they really enhance enormously the capacity to look at magnetic detail. So it's a much better imaging system.

Mr. REGULA. So a patient that was going to have an MRI would inhale some of the gas?

Mr. O'CONNOR. Which would then pass

Mr. REGULA. It accentuates the imagery?

Mr. O'CONNOR. That is correct.

Mr. REGULA. And makes the MRI much more effective?

Mr. O'CONNOR. Much more detailed.

Mr. YATES. You have to use a dye now through a shot?

Mr. O'CONNOR. No, sir, Congressman Yates. Right now with MRI what one is actually measuring is an electron spin of hydrogen. So there's no dye. It's a non-invasive technology. This would permit the enhancement of it because the electron flips are more accentuated.

Mr. YATES. That's kind of interesting. I originally had an MRI about a year ago, and they gave me a shot because they said they wanted to trace the flow of radioactive

Mr. O'CONNOR. Was that an MRI, sir, or was that a positronemission tomograph, a PET scan? [Laughter.]

Mr. YATES. I think it must have been the latter. Obviously you know much more about it than I do.

Mr. HEYMAN. I chose pretty wisely, didn't I? There's a host of other research going on, obviously some basic and some that really turns into product. That's why I want us all to know there is a relationship between general research undertaken and often practical applications.

SMITHSONIAN/HARVARD RELATIONSHIP

Mr. REGULA. You mentioned Cambridge. Is this part of Harvard or is this a separate institution that you maintain up there?

Mr. O'CONNOR. We maintain our own institution up there, Mr. Chairman. But we also are very closely affiliated with Harvard's Department of Astronomy and the Harvard College Observatory. Mr. REGULA. But yours is an independent organization with an association with Harvard?

Mr. O'CONNOR. That is correct.

Mr. HEYMAN. We jointly administer a Ph.D. program in astrophysics.

Mr. YATES. What does that mean? You jointly administer students who are seeking Ph.D.s in astrophysics?

Mr. HEYMAN. That's right. So there are instructors and scientists who belong to the Smithsonian and those that belong to Harvard who work together in this program.

Mr. YATES. Where is Irwin Shapiro in this?

Mr. HEYMAN. He is the boss of the whole activity, both for Harvard and for the Smithsonian.

Mr. SKAGGS. Does the Smithsonian get a piece of the tuition action from Harvard for this?

Mr. HEYMAN. Unfortunately not.

Mr. SKAGGS. Why not?

Mr. HEYMAN. Well, Harvard pays a lot of the expenses of the operation.

Mr. SKAGGS. So we get something?

Mr. HEYMAN. There was a long and tough negotiation at some time in the past with regard to the sharing of costs. I think both sides feel that it is pretty fair presently, although I always want— instead of being the Harvard Smithsonian Center, I'd like them to flip that, but it has been very difficult.

Mr. SKAGGS. But we do get a fair portion of costs?
Mr. HEYMAN. We do. We do, Congressman Skaggs.

Then of course we have a like set of relationships in Arizona, where we have telescopes. We work a lot with the University of Arizona in a very similar arrangement that enhances the product of both of those places, given the cooperation that exists between the

two.

Mr. YATES. Are you involved in the third telescope on Mt. Graham controversy? The University of Arizona

Mr. HEYMAN. No, no, no. We're not in that at all. Right, we're not in that one at all. I wanted to talk about red squirrels, but I decided not to.

RESEARCH AT THE SMITHSONIAN ENVIRONMENTAL RESEARCH CENTER

I don't know if you recall, and I'll just give you this last example of research, at the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center on the Chesapeake, there's some very interesting work going on. As an example: investigating the ballast of ships that come from, for instance, Europe or Asia and discharge their ballast into the Chesapeake. That ballast has all kinds of things, live things in it that are not natural to the Bay. They potentially can have some very dire effects with regard to fauna there.

Mr. REGULA. Now that you mention that, Lake Erie or the Great Lakes in general have had a real problem with zebra mussels. Mr. HEYMAN. Very similar.

Mr. REGULA. These were brought in by the Russian ships that discharged their ballast in the Great Lakes and as a result we have an enormous problem that would affect obviously Lake Michigan and the whole series up there.

