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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (June 29, 1993)
Hale 'troud 1 ^ C , ^re n t'OR REf Rosas The Battalion Vol. 92 No. 165 (6 pages) 1893 - A Century of Service to Texas A&M - 1993 Tuesday, June 29,1993 NASA space station survives drastic budget cuts THE ASSOCIATED PRESS WASHINGTON - The space station, nearly killed last week by lawmakers who scorned its cost and scientific promise, faced a sec ond survival test Monday as the House took up NASA's money bill for next year. Both sides hunted for last- minute swing votes, and Speaker Tom Foley, D-Wash., said he might even have to cast a rare vote in order to keep the space station alive. Last week, foes fell just one vote short, 216-215, of scuttling the space station when the House debated a bill authorizing NASA to spend $12.7 billion in the next seven years on the project. Monday's vote was on the ac tual appropriation bill for the Na tional Aeronautics and Space Ad ministration and several other agencies. It would give NASA $15 billion for the 1994 fiscal year, with $2.1 billion of that for the space station. Earlier this month. President Clinton backed a scaled- down version of the station. The government has spent $9 billion on the space station. NASA has yet to produce hardware ready to fly. "Every dollar spent on the space station is a dollar less spent on other programs," said Rep. Dick Zimmer, R-NJ., one of the key opponents. "Some say the hard choice is to kill the space station," said Rep. Jim Bacchus, D-Fla. "I say the hard choice is to see through all the rhetoric and look to the future." "Not all science is pork," said Rep. Bob Walker, R-Pa., adding that if Congress continued to cut research, "Congress will be known not for its vision, but for the relegation of this country to a second-class technological pow er." i Killing the project "is not going to give you one penny of deficit reduction," Walker said, and pre dicted any savings would just get funneled to social welfare spend ing or other space projects. The overall bill spends $88 bil lion for the year starting Oct. 1 for the Veterans' Affairs and Housing and Urban Develop ment departments, plus indepen dent agencies such as the Envi ronmental Protection Agency and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. Bacchus dismissed arguments that the space station takes away from other programs in the bill. EPA gets $269 million more than the president requested; vet erans get $113 million more; and housing receives $398 million more, Bacchus said. The NASA funding is $708 million less than what Clinton wanted, he said. The NASA authorization bill that barely passed the bill last week requires only that the station be designed to provide scientific and engineering research in low Earth orbit, that it be capable of being permanently manned and that it be able to accommodate in ternational partners who have spent $4 billion. Earlier in the year, Clinton had ordered that drastic cuts be made in the space station construction and operating costs. He was pre sented with three versions, all more expensive than the $5 bil lion, $7 billion and $9 billion op tions he requested. He chose a hybrid that would cost $16 billion by the year 2001 when the station would be ready to accommodate four astronauts permanently. Texas projects mired in funding concerns By CARRIE MIURA The Battalion The controversy that has sur rounded two Texas projects did not end with last week's U. S. House vote to cut the super con ducting super collider (SSC) and to go ahead with funding for the space station. An amendment against abol ishing the space project passed the House Wednesday, by a 216- 215 vote. In order to continue work on the NASA space station, the space agency must now limit its staff by 30 percent and cut other programs. The super-collider project was abolished Thursday by a 280-150 vote. With the huge budget deficit in mind, many are questioning the funding of the two Texas projects. Linda Mills, press assistant to Rep. Bill Archer, R-Houston, who favors the passage of the space station, but rejects the su per collider, said with the high deficit the U.S. has now, budget cuts need to be encouraged. In a questionnaire issued by See Funding/Page 2 Clinton: 'back to domestic agenda' THE ASSOCIATED PRESS further as- on service vents and What's Up a later that lesired rat dlines and s and will p. If you the news- er for Arts. ;ared awa; osing twist- ews Ageno usband and rd throngec ?ets bearin; 3 of someot dependent spondentir itish Broad- ny floors ot headquar- ie attack, ed in "thf ction" of oy top Iraq Rear Ad® reporters a was a sue- Washington 1 on what housing The Pen ually de- igh three 3. t people njured >rted the eluding d States commit Muslims k, Iraq's id States :hed the WASHINGTON — Swiftly turning from the U.S. missile strike on Iraq, President Clinton said Monday he's focusing his attention back on America's econom ic problems. Vice President A1 Gore warned Saddam Hussein it would be unwise to retaliate for the attack. Clinton said Saturday's