Vellucci Will Go to D.C. Next Week

City Councillor Alfred E. Vellucci will travel to Washington this Tuesday and Wednesday to ask Congressmen for greater local governmental control in forming guidelines for recombinant DNA research.

Vellucci will meet with Speaker of the House Thomas P. O'Neill Jr. (D-Mass.), Sen. Edward M. Kennedy '54 (D-Mass.) and Sen. Edward Brooke (R-Mass.), Richard McKinnon, an assistant to the City Council, said yesterday.

Constraints

Vellucci believes the present bills now before the House and Senate do not allow enough freedom to local governments who wish to enact stricter regulatory standards, McKinnon said.

"We feel we've gone through an enormously careful process to institute the guidelines, and we would be naive to believe federal regulations would be better," McKinnon said.

The legislation now before Congress would establish sets of safety regulations, geared to the potential hazards of the recombinant DNA research under consideration.

Controversy

The House bill contains a controversial clause proposing that Federal guidelines prevail over local guidelines, but the Senate version contains no such clause.

McKinnon said Vellucci is also traveling to Washington to counteract Harvard's efforts to lobby for federal control of guidelines. "The University should support our efforts to set high standards, but instead they have been trying to dismantle what we have erected," he added.

Vellucci could not be reached for comment yesterday.