[FoRK] Science: No Ideology, No False Agenda

[Wayne Baisley]

The view from places where actual science is being done is pretty bleak right 
now.  Despite Congress's saying the right things, and apparently working for 
months to get the funding priorities right, there was some last minute 
closed-door slashing that has taken Fermilab, Argonne, SLAC, and others, by 
surprise.  This is not the first time that's happened; in fact, some kind of 
upset is an almost yearly feature of lab budgets.  But this one is brutal.

The situation at Fermi is this -- unless supplemental funding is produced in a 
hurry, we will get rid of 10% of the workforce, and those remaining will have 
a "rolling furlough" of at least 2 days per month starting in February. 
That's a minimum 10% salary cut for 2/3 of the fiscal year.  (There are rumors 
floating around today that it could be as much as 25%, but they are only 
rumors at this point, however scary.)  SLAC's cuts are a larger proportion 
than Fermi's.  I'm not sure where Argonne's fit.

Besides the hardship this will visit on the scientists, engineers, and other 
employees at the Lab, damage is to the well-being of Science and everything 
that flows from it (like having good physics profs to teach EEs, to pick a 
personal example).  We've known for some time that Fermi would eventually cede 
leadership on the energy frontier to CERN, now imminent, but the physics 
community has long expected that there would be a reasonable shot at future 
projects to keep High Energy Physics viable and attractive to future students 
and scientists.  Because of the fickle and flaky way in which funding is 
handled by our political process, there is, in my opinion, no chance of 
landing the next significant collider project in the US.  The problem is that 
no country has the resources or commitment to go it alone, so international 
collaborations are the only game in town, so to speak.  With our track record 
of starting and killing projects, like the SSC and BTeV, it's hard to imagine 
a sane country committing their resources to a project in the US.  Or even 
committing to a project in their own country if it depends on any significant 
measure of US funding.

In this respect, we have the scurrilous example of ITER, an international 
fusion reactor project just starting in France.  It took a decade to get the 
treaty-level agreements in place and there was great fanfare for the signing 
at Versailles last summer.  They've recently broken ground on the construction 
but over a weekend in December, Congress eliminated US funding for the 
project.  Regardless of whether you think tokamaks are worth any investment (I 
wouldn't have voted for them), this is bad faith.

The other problem for Fermilab comes from the nature of Congressional budgets. 
  The cuts came in 3 places, which comprise essentially all of the Lab's 
future; 2 R&D projects in preparation for a possible International Linear 
Collider, and 1 neutrino project called NOvA.  These projects were "rescinded 
to 25% of the planned 2008 budget" and so must stop immediately, the first 
fiscal quarter being over.  Because the law is written in that way, the Office 
of Science cannot attempt to deal with the DOE's overall budget shortfall by 
readjusting priorities.  Work on these projects must stop.  This is bitterly 
ironic, since we've just completed an excellent year with 3 of the AIP's top 
10 physics stories coming from Fermilab (numbers 6, 7, and 9 in this list): 
<http://www.aip.org/pnu/2007/split/850-1.html>.  I've got links to some 
articles as well as to the video of the Director's all-hands address on the 
budget bombshell at:

<http://del.icio.us/vi.cio.us/GoPeddleChangeSomewhereElseWereAllFullUpHere>

The end of the world?  Hardly.  But I can't see it as any kind of step 
forward.  I'd really like to see the moribund fission area revived, but that's 
a pipedream yet, and even more vulnerable.  I am worried about the people that 
work for and with me.  If you feel so moved, write to your representatives and 
senators.  I expected better of them, but personally I'm more focused on cover 
letters at present.

Cheers,
Wayne