The University Daily
Baseball Fever An infection KU prof can live with inside, p. 6
KANSAN
SUNNY
Vol. 94, No.106 (USPS 650-640)
Published since 1889 by students of the University of Kansas
High, 50. Low, 25.
Details on p. 2
Thursday morning, February 23, 1984
Capital punishment approved by Senate
By United Press International
WASHINGTON — The U.S. Senate voted 63-32 yesterday to reinstate the death penalty for federal crimes, the first time in 10 years that the current legislation has cleared a house of Congress.
The measure will go to the House, where aides to Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Strom Thurmud, R-S.C., predict that the bill will face fierce opposition.
The death penalty is the most controversial part of a package of criminal reform measures passed by the Republican-controlled Senate this month.
Supported by the Reagan administration as part of its "get tough on crime" theme, the bill executes execution for punishment for treason, espionage and assassination of the president of the United States.
CAPITAL PUNISHMENT foes made a last-ditch appeal to lawmakers' consciences to reject the death penalty, which is now legal in 38 states and faces a nationwide federal crime — aircraft hijackings that take lives.
Sen. Mark Hatfield, R-Ore., thought that televising executions, instead of conducting them, could be less effective.
But death penalty supporters, such as Thurmond, urged the Senate to think of the veto.
"If we want to execute people, we ought to do it in the open," said Hatfield, suggesting that televised executions would turn the public against capital punishment.
"What if it was your daughter?" Thurmond shouted, after recounting the details of the grisly murder of eight student nurses by Richard Speck in Chicago.
PRESIDENT REAGAN has tried to take political advantage of the Senate's passage of several crime measures by suggesting that the police house in House is dragging its feet on criminal reform.
In a radio address last weekend, Reagan criticized "the liberal approach of coddling criminals" and said that criminal reform had turned into "a prolonged partisan struggle."
During a speech that opposed capital pun
See DEATH, p. 5, col. 4
'Bubble boy'dies at 12; experimental cure fails
By United Press International
HOUSTON - David - the handsome, intelligent "bubble boy" who until two weeks ago lived all of his 12 years in germ-free plastic furniture and never missed failure after an experimental attempt to cure him.
Baylor College of Medicine spokesman Susannah Griffin said David, who had lived longer than any other person suffering from Severe Combined Immune Deficiency syndrome, died this morning at 5 p.m. after experiencing an irregular heartbeat as fluid began accumulating around his heart.
"He had been mentally alert up until going on
He had been placed on a respirator yesterday morning as his condition deteriorated following an Oct. 21 bone marrow transplant and March 6 removal of removal from his isolator Feb. 7, Griffin said.
the respirator. He had to be sedated to ease his breathing," Griffin said.
SHE SAID LAST rites were performed yesterday afternoon for David, whose family name was kept secret to protect his privacy. His sister was taken into custody and had been taking turns turning with him.
David was placed in a sterile plastic bubble moments after his birth because doctors anticipated his immune deficiency after a brother died of SCID at age 7 months.
He lived in bubbles at Texas Children's Hospital and at home until two weeks ago, when he was removed so doctors could treat a reaction to the experimental bone marrow transplant
The bone marrow normally produces the body's anti-infection substances.
On Oct. 21, in a gamble to cure David, doctors
See DAVID, p. 5, col. 1
United Press International
United Press International President Reagan explains his decision to move the Marines in was one of the topics Reagan discussed in a news conference Beirut to ships off the city's shores. The U.S.: role in Lebanon last night.
Reagan undaunted about Beirut pullout
By United Press International
ships off the coast, Reagan said he realized "things don't look bright" in Lebanon.
WASHINGTON — President Reagan said yesterday that "we have not lost, as of yet" in beacon and vowed that the Marines would assist him in doing as there was a chance of a peaceful solution.
"We are not bugging out." he declared. In his first news conference since he decided to move most of the Marines from Beirut to
But he said, "I don't think you can say we have lost, as of yet.
"I HAVE NO regret of the fact we went in there to try to bring peace," the president said. "We are redeploying because once the terrorist attacks started there was no way we could contribute to the original mission."
election Jan. 29. The president's last news conference was Dec. 20.
The news conference also was the first since Reagan announced his candidacy for re-
Reagan opened his 35-minute nationally broadcast news conference with a short statement calling on Congress "to get down to business" and enact sweeping anti-crime legislation as the national amendment to permit school prayer and measures to cut massive federal deficits.
See REAGAN, p. 5, col. 4
Wolf Creek's future clouded by skepticism about cost Utility proposes change in rate bill KG&E says acid-rain fight would raise coal-energy cost
By LORI DODGE Staff Reporter
TOPEKA — During a House committee meeting yesterday, an attorney for Kansas Gas and Electric Co. suggested changes in a bill dealing with a rate plan for Wolf Creek that he said would "strike a fair balance" between the interests of consumers and utility shareholders.
The attorney, Jim Haines of KG&E, which is one of the two principal owners of the $2.67 billion nuclear power plant under construction near Burlington, also urged the House Energy and Natural Resources Committee not to take action on two other bills relating to Wolf Creek.
