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Dear Colleagues, As most of you may have heard, the Senate Appropriations Committee has approved its version of the FY 2008 Energy and Water Development Appropriations Bill (S1751) and sent it to the Senate floor for consideration. The report (S.R. 110-127) is now available online. Among the recommendations, one finds the following: "For High Energy Physics, the Committee recommends $789,238,000. Understanding the way the universe works is the key mission of the High Energy Physics program, and it succeeds by probing interactions among matter, energy, space and time. The High Energy Physics program has many promising opportunities to advance our understanding of the universe and its makeup. However, the Department must make important decisions about the future of this program, including balancing the immediate opportunities provided through the Joint Dark Energy Mission and large future investments in the International Linear Collider. International Linear Collider- The Committee provides $60,000,000 to support research to support the U.S. ILC effort within the Accelerator Development, International Linear Collider R&D activities. The Committee appreciates the scientific challenge of building the ILC in the United States, establishing our leadership in this discipline among an international team. Despite the large financial commitment by the President in scientific research, the Committee is concerned that the ILC will crowd out other valuable research as has been demonstrated with both the National Ignition Facility within the NNSA, the Rare Isotope Accelerator and ITER, both within the Office of Science. The Department must provide a cost estimate including an out year funding plan and an explanation of how this initiative will impact other facilities and scientific research. " You can read the full report at: http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/cpquery/R?cp110:FLD010:@1(sr127) The HEP section is at: http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/cpquery/?&dbname=cp110&sid=cp110jdq0p&refer=&r_n=sr127.110&item=&sel=TOC_772296& Sincerely, Norman Graf