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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (May 2, 1989)
Texas A&M The Battalion iid thrtj Vol. 88 No. 145 USPS 045360 8 pages College Station, Texas r a® WEATHER FORECAST for WEDNESDAY: Continued partly cloudy and warm with a 20 percent chance of scattered showers. HIGH:81 LOW:62 Tuesday, May 2,1989 l lies iWright’ "asiift rstam wer g hii )r y® sbul WASHINGTON (AP) — Speaker im Wright, now defending himself nploMisramst House ethics charges, in *1985 inserted in Congress’ official ournal his endorsement of a home 'ideo program sold by a company mploying his wife. In the endorsement, later used by he company for promotional naterial, Wright praised the pro gram as “a marvelously useful home ideo tool.” Congressional rules generally bar nembers from receiving benefits as ■i result of improperly exerting their josition, and guidelines caution law- nakers against becoming so “affil- pted with a particular enterprise” endorsement of video comes under fire s that it creates an appearance of im propriety. The speaker, who is defending himself against charges of breaking House rules 69 times over the past decade, has argued recently that the career of his wife, Betty, is totally separate from his work as a member of Congress. But in the Dec. 9, 1985 edition of the Congressional Record, Wright inserted a 350-word endorsement of the Pacific Institute’s family video se ries that his wife had helped de velop. He did not mention her $36,000-a-year job at the Seattle, Wash., company or role in its pro duction. “It was a nice gesture. We didn’t ask for it,” Jack Fitterer, the compa ny’s chief operating officer, said. “We were pleasantly surprised.” Asked Monday about the inci dent, Wright said he had no com ment. In the endorsement, Wright calls the marketing of the video “a heart ening development indeed” and notes that the series is “available at a nominal price within the range of most American families.” The tapes sold for $34.95 each. He also terms the taped motivatio nal program “a marvelously useful home video tool to promote toge therness and really productive fam ily conversation.” Wright adds: “From its base in Seattle, Wash., the Pacific Institute has drawn upon the skills of profes sional educators and specialists in personal and family development to perfect a series of 21 home video programs .... The institute prom ises to make these services available widely throughout the country.” The company later reprinted Wright’s Congressional Record com ments as promotional material for its video series. Any member of Congress is free to insert material into the Congres sional Record, which is the daily journal of Congress’ official floor ac tivities. But the rules caution law makers to prevent the appearance that the rule is being broken. They say further that “communications should be drafted so that they do not lend themselves to misinterpretation as an official endorsement from the Congress.” And the rules specifically bar members from letting their congres sional stationery be used by outsid ers for commercial promotions. In addition to charging Wright with 69 instances of House rules vio lations, the ethics panel is continuing to investigate a Texas gas well deal that brought huge profits to Wright’s blind trust in a short period last year. Wright’s ties to the Pacific Institute and his wife’s employment are not currently subjects of the ethics probe. It is not known whether the com mittee was previously aware of Wright’s submission of the promo tional material to the Record, first reported Monday by the Wall Street Journal. But the panal found reason to be lieve Betty Wright’s employment by another company, the Wright’s in vestment partnership with real es tate developer George Mallick, was nothing more than a conduit for gifts from Mallick. Officials say White House may raise gasoline taxes s WASHINGTON (AP) Despite || President Bush’s “read my lips” vow against new taxes, his administration is considering higher gasoline taxes For 1991 as part of a possible trade For concessions such as a lower capi- al gains tax, officials said Monday. Administration sources said it is unlikely Bush can hold his no-new- taxes stance for more than one year, jiven the difficulty of reaching bud get-deficit targets by adjusting only :he spending side of the ledger. > Bush on Monday showed no indi- :ation he was in the mood to trade right now, telling the annual meet- ■ng of the U.S. Chamber of Com merce, “I mean to live by what I’ve said: No new taxes.” However, the administration sources, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said planning was un der way for a possible fiscal 1991 oudget pact with Congress that would indeed include new taxes. One item being considered, they said, is administration support for a tiigher gasoline tax in exchange for a lower capital gains tax, or for other oncessions from Congress in the irea of presidential spending au thority. Such a deal would not be part of the recently crafted agreement be tween the White House and congres sional leaders for fiscal 1990, which begins next Oct. 1, the sources said. That pact calls for $5.3 billion in new revenues, but doesn’t specify new taxes, enabling Bush to say he is keeping his campaign vow for the time being. Currently, the federal gasoline tax is 9.1 cents per gallon. The size of any increase that might be part of a deal with Congress remains up in the air, the administration sources said. A possible trade was discussed late last month at a weekend meeting at the presidential retreat in Camp Da vid, Md., between Bush and a group of economists. Although Bush did not take a