February 2002 Continue
13 middle-income college
students to a reduc- tion in spending on
projects. The budget pro- posal
released by the Presi- dent eliminated 1,612
local projects from $2.1
billion worth of programs to fund
the Pell Grant program. Relying heavily on a study by the Chronicle of
Higher Education, the
President states that
research earmarks are “counter to the
competi- tive process of selection
based on merit. The use of
earmarks improperly signals to
poten- tial investigators that there
is an alternative to creating quality
research pro- posals for merit-based
consideration, includ- ing the use of
political influence or by ap- pealing to
parochial interests.” Proponents of
earmarks argue that this mechanism
provides funds to programs and projects that would not receive fund- ing otherwise. In many cases, the projects
that are funded are for the construction of
facilities that benefit local communities
but could not be afforded by the local
govern- ments or
organizations. Top on the list of earmark
beneficiaries in fiscal year 2001 were the
University of Alaska at Fairbanks ($35
million), Loma Linda Uni- versity ($35
million), Marshall University ($27.6
million), the University of New Hamp- shire
($27.5 million) and Dartmouth College ($25.9 million). n n NAS Rejects Reproductive, Supports Therapeutic Cloning A National Academy of Sciences
panel chaired by Irving Weissman of
Stanford Uni- versity urges the U.S.
government to ban hu- man reproductive
cloning with the purpose of creating a
child. The report, issued by the National Research Council’s Panel on Scientific and Medi- cal Aspects of Human Clon- ing, calls for a “legally
en- forceable” ban to be
reviewed in five years. The panel
states with equal conviction
that such a ban should not
extend to nuclear transplantation
to produce stem cells. The release of the report is particularly important be- cause of the current debate in the Senate on legislation that would criminalize both repro- ductive cloning and nuclear transplantation.
The full text of the Report can be
accessed at http://books.nap.edu/html/human_cloning.
n n ASCB
Urges Thompson
to Enhance Bioterrorism Research At a meeting with
ASCB members in Decem- ber, Health and
Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson
asked for guidance on how biological
research might contribute to the national
fight against bioterrorism. The letter sent
to Secretary Thompson urges the
Administration to include, as part of the national strategy to combat terrorism, “con-
Homeland Security
(Budget authority in billions of
dollars) 2001 2002 2003 Total, Homeland Security 16.0 19.5 37.7 Supporting first
responders 0.3 0.3 3.5 Defending against biological
terrorism 1.4 1.4 5.9 Securing our borders 7.6 8.8 10.6 Sharing information and
using information to secure
the homeland 0.1 0.2 0.7 Aviation security 0.4 1.5 4.8 Other homeland
security 6.3 7.4 12.2 Top
on the list of earmark beneficiaries in fiscal year 2001 were the University
of Alaska at
Fairbanks ($35 million), Loma Linda Univer- sity ($35 million),
Marshall University
($27.6 million), the University of
New Hampshire ($27.5 million) and Dartmouth
College ($25.9 million).