DOE Increase Cut $400 Million
Posted: Wed Jan 16, 2008 10:09 am
http://sciencenow.sciencemag.org/cgi/co ... 2008/115/1
Update: I'm wondering if this isn't in some way Congress's payback for all the friction put in Dr. B's path by DOE. Maybe the DOE will get the message. If there is one.
Raymond Orbach kept repeating that it was the "will of Congress and the people". It will be interesting for some one to do the history of all this in a few years - after the dust settles.
My theory is that the money will go to Polywell if the experiments green light further effort. Of course I'm extrapolating based on nothing. Time will tell.Two weeks ago, Congress slashed $400 million in proposed increases for the 2008 budget of DOE's Office of Science, the largest supporter of basic research in the physical sciences in the United States (ScienceNOW, 18 December 2007). The cuts wreaked havoc on DOE's programs in fusion and particle physics and took a big bite out of its efforts in "basic energy sciences" such as chemistry and materials sciences. Funding was zeroed for the U.S. contribution this year to the multibillion-dollar International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) (ScienceNOW, 21 December 2007), and U.S. participation in the proposed International Linear Collider (ILC) particle physics experiment was also effectively stopped, jeopardizing the project's existence. The rollbacks are also forcing hundreds of layoffs at two of the Office of Science's national labs (Science, 11 January 2008, p. 142) and have led to deep cuts in running time at x-ray sources and other user facilities at the other eight.
Update: I'm wondering if this isn't in some way Congress's payback for all the friction put in Dr. B's path by DOE. Maybe the DOE will get the message. If there is one.
Raymond Orbach kept repeating that it was the "will of Congress and the people". It will be interesting for some one to do the history of all this in a few years - after the dust settles.