It’s been a roller-coaster ride the past couple of days regarding funding for the basic physical sciences. First, on Tuesday night our new self-proclaimed Science President announced a doubling of funds for research in the physical sciences. It was a very welcome announcement, but a tough sell in convincing us all given the Science President’s track record. Then the Science President’s science advisor, Dr. Marburger, held a web-based Q&A session on Wednesday afternoon. Our friends broke through and got answers to our very basic question: `does this new science iniative encompass basic science such a particle physics?‘ Alas, the answer was no.
Today, the Department of Energy (DOE) – the agency who supports the majority of basic physical science research – issued a press release regarding its request for funds for fiscal year 2007 for the DOE Office of Science. And, it is very, very, very welcome news indeed! Here are the first two paragraphs of this press release:
As part of the American Competitiveness Initiative, U.S. Secretary of Energy Samuel W. Bodman today announced that the Fiscal Year (FY) 2007 budget requests $4.1 billion for the Department of Energy’s (DOE) Office of Science, a $505 million (14.1%) increase over FY 2006 funding. This budget puts DOE’s Office of Science on the path to doubling its budget by FY 2016. The increased funding represents a major contribution to our national investment in basic science research – research critical to ensuring American competitiveness in the world, and to enhancing our energy security in the years ahead.
“This is an historic step and will change the future of science in this country,” Secretary Bodman said. “Continued American leadership in science is critical to our ability to innovate and grow. These funds will also provide new educational and training opportunities that will give the next generation of scientists, teachers, and engineers the tools they need to succeed.”
Here is the actual breakdown of funds (in millions of $):
Basic Energy Sciences: $1421 M total, increase over FY06 $286.4 M
Biological and Environmental Research: $510.3 M total, increase over FY06 $54.6 M
High Energy Physics Program: $775.1 M total, increase over FY06 $58.4 M
Nuclear Physics Program: $454.1 M total, increase over FY06 $87 M
Fusion Energy Sciences Program: $319.0 M total, increase over FY06 $31.3 M
Advanced Scientific Computing Research: $318.7 M total, increase over FY06 $84 M
Workforce Development for Teachers and Scientists Program: $11.0 M total, increase over FY06 $3.8 M
Here is the language (i.e., description paragraph) accompanying the HEP budget figures:
This is a $58.4 million increase over FY 2006. This funding for grants and full experimental facility operations will be used to further explore basic research to explore the laws of nature governing the most basic constituents of matter and the forces binding them. These are fundamental principles at the heart of physics and the physical sciences. Project engineering and design funding of $10.3 million is requested for the new Electron Neutrino Appearance project.
Here is the language for Nuclear Physics:
This is an $87 million increase over FY 2006. This funding supports research to provide new insights and knowledge of the structure and interaction of atomic nuclei and the primary forces of particles of nature in nuclear matter. The funding increase restores operations at both the Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility (TJNAF) and the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC). In addition, new funding is requested for a TJNAF power upgrade and a new injector for RHIC.
It is exceptional that a press release on science funding has been issued, period. Let alone in advance of the release of the President’s budget for the upcoming fiscal year. This is being showcased and is good, encouraging news overall and I hope the trend continues! (Although, I’d like to know why high energy physics received a lower percentage increase than the other fields….)
These increases are very much needed. Now we can run our facilities and carry out our experiments as planned instead of terminating them prematurely. However, Congress must be functional and pass these funding increases into law….
February 3rd, 2006 at 12:00 am
Wow! Fantastic! Thanks for the details JoAnne -cvj
February 3rd, 2006 at 12:12 am
Wow, congratulations to us all…(I have to admit some part of my brain is still looking for the catch, but it does look real, detailed and specific…).
February 3rd, 2006 at 12:21 am
Whew! Now I don’t have to go into accelerator research just to prove a point. Thanks for the info JoAnne. Just out of curiosity, since you’re more up to speed than I am, but how does the DOE’s request usually compare to the actual funding?
