Word: costly
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...persuaded Congress to award it up to $10 million in extra payments on a disputed Navy contract. Although Dravo had agreed to build a steam plant at the Navy's Norfolk, Va., shipyard under a $102.9 million fixed-price contract, Congress ordered the service to pay for Dravo's cost overruns. Navy paymasters stalled until the 1987 fiscal year ended Sept. 30. Now, they discover, Dravo is back again. Just passed by the House Appropriations Committee, the 1988 Defense Department budget includes the same $10 million bailout. "Greed is still rampant," fumed Assistant Secretary of the Navy Everett Pyatt...
Dravo, which lost nearly $25 million on the project, is also suing seven subcontractors to recover these same cost overruns. The troubled firm says it will get out of the steam plant-building business altogether...
While the bumper crops have kept grain prices low, farmers have nevertheless boosted their profits because expenses are lower. Total U.S. farm production costs dropped more than 3% this year, to an estimated $116 billion, the lowest level in nine years. Part of that decline came about because many farmers have reduced acreage under cultivation and the size of their herds. But, at the same time, unusually low feed and fuel prices have helped farms cut the cost of producing a bushel of grain or a pound of beef...
Farmers are getting smarter in the way they go about their business. Many Midwestern growers are using pesticides and fertilizers less wastefully, while trying to hold down energy costs. Says Iowa Farmer Jack Drake: "I'm making fewer passes across my fields with machinery and looking everywhere for least- cost methods." Strawberry farmers on the California coast have begun covering their soil in plastic to keep fruit from rotting on the ground. Farmers close to Colorado State University are taking seminars to learn how to use computers for better money management...
...project, called Zenith Star, has never produced a laser beam, let alone a deadly one. The laser generator, which is being developed separately by TRW at an estimated cost of almost $100 million, has been plagued by problems and budget cuts over the past two years. Chemical lasers are widely discredited by scientists, who are dubious about the prospects for turning them into weapons. Moreover, they may never be tested in space because of restrictions imposed by international arms agreements. The aluminum-foil- covered model that Reagan so proudly inspected is, in the words of John Pike of the Federation...