"Where have the Americans gone?" - DOE Office of Science
Director Ray
Orbach discussing declining number of American university students
studying physical sciences.
"Even though it will be years before fusion energy can be used
to
generate electric power, the eventual payoff of a large new supply of
clean energy is too great to ignore." - Five Representatives
in a
letter to Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham
"President Bush has faith in American science. And he knows
the huge
energy challenges...for the United States and for the world...that
fusion science seeks to tackle. And let me tell you, he is not one
for taking baby steps when leaps are called for." - Energy
Secretary
Abraham on US announcement to rejoin ITER negotiations
"Our objective is to fund to 3% of our Defense budget for science
and
technology." - Undersecretary of Defense (Comptroller) Dov
Zakheim
when describing FY 2004 defense S&T budget request which was 2.68%
"The concern expressed for the physical sciences in the budget
reminds me a little bit of the old joke about the will that said, 'To
Joe, who I said I would mention in my will, "Hello Joe.'"
Sympathy won't fund labs." - House Science Committee Chairman
Sherwood Boehlert (R-NY) when discussing FY 2004 budget request
"Mr. Chairman [Boehlert], this is a good budget for science."
- OSTP Director John Marburger
"Under the President's request, many programs would receive
less
funding in FY 2004 than in FY 2003. . . . It seems a mistake then
to stay wedded to the President's numbers. More than a mistake, it
might be irresponsible." - Statement by House Science Committee
Democrats
"The decline in funding for the physical sciences has put our
Nation's capabilities for scientific innovation at risk." -
Senate
Appropriations Subcommittee Chairman Christopher "Kit" Bond
(R-MO) at
NSF budget hearing
"Everything you do needs to be a short fuse...not [as] an R&D
problem
for the sake of doing R&D...we are looking to you for solutions...we
want them fast." - House Appropriations Subcommittee Chairman
Harold
Rogers (R-KY) to Department of Homeland Security Undersecretary for
S&T Charles McQueary
"Our enthusiasm was more than just rhetoric." - Rep.
Alan Mollohan
(D-WV) at NSF budget hearing, commenting on the passage of the NSF
authorization act and previous funding increase.
"You've got to ask for more money." - Rep. Joe Knollenberg
(R-MI) to
NSF Director Rita Colwell at budget hearing
"We do know the emission of greenhouse gases is not healthy
for the
environment. As many of the top scientists throughout the world have
stated, the sooner we start to reduce these emissions, the better off
we will be in the future." - Senate Commerce, Science and
Transportation Committee Chairman John McCain (R-AZ)
"We've got quite an educational process to do." -
Senator Bill Nelson
(D-FL) speaking in support of climate change legislation
"It is imperative that in this race, the U.S. must be first
across
the finish line." - Rep. Mike Honda (D-CA) advocating for
nanotechnology research authorization bill
"This is the only technology we know of that can change the
game." -
DOE Assistant Secretary David Garman at a hearing on hydrogen energy
research
"I think the NIH investment is almost sacred for a very
understandable reason. Most people look at the investment we are
making in NIH and don't give it a second thought - 'Aye' they vote.
Because they look at people with a whole host of problems that
research is addressing at NIH and say, 'there but for the grace of
God go I.'" - Chairman Boehlert
"Really, you know, a lot of the budget is often determined
by having
a few key players who are your vocal advocates, rather than winning
over 435 Members. You just need to make sure that you don't have any
opponents among the other 400...if you've got an advocate."
- Senior
House Science Committee staffer discussing why DOE science funding
has not increased
"'You can't have that kind of war. There just aren't enough
bulldozers to scrape the bodies off the streets.'" - President
Dwight
Eisenhower, as quoted by Rep. Ellen Tauscher (D-CA) during House
floor debate on proposed research funding for new classes of nuclear
weapons
"Our potential enemies are burrowing in. They are putting their
command and control centers, the people with their fingers on the
trigger, in hard and deeply buried bunkers. For deterrence to work,
we have to hold at risk those things which our potential enemies
value and that means holding hard and deeply buried targets at risk."
- Rep. Heather Wilson (R-NM) during House debate on new nuclear
weapons funding
"This is a big vote. This is the vote that opens the door.
