News stories from Sunday February 20, 1977

Summaries of the stories the major media outlets considered to be of particular importance on this date:

The $120.3 billion defense budget approved by President Carter for the next fiscal year, which will go to Congress Tuesday, is $2.75 billion smaller than $123.1 billion budget proposed by former President Ford, administration sources said. It also is an increase of more than $10 billion over the $110 billion budget for fiscal 1977, which ends Sept. 30. In his campaign, the President had pledged to reduce defense spending by $5 billion to $7 billion. Both he and his spokesmen have since maintained that he meant a cutback not from the present Ford budget but from the new and higher Ford budget. This was impossible, the sources acknowledged. [New York Times] The administration's proposed cut of funds for 18 major water projects was strongly opposed by officials of 18 Western states at a meeting in Denver with Secretary of the Interior Cecil Andrus, which was called to discuss the drought in the West. Top officials of the states expressed shock, anger and astonishment. Note of the governors or congressmen from the states involved, it was said, had been consulted about the cuts. The meeting, however, resulted in a promise of the appointment of a "drought chief" to deal with the worst drought in Western American history. [New York Times] Energy planners for the Carter administration are thinking and talking informally about broader -- and possibly mandatory -- changes in the way Americans use energy at home, on the road and at work. "We're going to get the government into areas they haven't been before," a key official said. Words like "sacrifice" and "mandatory" are being used to attract public attention and create a climate of opinion that will be receptive to the administration's proposals. [New York Times] Businessmen are unhappy with the House Ways and Means Committee's deletion of a tax incentive for investment in plant and equipment from President Carter's economic stimulus program and they hope the Senate will restore the incentive. "The Ways and Means package does not address this country's long-term need for more productive investment," said Robert Holland, president of the Committee for Economic Expansion, which represents many large companies. The Chamber of Commerce of the United States, which has a membership of about 65,000 companies, also does not agree with the change. [New York Times] One of the goals of federal energy researchers is to use the wind to generate about 1 percent of the nation's power needs by the end of this century. Six windmills have been erected on the Great Plains in an experiment to determine whether they can economically supplement conventional oil-powered and coal-powered electrical generators. Whether American industry can mass-produce cheaper replicas is a question the Federal Energy Research and Development Administration will attempt to answer. [New York Times] A worldwide surplus of grains, the first in five years, is expected to result from the 1976-77 planting season. The amount of carryover stocks this season, about 58 million metric tons, should equal almost a three-week supply worldwide, excluding grain in the marketing pipeline. The carryover reflects the 80 million ton rise in Soviet production. [New York Times] Puerto Rico's Banco Economias is being taken over on an emergency basis by the Banco Central of Madrid, Spain's second-largest bank. Banco Economias, Puerto Rico's fourth-largest bank -- with 11 offices and $183 million in deposits -- got into trouble because of bad real estate loans and the effects of a severe recession. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation in Washington has agreed to take over $15 million of the assets of Banco Economias at book value. [New York Times] President Hafez al-Assad of Syria was said to have told Secretary of State Cyrus Vance that prospects for a Middle East settlement this year were not good unless the United States was prepared to put pressure on Israel to make major concessions after the Israeli elections in May. Mr. Vance and President Assad had a three-hour meeting in Damascus as the Secretary neared the end of his Middle East trip. [New York Times] The physical scars of the 30-month civil war that ended seven years ago in the former secessionist region of Biafra in eastern Nigeria have mostly healed and the area is in an economic resurgence. The Ibos who led the rebellion have turned away from politics and are concentrating on making economic gains with a resilience that astounds other Nigerians. [New York Times]