placing something that we had planned to do, and in kind of a reevaluation sense. If it's beyond that, we can, as we have this year, go to the Administrator and present the initiatives to him and ask for a reprograming.

Chairman McCORMACK. Do you have some sort of a mechanism for handling ideas, unsolicited proposals, that come in off the street, so to speak, so that you can sift them out and find the one in the hundred that might really have some value?

Dr. MANNELLA. Well, we are constantly doing that. We have in the area of unsolicited type of proposals that relates to an invention, the use of NBS to help us do some screening, and basically the staff does go through the unsolicited proposals that we receive and evaluate them and look for opportunities to fit them into the program.

We do not have a separate fund, as it were, to fund work in that category. And, in a sense, an unsolicited proposal kind of always has to compete with some other item against which the dollars are budgeted.

Chairman MCCORMACK. Yes; I appreciate that, and I know we all sympathize with anyone who is stuck with the responsibility of trying to analyze unsolicited proposals, not only because of the fact that so many of them are valueless, but also because of the fact that out of the hundred or so there may be a jewel in there someplace. Dr. MANNELLA. Yes.

Mr. GOLDWATER. The question would be, Mr. Chairman, what qualification does the National Bureau of Standards have to evaluate conservation ideas?

Dr. MANNELLA. They've had an activity in energy conservation for some years, and I think they are qualified to do a technical screening— not final decision-but a technical screening on as many of these types of proposals as possible.

Mr. GOLDWATER. What happens to them after they get screened and they get a positive? Do they forward it to you?

Dr. MANNELLA. That's right.

Mr. GOLDWATER. And then what happens?

Dr. MANNELLA. Unfortunately in most cases we don't fund them because they don't have a high enough priority.

Mr. GOLDWATER. Not high enough priority.

You know there's a lot of volunteer effort in conservation. Technology aside, there's a lot of things that can be done, just in-this may not be the area of ERDA's responsibility-but volunteer effort of people who want to do something, or there are things that can be done that the homeowner can do himself without a great deal of

expense.

It that an area that you get involved in, or is that somebody else? Dr. MANNELLA. It's not an area that we've gotten involved in because our main thrust is new technology. It is something that could be encompassed within something like an energy extension service or an outreach program associated with that, to marshall volunteer efforts and organize outreach programs.

Chairman MCCORMACK. Dr. Mannella, I want to thank you very much, and all of your staff, for coming today. This has perhaps beeen tedious for you. I want to say it's been extremely valuable for us on

the committee. We are not infrequently blind-sighted by questions such as the ones we are asking you today. Since we want to be able to go before the full committee and the Congress and handle these questions responsively and intelligently, we've taken the time today to try to ask them and to try to understand your activity.

It'll undoubtedly happen to us anyway, but we've tried to be as prepared as we possibly can. It's important to us that we do fund the programs at their optimum level.

We want to thank you all very much for coming today.

Dr. MANNELLA. Thank you for the invitation, Mr. Chairman. Chairman MCCORMACK. We stand adjourned. Thank you very much. [The hearing was adjourned at 4:28 p.m.]

APPENDIX

DIGEST

FROM

LONG TERM STRATEGY FOR CONSTRUCTION

AND

OPERATION OF HIGH ENERGY PHYSICS FACILITIES

Energy Research & Development Administration
High Energy Physics Program
Division of Physical Research

Washington, D. C. 20545

October 10, 1975

(173)

98-428 - 78 - 12

iii

Digest

OMB Request

This report is in response to a request from the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) for a study of certain aspects of High Energy Physics (HEP). The main issue raised in the request is: "What should be the long-term strategy toward the construction and operation of HEP facilities?" issues include:

A long range (1985) facility posture for high energy physics.
Priorities of proposed major construction projects.

Impact of alternative funding levels.

Sub

Effects of the lack of agreed-on long range planning and budgeting.

Goals and Status of High Energy Physics

The goal of High Energy Physics is the understanding of energy and matter in their most basic forms. It examines transformations and interactions among the ultimate constituents of matter and searches for new laws of nature. The possibility of breakthroughs in this field has seldom been as great as it is today. Excitement is at an all-time high as recent discoveries, many of them made in the U.S., indicate that a new new level of insight into the structure of matter and a more profound understanding of the forces of nature is close at hand. Evidence from experiments at every major accelerator, in combination with theoretical advances, all point to a new substructure of matter, and to a synthesis of basic forces that, up to now, have been regarded as being completely distinct from one another. This synthesis is the same kind as Maxwell achieved for electricity and magnetism and Einstein for matter and energy.

Future Research Directions

The viability and productivity of High Energy Physics depend critically on the timely availability of new technological capabilities. It is essential

in such a field which explores the frontier of scientific knowledge, to be able to follow the directions indicated by the research and at a pace which exploits new discoveries. Past experience in high energy physics has shown that the investment of about 20 to 25 per cent of the total Program support