assault crippled Saddam's intelligence capacity, although Pentagon officials said Iraq could use backup locations. "I think other terrorists around the world need to know that the United States will do what we can to combat terrorism," the president said. Clinton made a pointed effort to demonstrate he was not consumed by his first major showdown with Saddam. And White House officials said the attack was not intended to boost Clinton's political standing. Summoning his Cabinet, Clinton said he wanted to "move on to other matters, that we go back to the domestic agenda." "I'm anxious to go forward," the president said. He said he was concentrating on House-Senate negotiations on his deficit-reduction plan, next week's economic summit in Tokyo and swift action by Congress on his national service program. Clinton said he did not know if he would get a po litical boost from the strike. "I have no idea," he said. "I did my job. It was my job and I did it the best I could. ... It was the right thing to do for the United States and I feel quite com fortable with it." In light of the missile attack and the arrests of peo ple accused of terrorism in New York, Clinton said, "I think the American people know enough about terrorism to know that it is always a potential prob lem but we are going to be very aggressive in dealing with it." White House press secretary Dee Dee Myers said politics didn't play any role in Clinton's decision. "It absolutely was not part of the calculation. Ab solutely was not," Myers emphasized. See Clinton/Page 2 A&M bus operations to change shuttle routes By JAMES BERNSEN The Battalion Texas A&M shuttle bus routes Howdy and Rudder will change July 6 because of increased traffic and decreased occupancy on campus. Sherryl Wine, assistant manag er of bus operations, said Howdy and Rudder will no longer include Lamar and Lubbock Streets be cause of the high volume of pedestrian and other traffic on those streets. "Right turns on those small streets were hazardous," she said. Eleni Lyristis, a shuttle bus dri ver who has driven A&M buses for almost three years, said on the Rudder route, traffic is often very congested, especially in the late af ternoon. "The places we stop are some times very busy, and pedestrians are often walking in the intersec tions," she said, "I think that in the long run, these changes will help out." The buses will also go only clockwise along their routes to de crease congestion and to increase efficiency, she said. Wine said Bus Operation's larger buses will be used on those routes to take up the excess capac ity created by eliminating the counter-clockwise routes. Rudder will also include new stops on Bizzell Street and Lewis Street to allow residents of South- side dormitories to continue to have access to the bus. Southside residents previously boarded Rudder on Lubbock Street. Wine said surveys conducted in the Fall semester show a de creasing trend in the numbers of passengers on the off-campus Fish Camp and Ol' Sarge buses. "We've combined routes be fore," Wine said. "About three or four semesters ago, we combined Aggieland and Twelfth Man into a new route called Traditions." Wine said one change to off- campus routes includes Reveille, which will no longer run near Brookside Apartments because of a decline in passengers. Lyristis said although some people hate change. Bus Opera tions conducts extensive research before changes are made, and from her experience, the areas tak en off routes usually have few people who ride them. Submarine team wins experience at contest By STEPHANIE PATTILLO The Battalion Although the Texas A&M submarine team re turned from the Third Annual International Human Powered Submarine Race Sunday night without a victory, they say they gained invaluable experience from the competition. This was the second year in a row that a team of ocean engineering students competed in the Interna tional Human Powered Submarine Race. The 12- person A&M team competed with 45 other other uni versities such as MIT, the Naval Academy, and Texas A&M at Galveston as well as private compa nies and European teams in Ft.Lauderdale, Fla., last week. According to the Texas Engineering Experiment Station, the race is held to "raise awareness of chal lenges posed by ocean exploration and let students test their knowledge of submarine design, construc tion and operation." Fifteen graduate and undergraduate students in the department designed and constructed a two-per son human-powered submarine. Control problems caused the the vessel, "Argo" to be eliminated early from the overall race. Dr. Jack Lou, ocean engineering professor faculty adviser said. James Soliah, team leader and senior ocean engi neering student said the 14-foot submarine was elim inated after two attempts to submerge it in the water. "We were fast, but there was a problem with the weights in the front and the back of the boat," he said. Soliah said the vessel shot out of the water like a rocket because the tail of the submarine was heavier See Submarine/Page 2 Studying hard MARY MA CM A NUS/Thc Battalion Enduring