Mr. HEYMAN. Well another example of a project that's going on at SERC, which probably would interest the Chairman especially, is that they are doing a lot of experimentation in growing trees between fertilized fields and riparian streams. It is turning out that a good deal of the pesticides and the nitrates are being absorbed by the trees, and thus, never reach the riparian streams. So it's a very natural way of trying to take advantage of-I mean to cope with pollution, and probably a really quite inexpensive way if this works as well as it seems to be presently.

So there are a number of projects that are going on in various Smithsonian places that fit the descriptions that I have just stated.

REORGANIZATION

You know that with your approval, we had a fairly deep reorganization between the last time I testified here and presently. The result of that is Dennis O'Connor, who in a way has substituted for a number of assistant secretaries. We no longer have the assistant secretary roles. The whole office has been downsized considerably. The Under Secretary is working on similar things on the staff side.

So I think we're becoming a tauter institution administratively than we were previously.

Mr. YATES. What happened to the assistant secretary, for example, of the National Portrait Gallery, he was an assistant secretary, was he not?

Mr. HEYMAN. No, no. Just a director.

Mr. YATES. The director. Oh. Freidenheim was the assistant secretary.

Mr. HEYMAN. That's right.

Mr. YATES. For all of the museums.

Mr. HEYMAN. He's at the Wilson Center presently and will be there for another few months.

Mr. YATES. Was Hoffmann an Assistant Secretary?

Mr. HEYMAN. He was. Then he was the acting Provost. Now he is the Acting Director of the Air and Space Museum. But as soon as we make that appointment, he is going back to research, which he has been planning to do for some considerable period of time.

VOLUNTARY SEPARATION PROGRAM

Mr. REGULA. This brings up a subject, you have asked for $3 million for buyouts in the continuing resolution. Can we be assured when you do these buyouts and reduce numbers that they won't be replaced?

Mr. HEYMAN. Yes.

Mr. REGULA. In other words, those positions will be eliminated in effect?

Mr. HEYMAN. The positions that are freed by those, there might be some backfilling, but it will be out of other positions that we have.

Mr. REGULA. So there will be an overall reduction?

Mr. HEYMAN. There will be a reduction.

Mr. REGULA. Of full-time employees.

Mr. HEYMAN. It gets extraordinarily complicated if one takes a look at what new provisions might be authorized in the budget for some activities. But generally speaking, yes. As you look at our FTE authorized positions at the Smithsonian, they continually go down. The buyout authority that we keep our fingers crossed we'll get tomorrow is intended to be used to reduce positions and thus make ourselves more flexible with regard to both our needs and our funding.

Mr. YATES. What do you mean by get tomorrow?

Mr. REGULA. In the omnibus bill. By voting for that you will help to save money.

Mr. YATES. I do think it has one or two provisions in it that are acceptable.

Mr. HEYMAN. Lest I get into deep water, I won't comment.

Mr. YATES. Is that coming up tomorrow?

Mr. REGULA. Tentatively. But the continuing resolution expires

I think tomorrow.

Mr. YATES. I suspect it may have a

Mr. REGULA. Yes, the 24th. So we'll either have to do it under a CR or pass the ominibus bill.

Mr. YATES. I don't see how we're going to do it.

FY 1997 BUDGET REQUEST

Mr. HEYMAN. I need not tell you too much about the budget request itself. It's all laid out. But I'll just highlight a few things. Mr. YATES. Well, is it adequate?

Mr. HEYMAN. Of course not. It never is, sir. But we'll do our best with it. Actually it's not a bad one for us if we could possibly receive what is being requested it'll help us enormously, because what it will do is cover the mandatories and the inflation increases that we have lived with in the last year or so. That will be very helpful because our S&E budget went down about four percent this past year because it didn't cover mandatories and the like.

