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I'd like to begin, Dr. Press, by asking you, since you've been there 

 in the President's office during several administrations, what kind 

 of obstacles you see for the Administration developing the kind of 

 approach that you've recommended in this report. 



Dr. Press. Of course, we've thought about that and we went up 

 and briefed the senior staff, the permanent staff at 0MB. I've had 

 numerous discussions with the President's science adviser. And as 

 you say, I've been in that office before. 



You know, for the Administration to put together an FS&T budg- 

 et and defend its overall rationale and explain whether or not the 

 total is adequate or not, it's not that much of a deal. They could 

 do that. 



And if they presented that to Congress so that the Congress 

 could see the rationale and see whether it agreed with it, before it 

 disaggregated the budget to 26 separate subcommittees, that's 

 what we're recommending. 



So in terms of getting it done, we don't require new legislation. 

 We don't require major restructuring. We just require an attitude, 

 an attitude that this is a sensible way to proceed in these years 

 ahead, and I think the job could get done. 



Mr. DOGGETT. I would address generally to the panel, perhaps 

 Dr. Fox, given your leadership, you might respond on this as well. 



To the extent that we decouple research from technology, do we 

 run any risk that we become pre-eminent in research and science 

 and second-rate in practical application and technology? 



Dr. Fox. Mr. Doggett, one of the important conclusions of this re- 

 port is that it's important that basic research and applied research 

 and the continuum through technology be well integrated, and that 

 the idea of separating out the development portions, what we 

 might call the 6-4/6-5 characterizations from the Army, be sepa- 

 rated from those that have discovery. 



So there is no recommendation to separate understanding from 

 technological application. It is in fact a recognition that there is a 

 strong interaction between those components that is really key in 

 devising this integrated federal science and technology budget. 



Mr. Mahoney. The most common number you see with respect 

 to the R of R&D is something on the order of $16 billion. You could 

 argue with that one way or the other. 



We're incorporating nearly $40 billion. So there's a pretty 

 healthy amount of application research involved in what we're call- 

 ing science and technology. 



Mr. Doggett. Let me ask you, in fact, Mr. Mahoney, given your 

 experience in the private sector, to what extent can the private sec- 

 tor pick up the slack here if we continue to reduce our level of com- 

 mitment to public research and development? 



Mr. Mahoney. Well, the private sector will generally do what's 

 in its best interest. It doesn't spend an awful lot on R. Even re- 

 search-intensive companies, if you had an R&D budget that had 25 

 percent of pure discovery, that would be a lot. 



The universities and other sources have been the place you go for 

 the really basic information that you need to build on. 



Now would people start doing a lot of basic research if basic re- 

 search were cut back to some unmanageable level in their field? I 

 suppose they'd do some. But that's a long transition. 



