With regrets, President Clinton signed a bill Friday killing the $11 billion superconducting super collider project in Texas, lamenting its death as "a serious loss" to science.
Clinton was forced to accept the termination of the project when a budget-conscious House voted overwhelmingly to abandon the program, which is one-fifth complete with a 14-mile-long underground tunnel and complex of laboratory buildings.Some $640 million for the project had been included in an energy and water spending bill. Now, that money will be spent to dismantle the massive project.
"This project was an important element of our nation's science program, and its termination is a serious loss for the field of high energy physics," the president said in a written statement. He signed the bill in Boston, where he was campaigning for approval of the North American Free Trade Agreement.
He said he was glad the bill redirected the money "for orderly termination so that we can assist the affected workers and communities in Texas and elsewhere."
The project had been a target of congressional budget-cutters for two years. Its estimated price had nearly doubled since 1989.
The program had envisioned a 54-mile oval atomic particle smasher, a high-energy physics project to study subatomic matter.
Clinton said he was directing Energy Secretary Hazel O'Leary to prepare a report on future options for the nation's high-energy physics program now that "the planned centerpiece for the field has been terminated."
In his statement, Clinton chided Congress for killing the collider.
He said he was disappointed "that with the limited resources available, the Congress has added funds for unrequested water projects and studies." He said the bill provided $300 million more than he requested in that regard.