immediately,
and keep increasing its budget until it reached $758 million in 1997. Other
agencies will spend hundreds of millions of dollars extra on high-speed
computer networks, magnetically levitated trains and new kinds of commuter
aircraft.

The future of NASA’s space station was left in doubt. Before Clinton’s
speech, a White House official told Congressional committees that it had
been cancelled, and that NASA would be given funding to start designing
a smaller and cheaper station. Later in the day, Vice-President Al Gore
denied this: the space station would be ‘restructured’, he said.

Budget documents disclosed by the White House showed $1.1 billion in
‘termination costs’ for the station – apparently the cost of buying out
contracts already placed with aerospace companies – but NASA officials were
unable to explain exactly what was being terminated. ‘There’s only one person
who knows that and that’s Dan Goldin,’ said a spokesman for the agency.
Goldin is head of NASA.

John Gibbons, Clinton’s science adviser, left little doubt earlier in
the week that the space station was in trouble. At a press conference at
the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science
he described as ‘simply unrealistic’ the amounts of money required to build
the space station. ‘There isn’t any magic pot of money,’ he said.

Clinton plans to carry on with the Superconducting Supercollider being
built in Texas, but it will not be finished until 2003, six years later
than currently scheduled. Gibbons said that he sees no compelling reason
why it was imperative to discover the ‘last Higgs boson or whatever before
the turn of the century’.

In sketching the outlines of his economic strategy, Clinton said little
about support of basic science. He did promise to increase the budget of
the National Science Foundation this year by $188 million. The President
plans to release a more detailed budget plan for the entire government in
late March.