DOE FY1995 Budget Bill Goes To House Floor - High Energy Physics, SSC

The House bill making fiscal year 1995 appropriations for the Department of Energy, H.R. 4506, passed the House Appropriations Committee on May 26. It now goes to the House floor, where a vote is expected the week of June 12. Accompanying the bill is a 146-page report outlining the Appropriations Committee’s recommendations for spending. FYIs #74 through #77 provide selections from the report of interest to the physics community.

HIGH ENERGY PHYSICS

The Committee’s bill provides a total of $646,890,000 for High Energy Physics. The current year’s appropriation is $617,499,000; the Administration’s FY 1995 request is $621,890,000. The report gives the following explanation:

“The Committee has provided an increase of $25,000,000 to the high energy physics program to partly restore purchasing power lost in funding for ongoing activities in the past two years. The cancellation of the Superconducting Super Collider leaves the base program significantly disabled. Restoration of the base program at existing facilities will require increased resources. The Committee notes that the running time at the Nation’s three major particle accelerators has declined over 25 percent from fiscal year 1993 to the level proposed in the fiscal year 1995 request.

“The Committee approves the budget request of $44,000,000 for the B-Factory upgrade at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center, and supports timely completion of both this facility and the Fermi Lab Main Injector, which, with the Brookhaven National Laboratory’s accelerator, will be the primary experimental facilities on which a strong high energy physics program can be based in the years ahead.”

SUPERCONDUCTING SUPER COLLIDER

No new funding is provided in the bill for SSC termination costs. The report states:

“The Administration has requested an additional $180,000,000 to terminate the Superconducting Super Collider. The Committee provided $640,000,000 in fiscal year 1994. This combined with unobligated balances from prior years will allow a total of $735,869,000 to finance the termination costs of the Superconducting Super Collider. The Committee is aware that the Department and the State of Texas are currently negotiating a settlement of Texas’s claims arising from the SSC termination. The Committee encourages the Department to conclude negotiations and consummate an agreement with the State of Texas in an expeditious manner, as required under previously issued directions by this Committee. Furthermore, upon conclusion of the Department’s settlement with the State of Texas, the Committee expects to be made aware of all Federal conditions necessary to satisfy any settlement with the State of Texas and fulfill the statutory mandate to maximize the value of the investment made in the project.”