House Completes Consideration of FY 1997 DOE Appropriations Bill
The House of Representatives has completed action on its version of the Energy and Water Development Appropriations Bill for FY 1997. While there was discussion by Members about the reduction in fusion funding, no attempts were made to increase the fusion budget. Funding for that and other physics programs described in FYI #110 was unchanged.
The House considered H.R. 3816 on July 24 and 25 for about eight hours. Appropriations subcommittee chairman John Myers (R-IN) introduced this legislation saying “we have a bill that is not the bill that many of us would like to see,” and apologized for the delay in bringing it to the floor. Myers had stalled subcommittee action in hopes of getting additional money (see FYI #98), and more than a few times during the debate expressed the desire to increase funding levels had the money been available.
Myers explained that “the [appropriations] committee has done its best to preserve maximum funding for basic research and pure science activities of the Department.” Touching on a philosophy espoused by his party, he continued, “Operating in an environment of severe funding constraints, the committee has determined that these activities should receive higher priority than applied research and technology development, for which funding by private industry is more appropriate.”
There was little if any discussion about physics programs except for the reduction in fusion funding. Early in the debate, Reps. Rodney Frelinghuysen (R-NJ), David Obey (D-WI) and Tim Roemer (D-IN) criticized the committee’s fusion appropriation and its report language restricting how the money is to be spent. Roemer stated, “Such earmarking does not reflect well on the Congress and may do more harm to the Fusion R&D program than even the 40-percent cut it has received these past 2 years.” While defending the subcommittee’s action, one of its members, Frank Riggs (R-CA), replied that the House-Senate conference committee meeting (probably in September) will “need to evaluate how we can achieve the appropriate balance between identifying funding priorities and giving program managers necessary flexibility.” This concern was echoed by Reps. Roscoe Bartlett (R-MD), Ron Packard (R-CA), Zoe Lofgren (D-CA), and Vic Fazio (D-CA).
Later in the debate, Members criticized DOE’s budget and operations. Myers said that “We have many, many, too many national labs today. We have to do something about it.... We have to consolidate some of them. We just cannot continue to fund all of these.” While Myers is retiring at the end of this year, this is a matter that will continue to receive notice in 1997.
There were four roll call votes on amendments to the DOE portion of the bill. Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA) failed on a vote of 90/yes-331/no to shift DOE commercialization funding and program direction money into photovoltaic energy research. On a much closer vote (198-211), Obey failed to eliminate funding for the Advanced Light Water Reactor program. Rep. Edward Markey (D-MA) unsuccessfully (138-278) tried to delete $15 million for pyroprocessing, an experimental nuclear waste program. However, Rep. Dan Schaefer (R-CO) was able, on a vote of 279-135, to shift money into DOE’s renewable energy programs, partially at the expense of a 0.47% across-the-board cut to all energy supply, research and development programs. Among those programs affected by this reduction are fusion and medical isotopes.
The Senate completed consideration of this bill today; details will be reported in a forthcoming FYI. Final congressional action on this bill will occur in September after Congress returns from its upcoming vacation. In a recent statement of administration policy, the Office of Management and Budget threatened that the President will veto the current House version of this bill.