This brings that back. It has some modest enhancements. It has $38 million in R&R, in repairs and restorations, and Rick Rice is going to be talking about that in a moment, and $4 million in zoo construction, $13 million in other construction, mostly planning money. Now I know they are not absolute puts and takes, but if you compare what the conference figure was for this year against what is being sought for next year, it's about 2.8 percent greater. So it's a fairly modest request in terms of increase. But on the other hand, there was quite a lot of construction in last year's budget. There's much less in this one. Consequently, it's a different fabric of requests that are being made.

The major thing I can say with respect to this subject is that continually having to cope with the prospect of four percent decreases because of mandatories and inflation, is grim. I mean it really is grim. I know that it's not entirely in your hands in terms of what allotment the Subcommittee gets, but I just want to remind everybody that it is very difficult to cope with.

Mr. REGULA. It appears to me highly unlikely that we will have any more for 1997 than we had in 1996 from the budget process. Given those circumstances, anything we would do to increase the Smithsonian has to be done at the expense of energy or Indians or forests or parks or some other of our responsibilities in this committee. So I have to say it's going to be tough to make these priority judgements. At some point, we might have to ask you to come back and have you prioritize your needs based on a downsized amount of money.

Mr. HEYMAN. No. I understand that. I would certainly, if it goes in that direction, I certainly would like the opportunity to set priorities I just say though that in terms of the total amount we are asking for, it is very slightly more than last year.

REPAIR AND RESTORATION OF BUILDINGS PROGRAM

Now with your permission, I would ask Rick Rice to tell you about the repair and restoration program and the capital projects that are involved in this budget request.

Mr. RICE. Mr. Chairman, I'll give you a copy of the slide presentation. Mr. Chairman, I want to thank you for the opportunity to talk to you about the Smithsonian's repair and restoration program and our major construction projects. The first part of the presentation is about our repair and restoration program. A lot of things have changed along Independence Avenue since 1863 in which you

see the Castle and the Capitol. The Smithsonian now has a very significant presence on the Mall.

You asked some questions earlier about the assets of the Smithsonian. We have over 300 buildings in five States, the District, and Panama. Almost 6 million square feet of space. We range from virtually new buildings to over 140 years old. We have several different types of buildings, museums, galleries, restoration and storage buildings, and centers for education and research.

Some of the challenges that we in the facilities business face are that we have over 6,000 employees and 5,000 volunteers; many of our structures are historic structures; we are open every day except one during the year, which makes maintenance scheduling imperative; and we have over 140 million artifacts that we need to protect from the elements.

COLLECTIONS MANAGEMENT

Mr. REGULA. What percent of the 140 million items in your collection are on display?

Mr. RICE. I haven't been asked that before.

Mr. REGULA. Will the full 140 million ever be on display?

Mr. O'CONNOR. An awful lot of that 140 million, Mr. Chairman, are in Natural History. They represent species type collections that are used for research and probably aren't on display, public display.

Mr. REGULA. I keep raising the question. Ultimately we can't pay the costs to maintain each storage facility and expand if we're going to ever downsize Government. I guess is there any way you have challenged the validity of keeping all 140 million items?

Mr. HEYMAN. Mr. Chairman, one of the things we are preparing right now, which is going to be done sometime this year and shared with you, is a collection plan that will address how to deal with the problem that you've noted.

It is true that of the 140 million objects and specimens about 120 million are in the Museum of Natural History. Many of those are minute. I mean some are smaller than insects. So in a way, 140 million artifacts doesn't give you too much of a feel of what their bulk is. But there are obviously items of bulk. There are over 3 million items in the Museum of American History, which I think is our biggest challenge with regard to determining priority of acquisition, priority in terms of retention, what kinds of things ought to be deaccessioned, and the quality of storage. That is where the focus of this paper I'm talking about is going to be.

Mr. REGULA. Well, as you know, when we were out there you talked to the folks at the McKinley Museum about possible loans. Mr. HEYMAN. Absolutely.

Mr. REGULA. Objects you receive. Program developing, whereby local museums could get access to some of these things. Use them for the public benefit.

Mr. HEYMAN. Absolutely. That's really part of this whole idea of affiliation and partnership. I really want to make this a go, over the time I am secretary.

Now one of the problems is that most of those museums don't have a lot of money either. They would like some subsidy with regard to the location of the items. But those things are going to have