Texas A&M
The Battalion
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Vol. 88 No. 145 USPS 045360 8 pages
College Station, Texas
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WEATHER
FORECAST for WEDNESDAY:
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HIGH:81 LOW:62
Tuesday, May 2,1989
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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.