House Passes DOE R&D Authorization Bill

Both the House and Senate have passed their Energy and Water Development appropriations bills, which provide funding for much of DOE, among other agencies. However, they have not yet met in conference to reconcile the differences in their versions of the appropriations bill. In the meantime, the House on September 15 passed an authorization bill for DOE’s civilian R&D programs (H.R. 1655). Authorization bills are intended to provide guidance to appropriators, who actually provide funding. The House-passed authorization bill may help guide the conferees as they work toward consensus on the appropriations bill.

For DOE’s Office of Science, House appropriators generally followed the recommendations of the authorization bill, which was drafted first. Tight budget caps forced appropriators to give less in construction funding for the Spallation Neutron Source (SNS) than authorizers approved. Appropriators would, however, follow the authorization bill’s language requiring the Secretary of Energy to meet certain criteria regarding management of the SNS project in order to have use of the construction funds.

The House authorization levels for selected programs within DOE’s Office of Science are shown below, with quotes from the House Science Committee’s report (H. Rpt. 106-243) accompanying the bill:

HIGH ENERGY PHYSICS: [H.R. 1655: $715.1 million; House approps. bill: $715.5 million; Senate approps. bill: $691.1 million]. “The authorization levels provided for High Energy Physics should be sufficient to implement the February, 1998 High Energy Physics Panel (HEPAP) recommendations for a ‘current level of effort’ budget and that can sustain high-priority experimentation on current facilities and develop long-range opportunities for the field in the post-2010 era. The Committee notes HEPAP’s recognition that this budget profile requires termination of some current research in deference to higher priorities.” The Administration’s FY 2000 request was $697.1 million.

NUCLEAR PHYSICS: [H.R. 1655: $357.7 million; House approps. bill: $357.9 million; Senate approps. bill: $330.0 million]. “The authorization levels provided for Nuclear Physics support continuing operation of the MIT Bates Linear Accelerator Center, as well as for increased operations of the Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Laboratory and the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider and increased funding for university groups to more effectively participate in research at the new facilities.” The FY 2000 request was $342.9 million.

FUSION ENERGY SCIENCES: [H.R. 1655: $250.0 million; House approps. bill: $250.0 million; Senate approps. bill: $220.6 million]. “The Committee recognizes that the broad fusion community - both magnetic and inertial - have made substantial progress in redirecting the FES program over the past several years. The Committee also notes that there are a number of ongoing reviews of the program that may result in further restructuring and expects that the additional funds provided in this bill will be allocated in a manner consistent with the results of these reviews. The Committee also has included bill language that prohibits funds authorized by this Act to be used either directly or indirectly for further U.S. participation in the ITER EDA” [Engineering Design Activity for the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor]. The FY 2000 request was $222.6 million.

BASIC ENERGY SCIENCES: [H.R. 1655: $698.8 million; House approps. bill: $736.0 million; Senate approps. bill: $854.6 million]. The authorization bill omits funding for the Administration’s requested information technology programs within Basic Energy Sciences; the authorization for these programs is dealt with in other legislation. Excluding the information technology and Spallation Neutron Source programs, “The authorization levels...provide a substantial increase above the Administration’s request - particularly for the operation of the current portfolio of world-class scientific facilities. The Committee expects that these additional funds will be used to utilize these facilities more fully, as well as to support other long-range, high-risk basic research.” The Administration request for Basic Energy Sciences was $888.1 million, but cannot be compared directly to the authorization level because of the exclusion of the information technology programs.

- Spallation Neutron Source: The House and Senate appropriations bills and the House authorization bill all recommend the same amount, $17.9 million, for SNS research and development. For construction, the recommendations are as follows: H.R. 1655: $100.0 million; House approps. bill: $50.0 million; Senate approps. bill: $169.0 million. The Administration requested $214.0 million for the SNS, of which $17.9 million is for R&D and $196.1 million is for construction. The House’s authorization bill also - as does the House appropriations bill - puts conditions on DOE’s use of the SNS construction funds. In part, it requires the Secretary of Energy to provide the appropriate House and Senate authorization and appropriations committees with a series of cost baselines and project milestones for major construction activities and a revised project management structure.

The Senate has not drafted a comparable authorization bill for DOE’s civilian R&D programs. The timing of the House-Senate conference on the DOE appropriations bill has not yet been scheduled.