19 



are accedent (nonvoting) nations and do not perform substantial scientific research 

 activity in Antarctica. 



Research by the consultative nations is achieving scientific goals beyond the capa- 

 bility of any single nation. Much of the work is performed separately, as, for exam- 

 ple, collecting weather data. More complex projects tend to be carried out coopera- 

 tively among nations. An example is a five-nation, 2-year project drilling an ocean- 

 bottom sedimentary core from a platform on coastal sea ice. In cooperative projects, 

 each participating nation delivers a negotiated component. Research results are 

 made freely available as required by the treaty. This sharing of research results con- 

 tributes greatly to the validity of U.S. scientificc research in Antarctica. 



International cooperation is extensive, and opportunities are implemented 

 through the Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research (SCAR) of the International 

 Council of Scientific Unions (nongovernmental), the annual Antarctic Treaty con- 

 sultative meetings (government-to-government policy decisions), the Council of Man- 

 agers of National Antarctic Programs (a U.S. initiative), and the Council's Standing 

 Committee on Antarctic Logistics and Operations. Individual scientists initiate 

 much cooperative research among nations. 



A few Antarctic Treaty countries provided their antarctic budget figures in re- 

 sponse to a request NSF made to all of them in late 1995. These figures in most 

 cases are not comparable to the U.S. figures because they represent only operational 

 costs, or only research costs, or costs for research in both polar regions, or only par- 

 tial costs. The wealthier countries tended to provide more complete estimates. Keep- 

 ing in mind the limitations inherent in these rough figures, we calculated the por- 

 tion of a country's gross domestic product that is devoted to its antarctic program. 

 The U.S. portion is 0.0031 percent. That is, 0.0031 percent of the U.S. GDP in fiscal 

 1995 was allocated to the U.S. Antarctic Program. Germany's portion is 0.0059 per- 

 cent; U.K., 0.0036 percent; Italy, 0.0036; Japan, 0.0016; Russia, 0.0014; France, 

 0.0009. These figures, though certainly not definitive, suggest that the other devel- 

 oped countries are contributing their fair share in Antarctica. The smaller or less- 

 developed countries tend to devote higher percentages of their GDPs to antarctic re- 

 search. 



Dr. Lane. Our sense is that at this point in time, it's certainly 

 a fair contribution, because you really have to balance it off against 

 the other scientific facilities that our scientists are using in other 

 parts of the world. 



Said another way, I think if we go the direction of requiring pay- 

 ment for services rendered for all of our facilities, the telescopes, 

 the accelerators, the facilities in the South Pole, then the quality 

 of the science that gets done is likely to suffer as a result of that. 



It is simply the case now that for most of the facilities in the 

 world, scientific facilities in the world, the science that gets done 

 there is determined based on the merit of the scientific idea, not 

 on the U.S. being able to have a certain fraction of the time at the 

 facility or another country having a certain fraction of the time at 

 the facility. 



So the question is a larger one, it's a very important one as funds 

 get tight, and as we want to ensure we get the best science out. 

 And my view is that the more we move in the direction of paying 

 explicitly for certain fraction of the facility, country by country, we 

 will end up with less, with a lower quality science done overall. 



Mr. SCHIFF. Well, I just want to express a general concern, and 

 I understood what you said, but I want to express a general con- 

 cern that if any nation, whether it's the United States or any other 

 country, bears an undue proportion of the cost, whether it is mili- 

 tary peacekeeping, humanitarian relief, or basic scientific research 

 than other countries, those — and here I'm referring to industri- 

 alized countries — those industrialized countries will put the unused 

 resources into things like market competitiveness and the idea of 

 winning the marketplace battles, because some countries are put- 