stand on the proposal at the time, such a trade was well received by even conservative supply-side econo mists at the meeting, who generally are the most vocal opponents of higher taxes, the sources said. A trade between a capital gains tax cut and a gasoline tax increase for 1991 would only come into play if Bush’s proposal for cutting the tax in fiscal 1990 is rejected by Con gress. Despite strong administration ad vocacy for cutting the capital gains tax, the idea so far has received very little suport among the Democratic majorities of the tax-writing House Ways and Means and Senate Finance committees. Bush told the Chamber of Com merce, “We don’t have to raise taxes. We have to release the energies of free enterprise.” He said his “favor ite source of new revenue” was the capital gains tax cut. He has argued that reducing the tax on capital gains — profits from the sale of real estate, stocks or other assets — from 28 percent rate to 15 percent should bring $4.8 billion to the Treasury in fiscal 1990 by stimu lating business investment. That’s the lion’s share of the $5.3 billion in “new revenues” to be raised in 1990 under the recent White House-Congress agreement. However, many private econo mists have disputed Bush’s claim of increased revenues from a such tax cut. And a capital gains tax cut has generally been portrayed by critics as a tax break mainly benefiting the rich. White House press secretary Mar lin Fitzwater said Monday, “We are talking to the tax-writing committees about it (the capital gains tax cut).” Stop and smell the flowers Photo by Mike C. Mulvey Though this pig from the A&M Swine Center ap- ternoon to smell a buttercup, he actually was about pears to be taking some time out Monday af- to eat it. I A&M researchers say repeated test indicates fusion By Holly Becka STAFF WRITER Researchers at the Texas A&M Cyclotron Institute reported they successfully repeated another part of a controversial experi ment that Utah scientists claim is an indicator of a fusion reaction. The A&M researchers re ported finding a low level of neu trons being produced by an elec- trochemical cell in two experiments conducted last week, Graphic by Norzani Mufti said Office of Public Information science writer Gene Charleton. “The reaction produces neu trons, but as far as what that means, no one is willing to say,” Charleton said. “One thing they’re not willing to say is, ‘yes, this is fusion.’ They cannot say that based on what they have found so far.” He said last week’s set of exper iments differed from the original experiments, which tested for ex cess heat. The finding of excess heat energy is significant to re searchers because it cannot be ex plained by normal chemistry. Charleton said the neutrons present in the reaction are impor tant because they break scientific theory. He said whether fusion results from the experiment can not yet be determined. “It is just too early to say,” he said. “If it is fusion, neutrons ought to be produced and some other things ought to be happen ing. 1 hey ve found some neu trons, but the results don’t make a whole lot of sense or act the way they would be expected to act.” Charleton said Dr. Kevin L. Wolf, an A&M chemistry profes sor, reported findings that con firmed the observations of Brig ham Young University’s researcher Dr. Steven Jones. Charleton said Jones collabo rated with researchers B. Stanley Pons, chairman of the University of Utah’s chemistry department, and Martin Fleischmann of the University of Southampton, the original nuclear fusion scientists. Pons and Fleischmann believe their results indicate a fusion re action. A&M researchers only will confirm that their experiments resulted in the production of neutrons by electrochemical cells. Charleton said these neutron counts were several times higher than the background count, a cer tain number of neutrons that al ways are present. He said last week’s experi ments were “shielded” from the background neutrons and those neutrons were accounted for sta tistically. “By the time you shield the ex periment from those background neutrons and account for them, the numbers they were getting were more than that,” he said. “They’re really not talking about many neutrons — it’s only several a minute (that are being pro duced by the reaction) — which, in terms of those processes, isn’t that many. “But it is a low level of neu trons and they reproduced it. In other words, they got it in one ex periment, did the experiment again and got neutrons. “The tough thing with the whole story is dealing with the fact that it is still early. These guys are working at this very hard and so far all that they can say is they are seeing some strange things.” Charleton said three groups of A&M researchers are working on the fusion experiment. NASA resets Atlantis launch for Thursday after mechanical delays CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — NASA Monday rescheduled the once-aborted launch of space shuttle Atlantis for Thursday afternoon af ter technicians working around the clock did a “bang-up job” in replacing two faulty fuel system parts. The space agency said in a statement that “this plan is optimisitic . . . pending completion of test ing and analysis to understand clearly the prob lems encountered during Friday’s launch at tempt.” But officials said they were confident enough of making a Thursday launch that they gave the signal to start a new countdown at 8 a.m. Tues day for the first shuttle planetary launch. The five astronauts aboard Atlantis are to pro pel the $550 million Magellan spacecraft toward Venus to map the cloud-veiled surface. The launch opportunity “window” on Thurs day is 64 minutes