FYI
The American Institute of Physics Bulletin of Science Policy
News
Number 41: April 8, 2002

Congressional Effort to Increase DOE Funding Needs Your Help
  
Now that Congress has returned from its recess, the
appropriations committees will start putting together their
funding bills for FY 2003.  Among those bills of considerable
interest to the physics community is the Energy and Water
Development Appropriations bill that funds the programs of the
Department of Energy's Office of Science.  The Bush
Administration has requested increases in funding for physics
research programs ranging from 1.7% to 6.5% for next year (see
FYI #16).

House and Senate appropriators will be hard-pressed this year,
as they are every year, to draft legislation that meets
competing needs while staying within their budget.  The Energy
and Water bill is expected to be particularly difficult
because of reductions the Administration has proposed in Army
Corps of Engineers projects.  

One effective way to indicate support for a program is for a
letter to be sent to appropriators signed by many Members of
Congress.  A letter drafted by Rep. Judy Biggert (R-IL) and
Rep. Ellen Tauscher (D-CA) in support of funding for the
Office of Science has been sent to their colleagues.  The text
of this letter is below.

There are many such letters circulating on Capitol Hill.  The
probability that a letter will be signed increases when
constituents express interest to their Member of Congress. 
Biggert and Tauscher are now seeking signatures for their
letter.  A similar letter last year was signed by 105 Members.

The House of Representatives maintains a web site -
http://www.house.gov/writerep/ - that allows constituents to
contact their representative by e-mail.  Another House site -
http://www.house.gov/house/MemberWWW.html - will direct you to
an individual Member's site with their telephone numbers. 
Both sites use zip codes.  Traditional US mail is not
recommended because of lengthy screening procedures.

The Biggert/Tauscher letter to key House appropriators
follows.  Time is of the essence.


Dear Chairman Young and Ranking Member Obey, and Chairman
Callahan and Ranking Member Visclosky:

We are writing to express our strong support for the
Department of Energy's (DOE) Office of Science and the world
class scientific research that it funds.  To this end, we
would encourage you to significantly increase fiscal year 2003
funding for the DOE Office of Science above the level
appropriated in fiscal year 2002.  Increased funding will
allow for the fullest utilization of the tremendous scientific
talent and world's best research facilities that are supported
by the DOE Office of Science.

The DOE Office of Science is the nation's primary supporter of
the physical sciences, providing an important partner and key
user facilities in the areas of biological sciences, physics,
chemistry, environmental sciences, mathematics and computing,
and engineering.  This federal research and development
funding goes to scientists and students not just at our
national labs, but at our colleges and universities as well. 
Furthermore, the DOE Office of Science supports a unique
system of programs based on large-scale, specialized user
facilities and large teams of scientists focused on national
priorities in scientific research.  This makes the Office of
Science unique among, and complementary to, the scientific
programs of many other federal science agencies, including the
National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the National Science
Foundation (NSF).  

We applaud the strong support shown for research conducted
within the NIH and NSF, and ask that this level of support be
extended to the DOE Office of Science.  Future medical
breakthroughs depend on fundamental advances in the physical
sciences and other research conducted by the DOE Office of
Science.  One recent example is the Human Genome Project,
which progressed so rapidly because of advanced computing and
biological technologies pioneered by the DOE Office of
Science.  Harold Varmus, former director of the NIH, said,
"Medical advances may seem like wizardry.  But pull back the
curtain, and sitting at the lever is a high-energy physicist,
a combinational chemist, or an engineer."

While federally supported medical research like that conducted
by NIH has doubled, funding for research in the physical
sciences has remained stagnant.  In constant dollars, the
budget for the DOE Office of Science is still only at its 1990
level.  It is the research itself that has been most
negatively impacted by this funding shortfall, since the cost
of maintaining existing facilities continues to rise with
inflation.

Scientific research may not be as politically popular as
health care and education right now, but science is as
important to progress in these two areas as it is to ensuring
America's economic, energy, and national security.  The
National Academy of Sciences has determined that during the
last half-century, science-driven technology has accounted for
more than 50 percent of the growth of the U.S. economy.  As
for energy security, basic energy research funded by the DOE
Office of Science will help address current and future energy
challenges with technologies that improve the efficiency,
economy, environmental acceptability, and safety in energy
generation, conversion, transmission, and use.

According to the Hart-Rudman Report on National Security,
" the U.S. government has seriously underfunded basic
scientific research in recent years.  The quality of the U.S.
education system, too, has fallen well behind those of scores
of other nations.   The inadequacies of our systems of
research and education pose a greater threat to U.S. national
security over the next quarter century than any potential
conventional war that we might imagine." 

The report goes on to recommend doubling the federal
government's investment in science and technology research and
development by 2010.  While we understand that it may not be
practical to double the federal research and development
budget this year, we believe Congress should take the
necessary steps to move in that direction by increasing
funding for research in the physical sciences.  The House has
already taken the first step, by authorizing $3.6 billion for
the DOE Office of Science in Title V of H.R. 4, the Save
America's Future Energy (SAFE) Act, which passed by a vote of
240-189 on August 2, 2001.

We ask that you take the next step and help the DOE Office of
Science attract the best minds, educate the next generation of
scientists and engineers, support the construction and
operation of modern facilities, and continue to provide the
quality of scientific research that has been its trademark for
so many years.

Thank you for your consideration.

Sincerely,


###############
Richard M. Jones
Media and Government Relations Division
The American Institute of Physics
[log in to unmask]
(301) 209-3095
http://www.aip.org/gov