SCIENCE, RESEARCH AXD TECHNOLOGY, 1970-79 503 



RESEARCH APPLIED TO NATIONAL NEEDS RANN 



On the other hand, McCormack strongly supported the sharp 

 increase from about $30 million to about $80 million in the RANN 

 program which NSF had budgeted in 1971, on the grounds that "the 

 RANN program has a heavy emphasis on environment systems and 

 social and human resources." Yeager estimated that in two years the 

 applied research programs had soared from 1 percent of the NSF budget 

 to 12 percent, and "might even get as high as 25 percent in future 

 years." McCormack attempted to reduce the RANN program by only 

 $10 million (instead of the $30 million cut voted by a majority of the 

 subcommittee), but was defeated on an 8-to-2 rollcall vote. 



Looking back on the 1971 hearings, Dr. Lloyd G. Humphreys, 

 NSF's Assistant Director for Education for a 15-month period, wrote 

 Teague: 



One of the brighter moments during that 15 months occurred during hearings 

 before your Committee. 



It seems that Congressman Cabell was pressing Dr. Humphreys rather 

 hard on whether it was OMB or NSF which had ordered such sharp 

 reductions in institutional support and traineeships, along with RANN 

 increases, when Chairman Miller intervened to cut off the discussion. 

 Dr. Humphreys w r ent on to recall: 



Bv accident or design an OMB representative was in the hearing room and con- 

 gratulated me afterwards on my defense of the budget. Since I had had no hand in 

 the decisions and had not even been informed concerning the reasons behind those 

 decisions, his congratulations did not set very well with me. 



Testifying on April 7, Dr. Philip Handler, President of the Na- 

 tional Academy of Sciences joined a majority of the committee in 

 deploring the cuts in institutional support and traineeships: 



I consider that taking money from these two programs is a trend in the wrong 

 direction. The NSF support of graduate education is on the road to extinction if the 

 recommendations in this year's budget are indeed implemented. 



Handler termed RANN a "large and necessary experiment." But his 

 true feelings came through when he observed: 



This program has, as yet, had no great successes of which it can boast. I hope 

 the reason is only that it is young. To date, one cannot make any great claims that 

 it has really solved a major problem that is pressing on our society. 



SUBCOMMITTEE DECISIONS IN 1971 



The subcommittee reached several policy decisions on the NSF 

 budget in 1971. First, they decided to "line item" the authorization, 

 giving Congress greater control and oversight over programs than the 

 former "lump sum" method. Second, they kept the same total recom- 

 mended bv the administration — $622 million— but redistributed it by 



