Senate DOE Appropriations Report Language: Superconducting Super Collider

Accompanying the bill, H.R. 2445, the Energy and Water Development Appropriations bill for fiscal year 1994, is a report from the Senate Appropriations Committee. Senate Report 103-147 contains committee recommendations for various Department of Energy programs. While not having the force of law, these recommendations are generally adhered to by a department or agency. Final report language and funding levels are determined by a conference committee composed of members from the House and Senate Appropriations Committees. Earlier this year the House voted to terminate the Superconducting Super Collider.

The following is the report language, in total, for the SSC. Other programs are covered in FYIs #125 and 127.

SUPERCONDUCTING SUPER COLLIDER:

“The Committee recommends $640,000,000 for the superconducting super collider to permit continued construction of this high-priority national project.

“As the Committee has noted for the last several years, construction of the SSC is the highest priority in particle physics today and is a critical necessity to permit progress in the basic understanding of matter into the 21st century. Numerous scientific reviews have affirmed and reaffirmed the fact that the SSC is the next logical and meaningful step in the ages-old quest for a deeper understanding of what things are made of and how they work.

“Progress on the SSC has been impressive. Currently the project is about 20 percent complete. All major technical milestones have been met. The critical technical challenge to the project, the design and fabrication of the large superconducting dipole magnets, has been met. Highly successful magnets have been built at our national laboratories and the technology has been transferred to industry from those laboratories. Over 14 miles of the 54-mile collider tunnel have been completed.

“The SSC continues to meet its cost and schedule goals as the Secretary of Energy testified before the Committee. The Committee is aware of a number of criticisms of SSC management that have been made public recently, but notes that those criticisms having any merit at all are aimed principally at the transparency and ease of use of financial and schedule reporting systems and not at any misuse of funds or mismanagement of project activities. The Department and its contractor have outlined the steps that will be taken to improve the performance of the project reporting systems while maintaining the excellent technical progress on the project.

“The SSC continues to create excitement and activity in the world scientific community. Over 2000 scientists from 23 countries are working on the design, development, and construction of the two major detectors that will address the scientific questions at the SSC. More than 100 American universities are involved in this effort.

“The SSC is also having an impact on American industry. In addition to the transfer of technology from laboratories to industry that is evident in the SSC’s magnet program, new tools and techniques that are employed to meet the SSC’s demanding performance requirements are finding significant application in other areas. The fabrication of high-quality superconducting wire, widespread uses of high-performance parallel computing, development of rapid tunnel-boring machines, and the use of proton beams in cancer therapy are but a few examples.

“As it noted last year in its report on the super collider appropriation, the Committee recognizes the historically international character of high-energy physics and encourages the Secretary of Energy to continue efforts seeking significant foreign contributions to the construction of the project. The Committee recognizes the difficulty of obtaining firm commitments from foreign governments in light of the uncertainty of the U.S. commitment that is highlighted by the annual debate over continued funding for the project in the U.S. Congress. The Committee reiterates its early contention that construction of the SSC should not be made dependent on obtaining foreign contributions. Since the SSC is an important, high-priority project, this nation should be prepared to complete the project whether or not foreign contributions are obtained. The clear benefits of U.S. industries far outweigh any costs that might be attributed to a lack of foreign contributions.

“It is apparent that the SSC has become a symbol of excessive government spending and that opposition to the project is taken, by some, as a symbol of fiscal responsibility. The Committee finds this outlook damaging. The SSC is an investment with great promise of profound new scientific knowledge and demonstrated capacity to develop future technologies and the economic well-being that will accompany these technologies. Terminating the SSC is not a mark of fiscal responsibility; true fiscal responsibility would nurture and encourage such investment and would demonstrate, to the Nation and the world, that this country can successfully complete the challenging projects on which it embarks.”