High Energy and Nuclear Physics Authorization Act Advances Another Step

H.R. 4684, the Department of Energy High Energy and Nuclear Physics Authorization Act of 1994, took another step forward this morning. After a thirty minute hearing, House Science Subcommittee members unanimously voted to revise the original bill and send it on to the full House science committee.

A markup provides members the opportunity to “mark up” or revise legislation before it moves forward. This morning’s markup went smoothly, with subcommittee chairman Rick Boucher (D-VA), Ranking Minority Member Sherwood Boehlert (R-NY), and Joe Barton (R-TX) doing all of the talking. Boucher’s opening comments revolved around three major themes: the previous deliberate underfunding of the high energy physics base program to accommodate SSC spending, U.S. participation in the Large Hadron Collider, and the need for DOE to engage in strategic and budgetary program planning.

Boucher stressed the relative low cost of the bill, saying it represented around one percent of the total SSC cost. He said the “time has come” for the U.S. to participate in the LHC, adding that it would improve the chances of a post-2000 linear accelerator being built in the U.S. H.R. 4684 requires congressional authorization for projects costing over $100 million, reducing the probability of future SSC-type terminations. Boucher added that the scientific community fully supports this bill. He then introduced “an amendment in the nature of a substitute,” which is congressional lingo for a revised version of the original bill.

Recommendations made by the physics community and DOE are incorporated into the new bill language. Authorization (e.g., permission to spend -- not the actual funding) levels are unchanged (see FYI #105.) Less restrictive language was inserted concerning the LHC, the Los Alamos Meson Physics Facility, DOE regulatory review, and DOE strategic and budgetary planning.

Boehlert and Barton may further amend the bill in the full science committee markup, scheduled for next week. Boehlert’s amendments call for DOE and NSF to work more closely together, for the General Accounting Office to review DOE laboratory regulations, and for a study to determine the number of graduate students supported by DOE and NSF programs. He will confer with his colleagues and DOE before offering these amendments.

Barton’s amendment requires CERN to agree to participate in the SSC if it is restarted, before the United States could participate in the LHC. Barton knows his amendment is unpopular with the subcommittee: he said Boucher had “enough [no] proxies to walk all over me.” Boucher said this provision would kill U.S. participation in the LHC. He said the SSC “has been terminated,” and it is time to look to the future. Barton replied that the lower-powered LHC is not the ultimate instrument that the high energy physics community is seeking, but then withdrew his amendment for the present.