the elements to study. Holly Thompson, a junior accounting major from Austin, reads outside the library on Monday afternoon. Serbs, Croats agree to truce, urge end to 15-month war THE ASSOCIATED PRESS GENEVA — Serbs and Croats agreed Monday on a nationwide truce and troop pullback that would take effect if all three war ring factions work out a settle ment of the 15-month war in Bosnia-Herzegovina. The two former enemies also agreed that a transitional body rep resenting the three factions should govern until new political arrange ments take hold, Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic said. "I do think it was very, very important day," Karadzic told re porters after a meeting with Bosn ian Croat leader Mate Boban and international mediators. "Serbs and Croats are going on toward an overall agreement." The accords further isolated Bosnia's Muslim president, Alija Izetbegovic, who has refused to negotiate over a Serb-Croat plan to divide Bosnia into three ethnic states. Numerous truces have col lapsed in the past, and wide spread fighting was reported across Bosnia on Monday. Anoth er unknown is the strength of the Serb-Croat alliance, which is a re cent development in a war that broke out after Muslims and Croats voted to break away from Serb-dominated Yugoslavia. More than 138,000 people have been declared dead or missing since the fighting began. Serbs now control 70 percent of Bosnian territory, and Croats hold much of the rest. Their gains have left Muslims in control of just a few isolated pockets. The military accord announced Monday includes provisions for a countrywide truce, pullback of heavy weapons, separation of forces and oversight by U.N. , forces. The political provisions call for a nine-member transition al governing council equally di vided among Serbs, Croats and Muslims. The accords were carried over from a peace plan drafted by the European Community's Lord Owen and former U.N. envoy Cyrus Vance. The leaders of Serbia and Croa tia presented the new ethnic parti tion plan two weeks ago. No map delineating exact boundaries has been publicly presented. 'Utcontf alleged three Kuwait the al- nvened Inside Sports •Baseball; Rangers lose one to Royals, 4-2 •Baseball; White Sox release Carlton Fisk Page 3 Opinion •Editorial: killing super collider short-sighted maneuver •Summer premiere of expanded mail call Page 5 & 6 Weather •Tuesday: mostly cloudy in morning, partly cloudy and hot in fbe afternoon highs in the 90s •Forecast for Wednesday; same as Tuesday - partly cloudy and hot •Extended forecast: same ol' stuff - partly cloudy, lows in the 70s, highs in the 90s \ AIDS commission ends frustrating 4-year study THE ASSOCIATED PRESS WASHINGTON - The Na tional Commission on AIDS end ed its work Monday with a final warning. Members say the last four years left them frustrated — sometimes to the point of tears — over prejudice and inertia toward the deadly epidemic. "I think a lot of people in America don't believe the roof is about to cave in on them," said Dr. Charles Konigsberg, Delaware's public health director and a member of the commission. The commission was created by Congress and started work in 1989 to advise the nation on what to do about acquired immune de ficiency syndrome. In the four years that followed, it became the government's nag, constantly re minding anyone who would listen that for all the billions of dollars being spent on AIDS, it was too little too late. "The failure to respond ade quately represents at best contin ued dogged denial, and at worst a dismaying hidden and unvoiced belief that this is 'just' a disease of gay men and intravenous drug users, both groups that are per ceived as disposable," the com mission's report said. While the fatal disease, which attacks the body's immune sys tem, has no cure, members of the commission said its spread is largely preventable. Nevertheless, the panel's rec ommendations on prevention, such as sex education and making clean needles available to drug ad dicts, were largely unheeded. "It's a failure of political will to carry out effective HIV prevention programs," said Don Des Jarlais, another commission member who is a researcher in drug addiction and the spread of the human im munodeficiency virus, the virus that causes AIDS. As of March 31, acquired im mune deficiency syndrome had been diagnosed in 289,320 Ameri cans, of whom 63 percent, or 182,275, have died since June 1, 1981, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The commission, whose mem bers are from both political par ties, often criticized the Bush ad ministration for not doing enough about the epidemic and for being squeamish about discussing sub jects such as homosexual sex. In this final report, the commis sion said, "New hope surged with the election of President Clinton." The administration has pro posed a 1994 budget that includes $2.7 billion for AIDS research, treat ment and prevention, a 28 percent increase over this year's spending. Nevertheless, the report said that while Clinton was sympathet ic and had promised much, he had yet to deliver.