long. The launch was scrubbed Friday, 31 seconds before the planned liftoff because of a sudden electrical surge in a hydrogen fuel pump. NASA said Monday that tiny metal particles found in the pump may have caused a snort circuit. After the launch was postponed, engineers also discovered a pinhole leak in a 4-inch-diame- ter line that carries liquid hydrogen from the ex ternal fuel tank to the shuttle. Officials had said Sunday that Friday was the earliest launch possibility. But with the replace ment work going so well, they said Monday that Thursday was possible. “This is a very dedicated team here,” said War ren Wiley, deputy director of engineering at the Kennedy Space Center, speaking of the repair crew. “When the chips are down they really get out and hustle. They did a bang-up job.” The delay meant a loss of valuable days in starting Magellan on its voyage. Because of the shifting positions of Earth and Venus, there is only a 32-day period when the spacecraft can be \launched toward Earth’s sister planet. If the shuttle cannot get off the ground by May 28, the mission will have to be put off for two years, at a cost of more than $100 million, until the two planets are again properly aligned. To maintain their efficiency, the five astro nauts who will fly the mission scheduled practice sessions in a shuttle simulator at their training base in Houston. They will fly back here Tuesday to again make final preparations for liftoff. Commanding the mission is David Walker. The pilot is Ron Grabe and the mission specialists are Mary Cleave, Mark Lee and Norman Tha- gard. Lee is the only one who has not flown a previous shuttle flight. Cleave and Lee, operating controls from a re mote station inside Atlantis’ cabin, are to release Magellan from the cargo bay six hours after launch. A rocket motor is to fire an hour later to start the craft on its 15-month journey to Venus. The 7,600-pound robot is to orbit the planet and map up to 90 percent of its cloud-veiled surface with high resolution radar. House bill would mandate drug tests for workers in hazardous industries AUSTIN (AP) — A bill that would require employers in hazardous in dustries to adopt a written drug-test ing policy was tentatively approved by the House Monday, when the measure’s sponsor said it would pro mote workplace safety. The legislation was opposed by the Texas Civil Liberties Union, whose legal director called it “an af front to the privacy and dignity of Texas workers.” House members also gave prelim inary approval to a bill that would al low judges to order a breath-analysis device to be placed on the vehicle of a person granted probation after a first conviction for driving while in toxicated. Rep. Lloyd Criss said his em ployee drug-testing measure would outline workers’ rights. Employers with 15 or more workers in such haz ardous industries as mining, con struction and manufacturing would be required to develop a drug-test ing policy under the bill. “The purpose of this bill is to pro vide a safe workplace, and I think it benefits everybody,” said Criss, D- LaMarque. The bill would provide manda tory guidelines and legal protection for any employer who engaged in worker drug testing. The employer would have the option of providing treatment and rehabilitation. The Texas Department of Health would establish standards for regis tering drug-testing laboratories, which Criss said currently are unre gulated. Companies already may test em ployees for drugs, Criss said. “What this bill says is when a com- any utilizes drug testing, they will ave to adhere to the strictest of standards, the most accurate type of testing,” he said. “We’re establishing some standards for workers’ rights.” Jim Harrington, TCLU legal di rector, said his organization could not work out what it considered to be an “acceptable drug-testing bill” with Criss. For example, the organi zation said, the bill would allow em ployees to be fired for refusing to take a drug test. “Not only is drug testing unneces sary and unreliable, but it creates an atmosphere of witch-hunting and turns the presumption of innocence on its head,” Harrington said in a statement. The measure on breath-analysis devices for DWI offenders’ vehicles would expand judges’ authority. Such a device requires a breath test for a car to be started. Currently, judges can order use of the ignition interlock device as a con dition of probation for those con victed of two or more DWI offenses. The device also may be made a condition to granting an essential- need license after a person’s driver’s license has been suspended because of a DWI conviction, under current law. The bill by Rep. Larry Evans, D- Houston, allowing the device to be ordered for first-offense probation ers was amended to allow' it when DWI offenders are released on pa role from the Texas Department of Corrections. The House also tentatively ap proved a Senate bill that would in crease general revenue available for spending in fiscal 1990-91 by $168 million by requiring that taxes being [ >aid under protest by out-of-state ife, accident and health insurance companies be deposited in the Gen eral Revenue Fund. In other House action, a bill was adopted that would grant a 10-year, 50 percent exemption from the state’s severance tax on oil produced from enhanced recovery projects. The bill by state Rep. Rick Perry’, D-Haskell, is designed to stimulate new oil production. The measure now goes to the Senate where it is sponsored by Steve Carriker, D-Wi- cnita Falls. Under the bill, oil produced through enhanced recovery would receive a 50 percent severance tax exemption for 10 years once the project has been approved by the Railroad Commission.