House Appropriators Begin Work on Dept. of Energy FY 2004 Bill

House Energy and Water Development Appropriations Subcommittee Chairman David Hobson (R-Ohio) and his colleagues have completed work on the FY 2004 Energy and Water Development Appropriations bill. Hobson’s bill will go to the full committee early next week, after which a report will be issued outlining the committee’s recommendations. As the bill now stands, the science programs of the Department of Energy’s Office of Science would receive an increase of 6.7%.

Proposed funding figures for the programs under the Office of Science have been released by the subcommittee. In every case the committee provided more funding than that requested by the Bush Administration, and, except in one instance, provided increases over the current fiscal year. The subcommittee’s figures follow:

DOE Science Programs: Up 6.7%, or $220 million, from $3.26 billion this year to a proposed $3.48 billion in FY 2004.

High Energy Physics: Up 4.2%, or $30.1 million, from $717.9 million to $748 million.

Nuclear Physics: Up 5.2%, or $19.8 million, from $379.6 million to $399.4 million.

Biological and Environmental Research: Up 11.6%, or $58.4 million, from $503.6 million to $562 million.

Basic Energy Sciences: Down 1.6%, or $16.6 million, from $1.016.6 billion to $1.0 billion.

Fusion Energy Sciences: Up 8.6%, or $21.2 million, from $246.9 million to $268.1 million.

Advanced Computing Research: Up 27.5%, or $46.1 million, from $167.4 million to $213.5 million.

The subcommittee states that their bill includes full funding for the Spallation Neutron Source. Selections from the committee’s report regarding these programs will be provided in a future issue of FYI.