Ray Orbach has completed testifying before House and Senate appropriators
about the 14.1% requested budget increase for the Department of Energy's
Office of Science. During two morning hearings last week before House
and Senate Energy and Water Development Subcommittee appropriators,
Director Orbach heard much praise and little or no criticism about the
FY 2007 request. While these hearings are not money in the bank, they
are positive signs about the receptivity of appropriators to the request.
House Energy and Water Development Appropriations Subcommittee Chairman
David Hobson (R-OH) began his hearing, which was devoted exclusively
to the Office of Science, by saying "In general, I'm a strong
supporter of basic research and I give [Energy] Secretary [Samuel] Bodman
and Dr. Orbach credit for bringing about this healthy increase in the
science budget." Hobson continued, "The Secretary deserves
recognition for making some hard choices within an overall budget for
the Department of Energy. It remains essentially flat for ‘07.
I know that others may not be happy with the other programs that the
Secretary chose to cut in order to provide for the Office of Science
increase, but I respect the Secretary's willingness to make such tradeoffs.
. . . I also want to give Dr. Orbach credit for instituting a long range
planning process that lends credibility to the proposed science budget
for ‘07. Starting with a twenty-year outlook for DOE science facilities,
the Office of Science went on to prepare business plans for each of
its ten science laboratories and then used all that information to prepare
a five-year budget plan for the Office of Science." And then,
of note, Hobson declared, "This is how I envisioned the long
range planning budget working and I appreciate that Dr. Orbach and his
staff took this very seriously. I only wish that other programs' officers
in DOE took it as seriously. Maybe they will eventually make the connection
between having a credible long range planning process and having a credible
budget request, or maybe not. There will always be some winners and
some losers in the competition for a limited appropriation."
Ranking Member Peter Visclosky (D-IN) expressed support for a "long
overdue" increase in the Office of Science budget, although he
pointed out that it came at the expense of other DOE programs. Rep.
Rodney Frelinghuysen (R-NJ), who has raised concerns about fusion funding
in previous hearings, stated, "The 2007 budget request of $319
million for fusion energy research looks pretty healthy as it allows
you to invest in ITER while maintaining domestic fusion research activities
in operating U.S. fusion facilities at optimal levels." Frelinghuysen
did express concern about a 25% proposed cut in high energy density
physics at the OMEGA facility and the National Compact Stellarator Experiment
(NCSX). Frelinghuysen seemed generally satisfied with Orbach's explanation
of how the National Nuclear Security Administration would be supporting
some of this work as the Office of Science focuses on ITER, and that
NCSX funding was on target, with future funding support for OMEGA through
a different channel. At the end of the hearing, Visclosky asked Orbach,
"Under the five-year plan, will other domestic fusion work for
Office of Science programs be reduced in the out years to pay for the
U.S. share of ITER?" Orbach replied, "No. We intend to continue
the domestic program with at least an inflationary increase over the
next five years."
Visclosky asked Orbach about the decision to defer construction of
the Rare Isotope Accelerator. Visclosky seemed to accept Orbach's explanation
that projected exotic beam funding would not support construction of
the facility, with future decisions awaiting a National Academies' report
due this fall. DOE has scheduled project engineering and design to commence
in FY 2011 on such a facility. Visclosky also asked Orbach about differences
in median starting salaries for new PhDs in physics, citing an article
in the March issue of "Physics Today" that summarized
a study conducted by AIP's Statistical Research Center (see http://www.aip.org/statistics/trends/reports/emp.pdf
.)
Rep. Zach Wamp (R-TN) represents the district in which the $1.4 billion
Spallation Neutron Source is nearing completion. Wamp praised Orbach
in keeping the SNS on schedule and budget, and then said of the Republican
and Democratic leaders of the subcommittee, "the Hobson-Visclosky
partnership will have changed its unique situation for an appropriation
subcommittee to have this kind of impact on authorization, but they
will have changed the paradigm of nuclear weapons and they will have
made a huge change in investments for science, for physical sciences,
for supercomputing, for programs that are going to change the next generation
and I think it's remarkable and I think we need to highlight it."
Several representatives asked Orbach about future cellulosic ethanol
research programs. Orbach responded by summarizing an announcement that
had been made just the day before, saying the Office of Science is "reorienting
our Genomics -- GTL Program toward biofuels, and bio-energy is the title
we gave it, and we're very interested in using genomics to structure
microbes to transform cellulose into ultimately ethanol to avoid having
to go through the current process, to use enzymes to get sugars and
then you have to ferment the sugars." Orbach said a competition
will be announced this summer for two vertically-structured bio-energy
research centers. He said they will be cooperative agreements for which
anyone can compete. Around six months will be given for a response to
the RFP, with awards expected about one year from now if the budget
request is enacted. He admitted that this was high-risk, but enormously
high pay off research, with results to be expected after five or six
years.
Other topics raised during this hearing included competition for management
contracts for the national laboratories, DOE's K-12 education efforts,
the department's high-end computation program, and future workforce
diversity.
As expected at this early point in the appropriations cycle, Chairman
Hobson made no predictions about what his subcommittee would recommend
for the FY 2007 Office of Science budget. He did ask Orbach about budget
planning scenarios, saying "but you may not get it all . . . you
know, there may be some things that we have to do."
Senate appropriations subcommittee chairman Pete Domenici (R-NM) and
his colleagues gave Orbach another warm reception the next day. Ranking
Member Harry Reid (D-NV) said he was "delighted to see" the
Office of Science budget request. But he noted that major cuts had been
made in congressional priorities that would be restored by reducing
funding in what he called "significant initiatives" without
elaboration. Domenici predicted that Orbach's nomination to be Under
Secretary for Science would soon pass the Senate floor. Commenting on
President Bush's initiatives, Domenici said that physical sciences funding
is "of the utmost importance" for the U.S. to retain its leadership
edge. Listing major energy research programs with large price tags,
Domenici declared that there were tough fiscal decisions to be made.
While the questions at this hearing that also had David Garman, Under
Secretary for Energy and Environment, primarily focused on energy-related
issues, there were only positive words about the Office of Science at
this hearing. How this high regard will translate into hard dollars
will be evident when both subcommittees release their versions of the
FY 2007 Energy and Water Development Appropriations bills in coming
months.
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