Bodman Outlines DOE Science Cuts

Energy Secretary Samuel W. Bodman offered a dire prediction of the impact on Department of Energy science activities because of the reduced congressional appropriation for fiscal 2008 in a letter to Sen. Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M.), chairman of the Senate Energy & Natural Resources Committee. Bodman warned that funding levels appropriated will have a particularly negative impact in the DOE Office of Science and in the national laboratories. He pointed to cuts that will be felt by more than 300 DOE-supported research universities and predicted that about 224 scientific positions will be eliminated in the Science Office in 2008 due to the lower congressional appropriations. He singled out Basic Energy Sciences, Fusion Energy Sciences, and High Energy & Nuclear Physics as offices where most of the cuts will fall. No funding was provided for new BES research in advanced materials for solar power, hydrogen storage, carbon sequestration, or electrical energy storage, which underpin use of renewable energy sources, he said. Bodman added that more than 700 already peer-reviewed proposals from labs and universities have been canceled.