February 3rd, 2006 at 12:23 am
Moshe, I know exactly what you mean! However, since this press release came from the DOE, this is the actual language and figures that will be in the FY07 budget to be released on Monday. They simply can’t afford to make this stuff up on an early press release. The only catch is that Congress, in its infinite wisdom, has to pass this budget…..that will take about a year!
February 3rd, 2006 at 12:27 am
Collin, in the past couple years, the President’s budget has been so dismal that Congress has actually increased the DOE Office of Science budget for HEP by about $10M. However, on the other hand, the proposed doubling of the NSF’s budget has yet to materialize (fault is with both Congress and the President’s office here).
February 3rd, 2006 at 12:57 am
Excellent news. Let’s cross our fingers that it continues to be real.
February 3rd, 2006 at 6:58 am
Great stuff! I’m going to hold my breath for a few months, and I need to see how NSF is doing, for my own reasons, but this does appear to be good news.
February 3rd, 2006 at 9:50 am
I heard Kay Bailey Hutchison on our local public radio station this morning say that she wants to double NSF’s funding similar to the doubling of NIH’s funding which she claimed has been extremely successful. I wasn’t able to catch the whole story, so I apologize if this is old news, but it is encouraging. We shall see.
February 3rd, 2006 at 2:58 pm
[...] Back here in the U.S., on Monday the Bush administration is releasing its FY2007 budget proposals. An outline of the DOE budget lists an 8% increase in HEP spending to $775.1 million, as well as full funding for RHIC. The NSF should also see a sizable increase as part of the so-called American Competitiveness Initiative. The folks over at Cosmic Variance are experiencing some cognitive dissonance. [...]
February 3rd, 2006 at 3:09 pm
Impressive! Now if they can just lay off the embryonic stem cells and other “culture of life” issues (:cough:Plan B:cough:) we’ll really be cooking with gas…
February 3rd, 2006 at 4:02 pm
Why should particle physics get any more funding–that is, why should my taxes go up to pay for it? What has particle physics done since the ’70s? Not much that I see…and now they want even more money? Meanwhile I’m struggling to pay my rent and living without health insurance–as are 45M other Americans. These are considerably higher priorities than the third digit of the B meson’s mass. People before particles.
February 3rd, 2006 at 5:04 pm
Ben,
Your share of the particle physics funding increase is about a quarter. I don’t think that eliminating the increased particle physics funding will help you with your rent or fund health insurance for you. If you want people without much money to have health insurance, it’s not going to happen by cutting science research funding. The only way it will happen is by getting politicians ideologically opposed to universal health insurance (and in the pockets of the insurance and pharmaceutical industries) out of office. They’re the people causing you a problem, not high energy physicists.
February 3rd, 2006 at 5:14 pm
Sorry, but this is rather like Enron announcing major investments in new energy sources or the establishment of a charitable foundation, before we discover that the company has been financially gutted by its senior management.
Somehow, announcements to increase federal funding for anything sound like a scam when they’re coming from this administration, whose strongest allies include people like Grover Norquist, who has declared that he would like to get government “down to the size where we can drown it in the bathtub.”
February 3rd, 2006 at 5:44 pm
Chris,
Actually, this administration has repeatedly increased federal spending rather dramatically since 2000. Why Norquist and the libertarians aren’t in total outrage at all of that is beyond me – but the facts are clear. Even _excluding DHS and DOD_, Bush has increased spending at a rate faster than Clinton while cutting taxes.
Now, given the terrifically anti-science record of the Bush admin, I continue to be very skeptical of this news, but it does look great so far. A long period of decay in physical science funding might be ending.
February 3rd, 2006 at 5:47 pm
Also, note that congress more often ‘brings home the bacon’ in election years, and passes bigger budgets earlier.
