Obama, Durbin Fight for Fermi Funds
Friday, December 21, 2007
Printable FormatChicago Sun-Times BY HOWARD WOLINSKY
U.S. Democratic Senators Dick Durbin and Barack Obama and Rep. Judy Biggert (R-Hinsdale), chairman of the House Energy Committee, today launched a campaign to restore $62 million cut from the budget for Fermilab, the Batavia-based high-energy physics lab.
Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory on Thursday told employees that as a result of a budget crunch, resulting from a spending bill passed by Congress and awaiting President Bush's signature, 200 jobs, or 11 percent of the work force, would have to be cut and the 1,700 remaining employees would give up two days of pay per month to make up for the deficit. In addition, the lab said it would halt two cutting-edge experiments on which it was basing its future.
The Congressional leaders called on Jim Nussle, director of the Office of Management and Budget, to increase funding at Fermilabs and at some other high-energy physics labs.
They told Nussle in a statement: "These cuts could cripple Fermilab's ability to remain one of the world's pre-eminent research facilities.
And this is at a time when Fermilab has achieved outstanding success, with significant results in each of its central areas of research:
neutrinos, the high energy frontier, and particle astrophysics."
Durbin, Obama, and Biggert said they are in discussions with Congressional appropriations and authorization committees and the Department of Energy about what Fermilab has described as the worst budget crisis in the lab's 40-year history.
The legislators also plan to hold a meeting in January with the Illinois legislative delegation along with lab leaders and other organizations to discuss a strategy for saving Fermilab jobs.
They said: "Fermilab is one of a handful of our nation's premier training sites for scientists, and a centerpiece of the system of DOE National Laboratories. Disruptive funding shortfalls have ripple effects throughout the American scientific community, displacing today's scientists and discouraging tomorrow's.
"We must work together to restore funding in basic physics research to maintain America's role as the innovator in technology, to retain our leading scientific institutions and their skilled work forces, and to provide opportunities for future scientists."