147 



go forward I think, in terms of exchanges of data on the kinds of 

 issues we'd been discussing, that would be more under the auspices 

 of other agencies of the government than the Intelligence Commu- 

 nity. 



Senator MURKOWSKI. You mentioned in your statement the 

 thought of clearing scientists for classified information. I wonder if 

 you can elaborate a little further, because I know it would be of in- 

 terest to many who are going to testify today, relative to their par- 

 ticipation with the Central Intelligence Agency. What specifically 

 might you have in mind that you can tell us? 



Director GATES. The basic purpose in the endeavor that is under- 

 way now is to ascertain whether in the now 30-some-year-old ar- 

 chive of satellite-collected information, particularly imagery sat- 

 eUites, there is information in that data bank, stretching back over 

 that period of time, that would allow environmental scientists to 

 document change in the global environment. And the first step in 

 what we're trying to do, and there's a coordinating committee made 

 up of Congressional staff, the Intelligence Community, and the sci- 

 entific community, is to identify scientists in some 10 different dis- 

 ciplines who woiUd receive security clearances and be given access 

 to this data in order that they might ascertain whether or not 

 there is value in it for the scientific community. And if they con- 

 clude that there is, then the next step will be for us to figure out 

 how we might be able to make that data available for exploitation. 

 We also probably will draw on their help and offer our help, par- 

 ticularly in this NASA project, with respect to the information-han- 

 dling architecture for the vast quantities of data that are going to 

 be collected by the earth observation system. We probably have 

 more experience than anyone in the world in terms of processing 

 and integrating this kind and quantity of data, and I think we can 

 perhaps have something to offer in that arena as well. So the pur- 

 pose of it is simply, in effect, to allow the formation of a search 

 party to explore this data and see if there's something there that 

 can be of value. 



Senator MURKOWSKI. Senator Boren and I collaborated on this 

 question and we thought it appropriate to have it in the record, 

 and as you know, our Intelligence Community voted on the 1993 

 Intelligence budget, which the Senate will debate when we return 

 in September. And there's going to be some who want to take some 

 deep cuts, as much as an additional two billion. I'm curious to 

 know for the record if this amendment is adopted, how it will affect 

 the ability of the Intelligence Community to continue its emerging 

 role in global environmental issues. 



Director Gates. Well, there are probably some things that we 

 can do to be helpful that represent httle additional cost to us. But 

 I think that there is an interest, both in the Administration and 

 in the Congress, in having us expand this effort and undertake 

 some more ambitious activities. While the environment is an im- 

 portant issue from a national standpoint and a very high priority 

 from a national standpoint, in the prioritization of intelligence is- 

 sues given to us by the President and the government, and the 

 Congress I might add, clearly it is not as important as a number 

 of other issues that are the more traditional province of our activi- 

 ties. So clearly, deep cuts, while they might not stop the kind of 



