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1\30 FYI No 11- Boehlert on S&T Prospects
Part 2 of 2

LAYING THE GROUNDWORK FOR DOE OFFICE OF SCIENCE:

"But what is the outlook for DOE science as a whole?  Well, while I 
wouldn't expect any startling increases in funding this year or next, 
I think the groundwork is being laid to take a serious look at the 
long-term needs of the Office of Science.

"First, the Office now has the magnificent leadership of Ray Orbach -- 
as thoughtful, inspiring and bold a director as one could hope for.  
Second, from global climate change to nanotechnology to supercomputing 
to homeland security, issues keep arising that bring the Office to the 
fore in science policy debates.  Third, and perhaps most 
significantly, the Department leadership is signaling that it wants to 
start focusing on strengthening the Office of Science in future years.  
And fourth, the Office of Science should begin to benefit from the 
growing awareness in Washington that the physical sciences are 
relatively underfunded.

"Last year's ill-fated Energy Bill gave a good indication that 
Congress was ready to consider significant increases for the Office of 
Science.  While the Energy Bill was stymied by major policy disputes 
over such issues as electric deregulation and climate change, the 
House and Senate on a bipartisan basis did come close to agreement on 
an R&D title.  In fact, only one issue - whether to create a new 
undersecretary - remained in dispute.

"My staff spent many late nights in August and September working out 
the details, and we have reintroduced last year's compromise as a new 
bill this year, H.R.238.  Our bill contains sizable increases for the 
Office of Science, authorizing a budget of $5 billion for fiscal 2007.

"We assume that our measure - after further negotiations - will be 
folded into the Energy Bill that the House hopes to pass this spring, 
although no part of that sentence is a 'done deal.'

"And, in fact, a lot more work will have to be done by all of us in 
this room, if those numbers are ever to materialize as cold, hard 
cash.

"Some of that work is lobbying, of course: the Office of Science's 
work as a whole is not widely known in Congress, and being part of the 
Department of Energy doesn't exactly strengthen its case in some 
quarters.  But some of the work we need to do involves thinking - 
hopefully something that's not incompatible with lobbying, in any 
event.  There are lots of tough questions that need to be answered 
before proposals to increase Office of Science funding can be 
implemented.

"What would a larger budget be used for?  What should the balance be
between new large-scale facilities and other ways of conducting 
science?  What should the balance be between participating in 
international projects and continuing domestic ones?  Which fields 
should be emphasized?  What should the balance be between funding 
 federal laboratories and universities?  How can we assure that we 
have the operating funds to amortize our facility investments more 
fully?  Do we need a new supercomputing initiative?  The questions go 
on and on.  And they're questions that we'll be pursuing in hearings 
this year."

ON BEING SCIENCE COMMITTEE CHAIRMAN:

"They're the kind of questions I had in mind when I promised in my 
last speech to you to be the scientific community's 'staunchest ally 
and fairest critic.'  I hope I've lived up to that pledge in my first 
term as chairman, and I will continue to endeavor to do so.  We have 
lots of work to do in these uncertain times."

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Richard M. Jones
Media and Government Relations Division
The American Institute of Physics
fyi{at}aip.org
(301) 209-3094
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