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Dept. of Energy R&D in FY 2008 House Appropriations PDF
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The Department of Energy’s (DOE) Office of Science would be the clear
winner among R&D agencies in the 2008 budget and now in House appropriations.
R&D in DOE Science would climb 16.8 percent to $4.1 billion in the 2008 House
appropriation (see Table). - The House would give DOE $9.8 billion for its total R&D portfolio,
a substantial 11.7 percent or $1.0 billion increase that exceeds the request by
$519 million. R&D in all three of DOE’s missions
of science, energy, and defense would increase. - DOE’s energy-related R&D would total $1.8
billion, a large 18.5 percent increase after a similar increase last year, in
contrast to a requested cut. The House would go along with proposed increases
for R&D investments in renewable energy technologies such as hydrogen, biomass,
and solar energy, but would also revive geothermal and hydropower R&D programs
proposed for elimination. In fossil fuels, the House would add to a large request
for coal R&D, including a one-third boost for carbon sequestration R&D,
but would also save gas and oil technology R&D programs from elimination.
- The House would eliminate funding for DOE’s
proposal to develop a Reliable Replacement Warhead (RRW) as a new type of nuclear
warhead. While funding for nuclear weapons R&D would fall, the House would
provide enormous increases for nonproliferation R&D and environmental cleanup
technology development, resulting in a total DOE defense R&D investment of
$3.8 billion, up 4.0 percent. DOE R&D in FY 2008 House Appropriations On
June 6, the House Appropriations Committee approved its version of the FY 2008
Energy-Water appropriations bill (HR 2641) providing funding for Department of
Energy (DOE) programs. The full House is expected to debate and approve the bill
the week of June 11. The House bill contains
nearly $32 billion in 2008 discretionary spending for DOE, the Corps of Engineers,
and other programs, $1.3 billion more than the current year and $1.1 billion more
than the President’s request. DOE would receive a total budget of $25.2 billion,
$1.0 billion or 4.2 percent more than the current year and half a billion above
the President’s request (see Table). DOE was already in line for a large R&D funding increase in DOE’s request, but the House would add even more money to
its science programs and would also add money for renewable energy R&D programs.
The House would give DOE $9.8 billion
for its R&D programs in 2008, a substantial $1.0 billion or 11.7 percent increase,
and $519 million more than DOE’s request.
There would be increases to all three of DOE’s mission
areas of science, energy, and defense. President
Bush’s American Competitiveness Initiative (ACI) and Advanced Energy Initiative
(AEI), both set for their second years in 2008, have made the Department of Energy’s
(DOE) R&D programs a high priority within an increasingly tight domestic budget.
(For details of DOE R&D in the FY 2008 budget request, see Chapter
8 of AAAS Report XXXII: R&D FY 2008
or the March 21 AAAS R&D Funding Update on DOE.)
DOE’s Office of Science is the largest federal sponsor
of physical sciences research and is thus one of three federal agencies (the other
two are the National Science Foundation and the National Institute of Standards
and Technology laboratories) that would receive substantial increases to fulfill
the ACI’s goal of increasing federal investments in
basic physical sciences research. DOE’s energy R&D portfolio funds R&D on a variety
of topics, including renewable energy R&D on the Administration priorities
of hydrogen, solar power, and biomass, all of which received substantial increases
in 2007. The Democratic majority in the 110th Congress has already
signaled its support for these two Administration priorities, both rhetorically
(under different labels) and financially in wrapping up 2007 appropriations earlier
this year with increases for these programs. Congress
again steps up to the plate for these programs in the just-started 2008 appropriations
process. The House would not only fully fund a requested 15 percent increase for
the Office of Science but would add even more money for biological and environmental
programs for a 16.8 percent increase. In energy, the House would chisel the DOE
request for hydrogen R&D slightly, but would add significantly to the requests
for every other energy R&D program including several that had been proposed
for elimination. R&D
in the DOE Office of Science DOE’s
Office of Science, in its various incarnations over the decades, has long been
the dominant federal sponsor of physical sciences research, especially in physics
and related fields. It is also an important supporter of computer sciences, mathematics,
environmental sciences, materials research, nanotechnology, and engineering; the
Bush Administration’s and now Congress’ push to boost physical sciences through
large increases in the Science budget would pay off for all Science research areas.