February 3rd, 2006 at 6:29 pm
Ben,
Since the 70’s, experimental particle physics has built and confirmed the Standard Model which is our foundation for understanding the universe. You either find this interesting and worthwhile, or you don’t. But if you don’t, then you’re wasting your time reading this blog.
I plan to blog on the development of the Standard Model fairly soon, so people will understand how long it took.
February 3rd, 2006 at 7:12 pm
Ben,
These problems are caused precisely because people in the US don’t want to pay taxes or pay social premiums etc. Things have to go badly wrong before they’ll see that the ideology of less government, low taxes etc. doesn’t work. Katrina was one such disaster and probably not the last one.
February 3rd, 2006 at 7:45 pm
[...] JoAnne, over at Cosmic Variance, managed to dig up a few more details on the president’s budget: [...]
February 4th, 2006 at 9:31 am
Sean wrote:
Excellent news. Let’s cross our fingers that it continues to be real.
It’ll probably come with a few strings attached. Perhaps a requirement to give equal time to “faith-based” physics and “intelligent design”. After all, science is really just a bunch of “theories” and we are talking about public funds here.
Just like the stuff that goes to NASA
From the New York Times
Non pay-wall mirror
“In October, for example, George Deutsch, a presidential appointee in NASA headquarters, told a Web designer working for the agency to add the word “theory” after every mention of the Big Bang, according to an e-mail message from Mr. Deutsch that another NASA employee forwarded to The Times.”
“… The Big Bang memo came from Mr. Deutsch, a 24-year-old presidential appointee in the press office at NASA headquarters whose résumé says he was an intern in the “war room” of the 2004 Bush-Cheney re-election campaign. A 2003 journalism graduate of Texas A&M, he was also the public-affairs officer who sought more control over Dr. Hansen’s public statements.”
“… The Big Bang is “not proven fact; it is opinion,” Mr. Deutsch wrote, adding, “It is not NASA’s place, nor should it be to make a declaration such as this about the existence of the universe that discounts intelligent design by a creator.” It continued: “This is more than a science issue, it is a religious issue. And I would hate to think that young people would only be getting one-half of this debate from NASA. That would mean we had failed to properly educate the very people who rely on us for factual information the most.”
February 4th, 2006 at 5:52 pm
Damn you people are naive. Have you been asleep for the last 5 years?
This is Bush tactics 101. The press release gets lots of publicity, lots of “That Bush isn’t such a bad guy” vibe, then later on absolutely nothing happens. If Bush is actually pressed on the issue, he’ll blame Congress, but it probably won’t even come to that.
Look at AIDS funding. Look at debt relief. Look at last year’s 1-2 release of first, a major press release talking about the savings in the budget followed by the actual budget (with rather less fanfare) that included tax cuts equal to twice the budget savings.
For evil to triumph, it is sufficient that the voters be complete morons. Luckily for the Bush people, that is what they have in the US, where even supposedly intelligent people like the readers of this blog, fall for the old Lucy-Snoopy-football bit EVERY FREAKING TIME. Five years of this, and you are still running around saying “no, no, this time it will be different”.
February 6th, 2006 at 1:49 pm
[...] The President’s budget request for Fiscal Year 2007 was released this morning. The highlights can be found here and the details here. It includes the 14.1% increase for the DOE Office of Science as reported here last week. $60 M from the high energy physics budget is earmarked for Research&Development of the accelerator design for the International Linear Collider. I think that’s a good thing, but others may be disappointed. [...]
February 7th, 2006 at 10:27 am
I have to agree with Maynard. This totals to budgetary increases of $605.5M. Any handicappers want to take a shot at the over-under on the actual?
I’ll go first: $76M (2% increase)
February 22nd, 2006 at 4:57 pm
Well, that’s a new incarnation of comment spam….
March 4th, 2006 at 11:38 pm
Wow, that’s amazing. I’d be happy for you, except NASA is appears to be taking exactly the opposite stance. Sigh. I think I’ll apply for some NSF grants…