ABSTRACT
On a humid spring day in May 1987, bemused Washingtonians warily unfolded the morning newspaper to a headline reading "Administration Ozone Policy May Favor Sunglasses, Hats". In science policy, as elsewhere, homework counts. Plainly, the ozone agreement should not have foundered at the wrapup stage. The agreement did not, so to speak, come as a bolt from the blue. The peremptory sinking of an earlier international agreement on the Law of the Sea at the hands of the same Administration comes all too readily to mind, as does the prolonged stonewalling on measures to abate acid rain, another example of taking political refuge in misty allusions to scientific uncertainty. Government's funding of scientific research and development is, at this point, on a path to its fourth doubling since the 1950s. Although the previous three doublings are stated in current dollars, the arc of the curve bears watching.
