-6(iiIbig-kin Clements riding hard to lasso supercollider By Lisa Hoffman TIMES HERALD WASHINGTON BUREAU WASHINGTON — At a recent con- clave of governors in Washington, Tex- as Gov. Bill Clements ambled up to the third highest official of the Department of Energy, the agency that will select the site for the biggest scientific project of the late 20th century. Clements stuck out his hand and in- troduced himself to Undersecretary Jo- seph Salgado, who smiled in recogni- tion. "Governor, I see your tracks all this town. You're certainly doing job," Salgado said. over your Salgado's com- ment was testimo- ny to Clements' ef- forts to have Texas chosen as the site of the $5 billion, 12,000-job super- Clements conducting supercollider, a revolution- ary atom smasher many believe could produce an economic renaissance in the state. By most accounts, the Republican governor has been dogged in his lobby- ing for the project and has managed to forge a bipartisan team of supporters from the often-contentious Texas congressional delegation. "I think he's done all he can do. He's pushed as hard as he can," said Rep. John Bryant, a Dallas Democrat who usually ex- cludes himself from membership in any Bill Clements fan club. "He deserves credit for all he's done." Clements is far from alone in the quest for the project. The chief executives of the six other states in contention — Arizona, Colorado, Illinois, Michigan, North Carolina and Tennessee — also have made a priority of se- curing the project. Out of 25 states in the initial competition, seven were chosen as finalists in December to build the machine, which will use 10,000 superconducting magnets in a circular 53-mile tunnel to smash beams of protons into each other at collision energies 20 times what is now possible — and, physicists say, to push the bounds of high-tech science far beyond where they are today. The Energy Department ex- pects to choose the "preferred site" in November or December, with President Reagan naming the winner before he leaves of- fice in January. The Texas site is in Ellis County near Waxahachie. But before the envelope is opened, Congress must decide whether the supercollider should be built. And the battle for fund- ing promises to be as difficult a task as it is to imagine how the machine will work. While Reagan's 1989 budget re- quest contains $363 million for the supercollider, Capitol Hill ob- servers say Congress may be re- luctant to spend such an astro- nomical amount, if anything, on the project in times of fiscal re- straint. Recognizing that, states in the running have attempted to take the high road over parochi- alism by promoting the supercol- lider rather than simply their own merits. Still, the states haven't been shy in reminding Congress and the Energy Department of how important the project is to them and how their sites are the best. Arizona, which lost valuable time when its governor, Evan Mecham, became embroiled in an impeachment battle, now has hired a high-powered public rela- tions firm to further its supercol- lider cause in Washington. Acting Gov. Rose Mofford has called the project the most important in her 43 years of public service. Illinois Gov. Jim Thompson has been us- ing his considerable clout in Re- publican circles in Washington. But Henry Gandy, head of the State of Texas office in Washing- ton, said Clements has done more than any other governor. "He is obviously personally committed to this," Gandy said. Gandy and others said Clem- ents has been tireless in his ef- forts. Among other things, the gover- nor has made supercollider lob- bying the centerpiece of a hand- ful of trips to Washington, where he's spent hours with Energy Secretary John Herrington and other administration officials. He hosted a Capitol Hill party — complete with imported man-size cactuses, wagon wheels and su- percollider badges — for the Texas congressional delegation. At the February conference of the National Governors' Associa- tion, he button-holed his counter- parts in other states to promote the project as a whole. And he convinced legendary Democratic power broker and fellow Texan Bob Strauss to get involved. Republican Sen. Phil Gramm, not one to lightly share praise gives e governor igh mar s for his hard work and accom- know Bill Clements yoli,swhme eanit. ls. has his strengths and his weak- nesses," Gramm said. "But one /thing's for sure. There's nothing Bill Clements knows better than how to put together a deal. "I think you've got to give Bill %Clements an 'A' for having done bne hell of a bang-up job."
