TMS Public and Governmental Affairs Resource Center

FROM THE FEDERATION OF MATERIALS SOCIETIES: In an illustration of just how tough the appropriations process is going to be, House Energy and Water Development Appropriations Subcommittee Chairman Peter Visclosky (D-IN)—who has been a supporter of research in the physical sciences—put the administration’s FY 2009 budget request for the Department of Energy’s Office of Science in focus for Energy Under Secretary Raymond Orbach at a hearing on March 13. After praising Office of Science programs and pointing out that the House gave it significant increases in FY 2008 only to be shot down by presidential veto threats, Chairman Visclosky said of the president’s proposed FY 2009 budget, “I fail to comprehend the reason behind requesting a huge increase in Science while decimating the DOE environmental clean-up and the water programs under (the Subcommittee’s) jurisdiction by more than $1 billion. . . . I am very mindful of the importance of federal funding for research and development in the area of physical science. If you don’t receive your full request for science research, it’s not because of lack of support for your Office, but the necessity of balancing competing needs that have nothing to do with Science.”

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