How we
can repeal [current legislative] language that says to all the world
the United States is not in the nuclear development business, I do
not know, but I find it absolutely chilling and even diabolical,
particularly when we preach to other nations." - Senator Dianne
Feinstein (D-CA) on new nuclear weapons funding
"We have a responsibility to ensure the safety and security
of all
Americans. We should not place artificial limits on the intellectual
work of our gifted scientists to explore new technologies, to
understand what is possible as well as what potential adversaries
could be exploring." - Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman
John
Warner (R-VA) on new nuclear weapons funding
"Shrinking investment in the physical sciences and engineering
poses
serious risks to DOE's ability to perform its mission." - Senate
Appropriations Committee report
"There needs to be a serious debate about whether the approximately
$6 billion spent annually on DOE's nuclear weapons complex is a sound
national security investment." - House Appropriations Committee
report
"Anything is possible." - Commerce Deputy Secretary
Sam Bodman on
possibility of Kyoto-type caps on greenhouse gas emissions as a
result of the Administration's climate change research program
"ITER is more than just fusion energy sciences; it may well
be the
path forward for all of large-scale truly international science
collaborations. So we have a lot at stake in this process."
-
Director Ray Orbach
"The nation must have a balanced investment to maintain the
overall
health of science and technology research.... Recent increases in
NIH and NSF cannot compensate for the declines in funding at federal
agencies such as the Department of Energy." - Senator Lamar
Alexander
(R-TN)
"The opportunities in high energy physics have increased, not
diminished, in importance during the past decade. But at the same
time the opportunities in these other very attractive fields of
science are also increasing, and very rapidly. What this suggests to
me is that federal budgets for high energy physics are not very
likely to grow substantially faster than in the past." - OSTP
Director John Marburger
"The foam did it." - Admiral Harold Gehman, Chair
of Columbia
Accident Investigation Board
"We have a lot riding on you." - Rep. Rush Holt (D-NJ)
to Department
of Homeland Security Under Secretary for S&T McQueary
"The importance of DOE science and facilities to our national,
economic and energy security are not well understood by the American
public, Congress, or the Executive Branch." - Final Report
of the
Secretary of Energy Advisory Board's Task Force on the Future of
Science Programs at DOE
"The whole point of leaving home is, after all, to go somewhere,
not
to endlessly circle the block." - Wesley Huntress, Carnegie
Institution at hearing on NASA human space flight program
"Budget drives everything that we do." - DOE Associate
Director of
Science Patricia Dehmer
"The calendar is not going to drive this." - NASA
Administrator Sean
O'Keefe on the use of the space shuttle
"So I am here today to release a 20-year roadmap for future
scientific facilities. These facilities and upgrades to our current
inventory will revolutionize science...and society. They are needed
to extend the frontiers of science, to pursue opportunities of
enormous importance, and to maintain U.S. science primacy in the
world." - Energy Secretary Abraham on release of DOE science
facilities plan
"It will be up to Congress and the Administration to determine
how
much to spend on science and on new scientific facilities and to
balance them against other national priorities." - Secretary
Abraham
on DOE science facilities plan, explaining that it was not a budget
document
"I believe the science we have seen does not support the need
to
engage in questionable policies to control so-called 'global
warming.' We need more evidence that the climate is actually
affected by emissions, especially carbon emissions, before we act too
quickly...." - Senator Jim Bunning (R-KY)
"There are those who say that climate change is a hoax, a concoction
of radical environmentalists and a liberal media. That is simply
hogwash . . . . To ignore and dismiss the threat of climate change
to the economy and the environment is like insisting the earth is
flat." - Senator Jim Jeffords (I-VT)
"I would like to caution you about the use of the word 'balance.'"
-
OSTP Assistant Director for Physical Sciences and Engineering Patrick
Looney at a DOE advisory committee meeting, regarding federal
research funding allocations. Looney later called it a "red-hot
word" that was "divisive."
"Nobody knows that DOE does science." - William Martin,
former DOE
deputy director at meeting of Secretary of Energy Advisory Board
"I used to long for the call that I had been named to the
Appropriations Committee. I am not sure I would take that same call
today. . . . Because they've got a God-awful job." - Chairman
Boehlert
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