Last year, DOE requested a 14 percent increase for Science funding, and ended
up with 5 percent in this February’s final 2007 appropriations bill. To catch
up with the ACI’s ten-year funding trajectory, the 2008
request for the total Office of Science budget would be a 16 percent boost to
$4.4 billion, consistent with a plan to double the budget between 2006 and 2016.
More than 90 percent of the Science budget goes to R&D activities; Science
R&D would gain 15.4 percent in the FY 2008 request to $4.1 billion; the House
would add $50 million in R&D funding on top of that amount for a 16.8 percent
increase (see Table). The total Science budget would
climb 19 percent to $4.5 billion, including additions to the request for non-R&D
facilities maintenance costs. The large 2008 increase following 2007’s increase
would mark a departure from the flat or declining funding trends of earlier years
(see Figure 1), and in real terms would bring Science funding very close to its
all-time high of 1992, before the Superconducting Super Collider
was canceled.  Figure
1. (click on the image for PDF) Funding for every Science program would increase
substantially for the second year in a row, including a 34 percent increase for
fusion research, and 20 percent boosts for basic energy sciences, computing research,
and biological and environmental research (see Figure 2). Most Science programs
would reach new highs in the 2008 House appropriation. The Office of Science supports cutting-edge research through a mix of laboratory
research at DOE’s national laboratories, university-based
research, and the construction and operation of large scientific user facilities
that can be used by external researchers for their experiments. Roughly half of
Science R&D funding goes to operate and construct facilities, while the other
half supports research, mostly at DOE laboratories but a large portion at universities.
The laboratory research and large facilities are housed primarily at ten Science
laboratories that are federally owned and contractor operated, such as the Oak
Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee, Brookhaven National Laboratory in New York, and Argonne National Laboratory in Illinois. After several years in which tight budgets
have forced the cancellation of planned facilities, dramatic reductions in facility
operating times, and reductions in external research support, the 2007 increase
and the even larger 2008 increase would allow the Office to open new facilities
and begin planning for newer ones, expand user times at existing facilities, and
boost support of external research.  Figure
2. (click on the image for PDF) The House would agree to the requests for most Science
programs but would add $50 million on top of a requested increase for Biological
and Environmental Research (BER) for $98 million or 20 percent boost to $582 million.
$30 million of the House add-on would go to biological research to expand research
on biofuels and carbon sequestration, with the new money to be
awarded competitively. The remaining $20 million add-on would go to climate change
research, especially climate modeling research to take advantage of the high-performance
computing capabilities of the Office of Science. Basic
Energy Sciences (BES) has fared the best among Science program areas in recent
years, and would continue to do well with a 19.9 percent increase to $1.5 billion
in both DOE’s request and now the House appropriation
(see Figure 2). Construction funding for the Linac Coherent
Light Source, the Advanced Light Source, and planning for the National Synchrotron
Light Source II would keep the program busy with a full plate of future facilities,
even as the Spallation Neutron Source (SNS; due to open
this year), four light sources, five nanoscale research centers would keep current operations at
a high level. BES would also fund more basic research on hydrogen, solar, and
biomass topics as a complement to the more applied energy research programs elsewhere
in DOE. High-performance
computing research in the Advanced Scientific Computing Research (ASCR) program
would be in for a 20 percent boost to $340 million to expand the availability
of high-performance computing capacity that researchers can use for their experiments,
primarily at Oak Ridge and Argonne
laboratories. By 2008, ASCR could be operating two centers with greater than 250
teraflop computing capability, working toward petaflop
capability. The
multinational International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) would continue
to expand with full U.S.
participation through the Fusion Energy Sciences program, up 34 percent or
$109 million to $428 million in 2008. ITER funding climbed from $19 million last
year to $60 million in 2007, and would soar to $160 million next year. The large
Fusion increase would enable ITER funding to climb and still leave enough for
a slight increase for domestic fusion activities in New
Jersey, California,
and Massachusetts. The
High Energy Physics (HEP) program, which funds basic research on the nature of
matter and energy, would get a 4.1 percent increase to $782 million (see Table).
