71 



including the EPSCOR program, and also the tremendous impact 

 that it had on the states involved. 



It brought together all the key players in a state to help that 

 state become more competitive in funding, and more recently, to 

 better link the research activities with education activities and eco- 

 nomic development activities. 



So I think it has been a tremendous success story. 



The budget request we have in 1997 is similar to 1996. It does 

 not show growth. I think that is, though, quite a good request for 

 EPSCOR given the current set of situations. So EPSCOR remains 

 an important program to us in making these decisions, and we felt 

 this would be the appropriate level. 



Mr. CRAMER. Would you expect your funding commitment to be 

 the same as we look down the next six years? 



Dr. Lane. I would certainly expect, unless something unantici- 

 pated occurs in the evaluation which then would cause us to look 

 at the nature of the program, as we do with all our programs, that 

 this properly reflects our priorities. 



Mr. Cramer. NSF has also been studying the need for a research 

 icebreaker to support the Arctic Research Projects. What is the sta- 

 tus of that proposed project? 



Dr. Lane. Well that is one area in which our fleet of research 

 vessels has an identified need. It is clear that we need some infra- 

 structure to help Arctic research scientists. 



There have been a number of reports, a GAO report, though, 

 questioning the need for a new ship to do this. A National Academy 

 of Sciences study more specifically suggested that the new Coast 

 Guard Icebreaker, the HEALEY, I believe, could in fact play this 

 role with some appropriate consideration to design needs, more 

 space for scientists, for example, and attention to schedules that 

 would better accommodate scientific research. 



So our staff is working with the Coast Guard on this to simply 

 see whether, in fact, that vessel would meet the needs of the sci- 

 entists working in the Arctic. 



Mr. Cramer. I want to come back to the comments that I believe 

 I heard you make about the situation with research infrastructure. 



As I pointed out again in my opening statement, the Academic 

 Research Facilities was zeroed-out. That part of your budget was 

 zeroed-out. 



You made some reference to how it would be picked up. Would 

 you talk to me about that again? 



Dr. Lane. Yes, Mr. Cramer. We believe that, of the activities that 

 previously were supported within that account, and there are two 

 such activities — one is to support larger scale instrumentation, 

 large spectrometers, computational equipment, nuclear magnetic 

 resonance instrumentation — instrumentation that is at a level too 

 large for single grants, and that perhaps would be at the depart- 

 mental level shared by many people in a department or on a cam- 

 pus, that level of instrumentation was provided by a competitive, 

 peer-reviewed process using half of the money in the account. That 

 has been the case in recent years. 



We would continue to make that same amount of money avail- 

 able — $50 million — but we would do it within the Research and Re- 

 lated Account. 



