A spending package signed into law last week by President Bush will provide enough cash to stave off the sacking of 90 employees at financially strapped Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (Fermilab) in Batavia, Ill., the nation's leading particle physics lab.
Acting Deputy Secretary of Energy Jeffrey Kupfer told Fermilab it will receive a $29.5-million infusion, including $9.5 million for a key neutrino experiment planned to be completed in 2014.
But it remains to be seen whether Congress will dole out enough funds to keep the lab operating at its current capacity in fiscal year 2009.
The emergency spending measure was passed after Fermilab offered employee buyouts to ease a nearly six-month budget crunch triggered when lawmakers cut its funding by $20 million from the year before.
Judy Jackson, a lab spokesperson, said that 50 workers took the buyout two weeks ago, even though the Senate had passed the bill and the president had signaled he would sign it. But she notes that Fermilab would have had to ax another 90 employees if the new funds, part of $62.5 million forked over to the U.S. Department of Energy's Office of Science, had not been approved.
Despite a huge sense of relief, Jackson says there is still concern about next year's budget, although there are promising signs: The House Appropriations Committee approved a budget of $805 million for particle physics in FY 2009, nearly $117 million more than this year's allocation. "This is the most encouraging thing, because this is where we came to grief last year, in the House appropriations process," Jackson said.
The proposal may yet fizzle, however, as it did in December when Congress cut physics funding to meet a spending cap imposed by the president.
Fermilab became more vulnerable when its most vocal congressional booster, former House Speaker Dennis Hastert (R.–Ill.), who represented Fermilab's Congressional district, stepped down in November.
Jackson said the lab is "very encouraged" by support from Illinois congressional Democrats, Sen. Richard Durbin and Rep. Bill Foster, a former Fermilab physicist who won Hastert's seat in a special election in March.
Another positive sign, she says: the appropriations committee used language in its budget proposal from a May report by the Particle Physics Project Prioritization Panel (P5), which laid out a strategy for the coming decade to ensure the U.S. "maintain[s] a leadership role in worldwide particle physics."
"We don't feel our challenges are over," Jackson said. "But we feel our challenges have fundamentally shifted."
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3 Comments
Add CommentAll this we want to be first stuff is a waste of time. While we sit here and try to be the first to do this and the first to do that we waste soooo much money. While all the other countries reap our time and money and get the same technology cheaper and with little effort. Why can't we focus on the things that matter that we already have, fix them, and then start looking beyond.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI just like to note - many good and worse news we read at different sources of news about Fermilab. Mostly now about supplemental bill Fermilab received. I know many similar people as myself - guest scientist to be going back home instituion earlier than planned
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisbecause labs are still looking funds. For example, ILC projects closed totally,
and many related visitors now on the way to home, many scientists jumped to other projects.
Many of ILC visitors was sponsored by DOE. I am lost trust for any future projects in DoE now since the projects closed quickly and many peoples flush out. So in reallity, supplemental Bill received last time just about half of cutted budget and helped keep alive. Why I lost trust to future of science here? Answer very simple -
USA government had cut very easy budget and not looking for consequencies forward 10-20-30 years. So probably I will no planning to come this contry now and not suggest to our students doing coming US after all is happened here. May be some one may thinks - I am sceptic, probably it is true. But beeing sceptic mean for me to be more stable in directions of my efforts. Beeng here, I also found public school system has many problems even having good foundation and buildings. But it is othe big different subject.
US must spend less on armament and war and more on science if it really wants a better world for all.
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