The program does most of its work at three facilities located at two DOE labs
(Fermilab in Illionois and the Stanford
Linear Accelerator
Center in California)
and also cooperates in the international Large Hadron
Collider (LHC) in Switzerland,
which transitions from fabrication toward operation later this year. Some funding
pressure would be relieved by a planned shift in operating funds for the B-factory
in California from HEP to the BES
program. The increase along with the money freed up from the transfer should allow
the program to sustain facility operating times, to boost research funding, and
to sustain a $60 million research investment in the International Linear Collider,
the next big international high-energy physics project after the LHC. The Nuclear
Physics (NP) program would get an 11.5 percent increase to $471 million. NP seeks
to understand the structure and interactions of subatomic particles, and supports
four user facilities. DOE
Energy R&D Programs Last year, President Bush proposed dramatic funding boosts for selected
alternative energy R&D programs as part of his Advanced Energy Initiative
(ACI) to reduce U.S. dependence on Middle
East oil; Congress
unexpectedly added even more money to bring DOE energy R&D to $1.5 billion
in 2007, a surprising 32 percent boost over the year before. The 2008 request
retreats from the 2007 highs in most areas down to $1.4 billion, but the House
would barrel ahead with a $1.8 billion total for energy R&D in 2008, 30 percent
more than the request and 18.5 percent more than the current year. The House Energy-Water
bill makes a point of decrying a decades-long decline in federal energy R&D
investments down to one-fifth to one-third of peak 1980 funding levels, and points
to the 2007 and 2008 pending increases as the first steps toward restoring federal
investments in energy R&D. If the House appropriation is enacted, then DOE
energy R&D would climb 56 percent in just two years, although funding levels
would still remain well below peak investments in the late 1970s. While the Administration’s energy R&D increases in some areas would
be offset by steep cuts or program eliminations in other energy areas, the House
would provide increases across the board for renewables,
energy conservation, and fossil fuels R&D programs. In renewable energy, the House would reduce the request for hydrogen R&D
down to $195 million, still a slight increase from 2007 and up dramatically from
$153 million in 2006 (see Table). Biomass R&D
would climb 25 percent to $250 million, nearly triple last year’s funding, while
solar energy R&D would total $200 million, up 26 percent from 2007 and nearly
triple the $82 million in 2006. The House would turn a requested cut in wind energy
R&D into a 17 percent increase to $58 million, and would save geothermal R&D
from proposed elimination with a $44 million appropriation, nearly double the
2006 funding level. The House would also restore funding to the now-dormant hydropower
program with $22 million. Also proposed for a big increase is nuclear energy R&D,
a renewable energy technology funded in a separate account, up 47 percent to $162
million in 2008. The House would once again reverse proposed cuts in many energy conservation
and fossil energy R&D programs as it did in 2007. The House would allocate $504 million for
fossil energy R&D, up 2.2 percent instead of a 27 percent requested cut, the
net of increases in the Administration’s longstanding priority area of coal R&D
and steep cuts or proposed eliminations in other fossil fuel programs. The House
would sustain coal R&D funding with a $557 million appropriation, up 30.7
percent, including the requested doubling of funding for the FutureGen program ($108 million) to develop a carbon-neutral,
coal-fired electricity and hydrogen production plant. Funding for the Clean Coal
Power Initiative program to develop cleaner coal-based power plants would also
increase from $60 million to $73 million. But the House would add $53 million
to the request for carbon sequestration R&D to bring the 2008 total to $132
million, double the funding the program had in 2006. At the same time, the House
would once again reverse the proposed eliminations of the oil R&D and gas
R&D programs. But in a separate (Interior-Environment) appropriations bill,
the House would agree to DOE’s request to block $50
million in mandatory funding for an ultra-deepwater and unconventional natural
gas and other petroleum research fund that was created in the Energy Policy Act
of 2005 for a 2007 start. Congress declined to block 2007 funding, so DOE and
the consortium selected to manage the effort recently finalized a 10-year contract
