DOE Advisory Committee Addresses Letters to Secretary O’Leary

Arising out of the July 16-17 Fusion Energy Sciences Advisory Committee (FESAC) meeting (see FYI #115 for details), two letters were addressed to Energy Secretary Hazel O’Leary regarding recent congressional action on the DOE FY 1997 budget for Fusion Energy Sciences. Please see FYI #110 for details of the House and Senate action. The full text of both letters is below. The first is signed by FESAC Chairman Robert Conn on behalf of the advisory committee; the second is signed by James Callen, chairman of FESAC’s Scientific Issues Subcommittee.

***** Dear Secretary O’Leary:

The House and Senate Appropriations Committees recommended last week different budget levels [Request: $256 million; House report: $225 million; Senate report: $240 million], along with different appropriations bill language, for the Department’s FY 1997 Fusion Energy Sciences Program. Both the House and the Senate Appropriations Committees commend the community for developing a restructured program plan that meets the objectives of the scientific community as well as the objectives of the Congress and Administration. However, the budget levels appropriated are, in our view, inadequate to implement the restructured program and endanger the community consensus built around this plan.

Your Fusion Energy Sciences Advisory Committee (FESAC) thanks you and the Department for your strong support and urges two actions:

First, that the Department argue vigorously for a budget of at least $250 million, and preferably approaching the President’s request.

In our report, “A Restructured Fusion Energy Science Program,” FEAC recommended a $275 million funding level and reported that the goals of the restructured program cannot be effectively implemented at budget levels below $250 million.

Second, that the Department seek language from the Congress to allow maximum flexibility in the implementation of the restructured fusion program plan.

In this regard, we note that the specific language in the House appropriations bill will have devastating effects on the program, as detailed in the letter to you from the chair of our Scientific Issues Subcommittee [below]. The FESAC urges you to support language which is not restrictive, but rather which instructs the Department to work with FESAC and the scientific community to determine the allocation of funds that will be most effective in helping to implement the restructured fusion program.

We appreciate your continuing support and look forward to helping the Department implement a vigorous Fusion Energy Sciences Program.

*****

Dear Secretary O’Leary:

The recent markups of the fiscal year 1997 budget for fusion by the House Appropriations Subcommittee (for $225M, with highly prescriptive directives) and by the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee ($240M with much less prescriptive language) represent a threat to a viable fusion program. We seek your help in securing a funding level closer to the Presidential request level and restoring maximum programmatic flexibility.

These markups provide significantly less funding than needed to implement the restructuring of the fusion program proposed by the Fusion Energy Advisory Committee (FEAC) in its January 27 report. That report called for “A Restructured Fusion Energy Sciences Program” in response to fiscal 1996 Congressional Conference Report language and 33% budget cut, and the resultant charge to it by the Director of the Office of Energy Research (OER). The FEAC report recommended $275M, and indicated that below $250M “there is a very painful conflict among implementing the goals of the restructured program, honoring our international commitment to ITER and obtaining any further valuable scientific benefits from TFTR.” In response to the FEAC report, the Presidential budget requested $256M for the fusion program. (Program support of $8.4M and fusion NERSC computer center support of $7.6M were funded elsewhere, as is the case for the other Office of Energy Research programs.)

In addition, the House Subcommittee language directives which prescribe about 90% of their budget are of great concern and severely limit the restructuring proposed by the FEAC report. They also circumvent the principle (suggested in the 1996 fiscal year Conference report) that FEAC and the scientific community participate in planning and implementing the fusion program, particularly at reduced budget levels.

The House markup contains $47M less than the Presidential Request, with many specific elements, mainly the large projects, singled out for funding at nearly Presidential Request levels. Therefore, the budget for the remaining, mostly small elements, would have to be reduced by a factor of more than three, after taking account of the mandatory $3M Small Business Innovative Research budget item. Among the small elements thereby slated for massive reductions from their Presidential Request levels are: university experimental research ($20M); enabling plasma and fusion technologies ($11M); fusion materials ($9M); Inertial Fusion Energy ($8M); and other (than ITER) international collaborations and miscellaneous items (fellowships, etc.) ($7M) -- a total of $55M to be reduced to $16M. This reduction in these mostly small scale fusion science and technology budget elements would devastate research in these important areas. In particular, student training at universities would be dramatically reduced.

We appreciate your and your staff’s very responsible role in bringing the fusion program through the recent difficult times in response to the fiscal year 1996 33% cut in the fusion budget and the Congressional call for a restructured program. This year’s Presidential budget request for [$256M] was responsive to the FEAC-recommended restructuring both in level and distribution among highest priority elements.

We request that you do whatever you can to get the fusion budget increased toward the Presidential Request level, and to get programmatic flexibility restored to the maximum extent. *****