The committee began hearing testimony on the three bills earlier this week. All three bills attempt to define the powers the Kansas Corporation Commission should have regarding possible excess, generating capacity at Wolf Creek.
Haines told the committee that the two bills he opposed stated that utility shareholders would be required to pay taxes.
BUT THE RISK that shareholders now bear under law, he said, is already substantial.
The bills would give the KCC more flexibility in determining whether generating plants have excess capacity. They would also exclude from consideration plants associated with the value of excess capacity.
One of the bills calls for a period of 10 to 15 years to phase in the costs of any excess capacity
Haines said that the two bills would penalize a utility company for having too much capacity. He said that when considering an essential utility, the more so much too much would be better than having too little.
HAINES OUTLINED changes in one nu-
bal, because the same said would balance
the interests of capturers.
The bill, he said, would avoid a significant one-time rate increase by giving the KCC the authority to decide whether a utility is producing
See HEARING, p. 8, col. 5
By ROB KARWATH
Staff Renorter
The decision to build the Wolf Creek nuclear plant near Burlington was based on assessments from those two companies that energy demands would increase in their service areas and that a new plant would relieve the company's heavy rainfall - single sources of fuel to generate electricity.
In the late 1960s, Kansas Gas and Electric Co. and Kansas City Power and Light Co. decided to bring the nuclear age to sketched Kansans
More than 10 years and $2.67 billion later, much of that skepticism about nuclear energy appears to be returning. The two companies are *The Nuclear Alliance*, whose original cost has increased five-fold.
But officials from both companies said last week that they still were convinced that nuclear energy would pay off in the end. The reason, they say, is that the damage over the environmental dangers of acid rain.
"ACID RAIN IS GOING to make this a whole new ball game," said Lyle Koeper, a player.
spokesman for KG&E. "It is going to make nuclear energy look like the bargain it is. I don't know when, but nuclear power is going to have its day."
Plants that generate electricity by burning coal with a high sulfur content are beating nuclear plants by a wide margin in the race to supply the cheapest energy to utility customers.
A study last year by the Worldwatch Institute, a non-profit research group in Washington, D.C., found that the high cost of college is a factor.
plant costs between six and seven cents a kilowatt hour. Electricity generated by a new nuclear plant costs between 10 and 12 cents for each kilowatt hour.
BUT THAT GAP can disappear quickly if the Environmental Protection Agency slaps tough and expensive emissions standards on the "dirty coal" plants, which have been blamed for causing acid rain in parts of the Northeast and parts of southeast Canada.
Such standards would affect coal-fired plants in Kansas, some of which are owned by KG&E and KCP&L, the two principal builders of Wolf Creek. Both companies own 47 percent of Wolf Creek, and Kansas Electrical Cooperatives Inc. owns the remaining 6 percent.
Joe Kramer, nuclear information representative for KCP4L, said he thought nuclear plants soon would be able to compete with coal in a serious manner.
"Someday there is going to be a rebirth of nuclear power," he said. "Falling back on coal is obviously going to be environmentally underly- maybe even environmentally unacceptable."
See WOLF CREEK, p. 8, col. 1
KU fans wave a giant jayhawk banner as Wayman Tisdale much last night. He scored 28 points in the Sooners' successful shoots. The KU crowd apparently did not distract Tisdale bottle with KU that ended 98-82. See story p. 12.
House passes 4-year reappraisal bill; some legislators wary of tax increase
By United Press International
TOPEKA — Despite strong Democratic opposition, the House yesterday passed a bill that would require all Kansas real estate to be reappraised within four years.
If passed by the Senate and approved by Gov. John Carlin, the bill would order the first statewide reappraisal in 20 years.
The final vote on the bill was 64.59. Sixty-three votes are needed to give final approval to the bill, which would require reappraisal to be completed by Jan. 1, 1988.
Five Democrats joined 59 Republicans Wednesday to approve the bill and send it on to the Senate, which passed a similar bill in the 1983 session.
Some legislators fear that reappraisal will cause a massive tax increase to homeowners.
Democratic representatives consistently have opposed reappraisal unless voters first had an opportunity to vote on a constitutional amendment. They have different types of property at different tax levels.
reassessed since the 1960s. Classification has been proposed as a way to protect those taxpayers.
APPRAISED VALUE IS used to determine property taxes. Property is taxed on the basis of 30 percent of its appraised value. If a classification amendment were passed, the percentage of the appraised value used for tax would vary with different kinds of property.
Republicans had added a provision to the bill that would prevent the reappraised values from being used in ax tolls until after a constitutional amendment for classification was placed before the voters.
BUT DEMOCRATS who voted against the bill said that the Republican compromise did not go for enough toward relieving their fears.
State Rep. John Sutter, D-Kansas City, warned fellow representatives that if the state collected the reappraisal data, the Kansas Supreme Court could order reappraisal to take immediately, leaving no chance for a classification amendment to be placed before the voters.