for this research effort, paid for out of oil and gas royalty fees. The House
would block 2008 funding in order to shift money to other programs. The Energy Conservation portfolio is now part of the Energy Supply and Conservation
program, and the House would provide increases instead of proposed cuts for its
component Vehicle Technologies, Building Technologies and Industrial Technologies
parts. DOE Defense R&D DOE and its predecessors have long had responsibility
for managing the nation’s nuclear weapons stockpile, supplying nuclear reactors
to the Navy, and dealing with the environmental consequences of nuclear weapons
work. DOE’s defense R&D to address these
responsibilities would gain 4.0 percent or $148 million to $3.8 billion in 2008
in the House appropriation (see Table). The core Weapons Activities program,
which funds science-based alternatives to nuclear testing in order to maintain
the U.S. nuclear weapons stockpile, would receive far less than the request in
the House appropriation (down 6.3 percent to $5.9 billion), but the forthcoming
Senate appropriation is likely to match or exceed the request. A little less than
half of this spending goes to R&D activities, for a total of $2.5 billion
in the House (down 6.7 percent). The House would cut funding for most Weapons
Activities areas, except for the Inertial Confinement Fusion program, aimed at
simulating nuclear weapons fusion under controlled laboratory conditions, which
would receive $524 million (up 7.0 percent) in order to meet a goal of ignition
in 2010 for the program’s key new facility, the National Ignition Facility (NIF)
under construction in California. The
DOE proposal to initiate research on a new generation of nuclear weapons has been
opposed by Congress so far, and the House Energy-Water bill makes that opposition
emphatic by zeroing out funding for the Reliable Replacement Warhead (RRW) project
to explore new warhead designs for use with existing nuclear weapons. DOE recently
selected Lawrence Livermore to design the RRW, but the project still faces continuing
skepticism in Congress over whether the U.S.
needs new warheads. Development of the RRW would receive $89 million in Weapons
Activities in 2008 in the DOE budget request, up from just $28 million this year,
but the House would provide no funds as a protest against what report language
accompanying the House bill describes as a ‘policy vacuum’ in which there are
no clearly articulated policy statements as to the role of nuclear weapons in
21st century U.S. security needs. Without a rationale for existing
nuclear weapons much less future ones, many members of Congress are opposed to
the RRW project. The House bill contains
instructions for DOE and DOD to develop a comprehensive nuclear defense and nonproliferation
strategy with long-term spending requirements, including an assessment of how
new warheads such as the RRW might fit into the overall strategy. Although
nuclear weapons funding would fall, the House would provide enormous boosts to
nonproliferation R&D and environmental cleanup R&D. The nonproliferation
and verification R&D program would receive a record $484 million in the House
(see Table), up 79 percent from the current year.
The House would give a high priority to the program’s efforts to develop advanced
proliferation detection technology and better nuclear explosion monitoring capabilities.
The environmental management R&D program to develop better cleanup technologies
for nuclear waste from six decades of nuclear weapons making would receive $108
million, more than five times the current funding level of $21 million. Outlook
and Next Steps The
full House is expected to debate and approve the Energy-Water bill within the
next week; although many amendments are expected and several will be approved,
they are unlikely to affect the R&D totals significantly. The Senate Appropriations
Committee is expected to mark up its version of the bill by mid-July; the Senate
bill is likely to agree with the House’s large increase for DOE Science, to contain
similar increases for most energy R&D programs, and to boost weapons R&D
above House levels. Congress will try to send a final version of the bill to President
Bush before the October 1 start of FY 2008. The President has threatened to veto
any 2008 appropriations bill that exceeds his request, as the House version does
by $1.1 billion, so the bill may have to go through several rewrites and revotes
before it can become law, but most of the science and energy increases in the
House bill should make it into the final bill. -
June 13, 2007
AAAS R&D Budget and Policy Program
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