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Mr. Olver. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 



I want to make a couple of comments and maybe a couple of 

 questions here. 



I haven't had a chance to read the whole of your report, but I 

 think the first four recommendations are ones that I would like to 

 comment on, at least briefly in each instance. 



Dr. Press, your recommendation one — an annual comprehensive 

 Federal Science and Technology budget, including the areas of in- 

 creased and decreased funding. 



I'm a little surprised at that. I mean, it seems to me that what 

 that suggests is a one-year horizon, which I consider much too 

 short a horizon to operate in anj^hing but a very short-term basis, 

 which we operate on, since we do a one-year budget, we here do. 

 But I would think the scientific community ought to be dealing in 

 a somewhat longer horizon that would, I tlunk, be better policy and 

 planning. 



I think it might be wiser, for instance, to have a president offer 

 in the second year of his or her administration a term horizon, a 

 four-year proposal which would give some degree of leavening on 

 what is already a very short-term process and give us a much bet- 

 ter longer policy thing. 



You may want to comment on that at a point. 



Let me just say about recommendation two, it seems reasonable, 

 if not, absolutely obvious, that that should be the case, pretty obvi- 

 ous to me. 



Number three, I think, is really quite an excellent idea that we 

 have not seen, the idea of first presenting an overall program with- 

 in a decent horizon, and before one disaggregates, as we do here 

 in the way we do the budgetary process. 



So I think that's very helpful. 



And then I really wanted to look at number four and ask a cou- 

 ple of questions about it. You may want to comment, or any of you, 

 on the other. 



Number four suggests ensuring that the Federal Science and 

 Technology budget sufficient to allow the U.S. to achieve pre-emi- 

 nence in a select number of fields and perform at world-class in the 

 other major fields. 



Pre-eminence, I think I know what that means, but what do you 

 mean by world class? Is that one of the top three? One of the top 

 five? One of the top ten? 



What do you mean by that? 



Dr. Press. Your comments about lengthening the horizon with 

 reference to our first recommendation, I think they're excellent. 

 And I, even though we didn't consider those issues specifically, 

 knowing the panel and knowing their outlook, they would be very 

 receptive to a process that had a longer horizon than the annual 

 congressional process of appropriations. 



Mr. Olver. It strikes me an awful lot like chasing the ambu- 

 lance. 



Dr. Press. What's that? 



Mr. Olver. It strikes me as awfully like chasing the ambulance 

 at that one-year horizon and asking the president to give de-em- 

 phasis or re-emphasis or something, on a one-year horizon. 



Awful. 



