“Coming Attractions” -- DOE Science in the New Millennia

Selecting her words carefully, Martha Krebs, director of DOE’s newly-renamed Office of Science, yesterday said that “things will get better” as the administration completes its FY 2000 budget request. In her remarks to the High Energy Physics Advisory Panel, Krebs added that there is “a lot more room for things to be playing out in these next few weeks.”

How “things will get better” is yet unknown, explained Krebs. DOE received its pass back from the Office of Management and Budget before Thanksgiving this year, far ahead of the usual schedule. A pass back is the reaction of the Director of the Office of Management and Budget to an initial budget request submitted by a department or agency. Krebs indicated that most S&T-related pass backs for next year have not been very popular. (See FYI #159 for November 23 remarks by OMB Director Jack Lew on the overall budget climate.)

Krebs began on an upbeat note, saying “this has been a pretty good year as a bottom line.... Overall, from my perspective, the administration recognizes and the Congress affirms the value of what you do.” Current year Budget and Program Priorities include the Spallation Neutron Source (“this is our way back into the billion-dollar machine business”), the Science Facilities Utilization, and Delivering the Large Hadron Collider. Krebs said there had been no congressional comment on the LHC, and complimented the community for its effective management of the project. Other items include the Climate Change Technology Initiative, the Next Generation Internet, Science Education, and Fusion and the ITER Transition (I “will not deal with that here.”)

Looking ahead as “Coming Attractions,” Krebs was very enthusiastic about the new perspectives DOE Under Secretary Ernie Moniz is implementing as the FY 2000 Budget is prepared. Moniz is organizing to present to Congress the department’s Science Portfolio under five themes: “Fueling the Future, Protecting our Living Planet, Exploring Matter and Energy, Extraordinary Tools for Extraordinary Science, and Enabling World Class Science.” Later, Krebs praised Bill Richardson, the new Energy Secretary. “The stars are well-aligned for science,” she said.

Describing the federal budget as a political and policy document of priorities, Krebs told panel members about the conflicting forces that are affecting the preparation of the FY 2000 budget. On the positive side is the growing federal budget surplus, although there is not a clear understanding what to do with this money. Yet spending caps still govern, Social Security reform is an unknown, budget barriers (fire walls) separating domestic and defense spending will be gone, and the Congress and the Administration do not agree on domestic v. defense spending. Congressional failure to adopt a budget resolution this year means that there are not any congressional spending projections for the next few years. These are, Krebs said, “serious, uncomfortable times...[but] sort of normal.”