Washington

By ROBERT MACKAY

High energy lobbying for neutron accelerator

ILLINOIS, which recently won the right over Florida to be the site of the next world's fair, is battling the state of Virginia now for the right to build a $150 million physics laboratory that attract jobs and local tax revenue, but mostly prestige.

The state does not appear to be in as good a position as it was in the world's fair tussle, because two scientific panels have already picked a Virginia-area physics lab design as the winner over a design offered by Illinois' Argonne National Laboratory in Lemont.

But the battle isn't over yet. Illinois still has a chance to win the right to build the National Electron Accelerator Laboratory. Energy Secretary Donald Hodel was expected to make his recommendation in August to Budget Director David Stockman, who will then forward that recommendation with his own to President Reagan. Congress, which would have to appropriate the money for the project, will have the last say.

The new experimental laboratory, which is supposed to accelerate neutrons to such a high speed as to learn more about life's basic building blocks known as "quarks," would provide an estimated $500 million in local tax revenue and hundreds of jobs to the site where it is located.

Last year, the National Science Foundation sought design proposals for the experimental lab. Five designs were offered, but three of them were never really in the running. The contest came down to Argonne's proposal and one offered by the Southeastern Universities Research Association (SURA), a consortium of 23 universities, to erect the lab in Newport News, Va.

Two scientific panels created by the science foundation to choose between the design proposals chose the SURA project in decisions released this spring. The panels said the SURA design was "imaginative" and would accelerate elementary particles to higher energy levels than the other designs and allow for later add-ons of equipment to conduct new experiments.

But, in endorsing the SURA design, one of the panels added a proviso. It said it had concerns about establishing the lab in Newport News, because it is not close to a major airport and is not easily accessible to major universities. Members of the panel suggested SURA come back with a different site.

Republican Sen. Charles H. Percy and Rep. John N. Erlenborn (R-Ill.), whose 13th District includes the Argonne lab, immediately protested to the White House and offered to scrap Illinois' design proposal and instead build the SURA-designed lab at Argonne at a cheaper cost than it could be done in Virginia.

Sen. Charles H. Percy

Percy and Erlenborn, who organized lobbying groups of Illinois businessmen, midwestern governors and scientists to press Hodel to consider Argonne, complained Virginia had unduly influenced the panels by offering sweeteners like buildings and land worth $2 million and the promise of 35 new faculty positions in nuclear physics.

Moreover, Argonne officials said because Argonne is already an established laboratory with professional and technical support facilities, it could do the job for $15 million to $40 million less over 15 years than SURA. In addition, Percy and Erlenborn argued that Argonne is close to O'Hare International Airport and Chicago's major expressways, making it very accessible to universities in the United States and abroad.

Appealing to the Reagan administration's determination to reduce federal spending, the Illinois lawmakers argued that the SURA proposal would require establishing a new national science laboratory at a time when it is getting harder to fund the current ones. "It doesn't seem to make much sense to start a new lab," Erlenborn spokeswoman Carolyn Sladek said.

A Percy aide also pointed out that Virginia ranks second in the nation in per capital federal spending, while Illinois ranks 46th. "This is a classic Sunbelt versus Frostbelt issue in which more and more money is drained away from the Frostbelt," he said.

But the Virginia congressional delegation sees it a different way. To them, Illinois simply lost out in the contest and is now trying to steal their winning entry away. "I suppose imitation is the highest form of flattery, but there is a sense that we are being usurped," an aide to Sen. John Warner (R-Va.) said.

Warner and other Virginians have also been lobbying Hodel and the president's science adviser, George A. Keyworth. Rep. Herbert Bateman (R-Va.), whose district includes Newport News, sent out more than 100 letters to his colleagues and lobbied on the House floor and by telephone. The SURA design won fair and square, a Bateman aide said, and it should receive final approval "unless they change the rules of the game."

But the Illinois delegation does not plan to give up. "We have a ways to go" before the final decision is made, Sladek said. "We will be working hard for it — as we have been."

August 1983 | Illinois Issues | 39