Congressman Sander Levin

Dear Dorgan, Vice Chair Pastor, and Ranking Members Bennett and Frelinghuysen:

As Senate and House conferees complete action on the FY-10 Energy and Water Development Appropriations Bill, we ask for your support of critical funding for cutting-edge research programs at the Department of Energy.  As you know, DOE funding for nuclear physics is critically important to many of our central national policy challenges.  These include strengthening our national and homeland security posture; countering nuclear proliferation; developing advanced diagnostic and treatment technologies to fight cancer and other diseases; and improving our basic scientific knowledge of the universe around us.  DOE funding for nuclear physics supports critical national priorities, including cutting-edge research at our nation's universities and national laboratories, education and training of the next generation of nuclear scientists, and continued production of radioactive isotopes that are essential for the U.S. health care system and manufacturing base.

Specifically, we request that the final FY-10 bill include the following:

• Provide the $12 million in the House passed bill for the Facility for Rare Isotope Beams (FRIB).  This is a vital research facility that will maintain U.S. leadership in nuclear physics.  It will enable the education and training of a new generation of research scientists, engineers and leaders.  We are especially proud that the DOE decided after a rigorous competition that the FRIB will be located at Michigan State University.  The scientific and economic impacts of the FRIB are critical to the Nation and the State of Michigan.
  
• Fully fund the transfer of DOE's isotope program to the Office of Nuclear Physics.  The Senate bill transfers responsibility for DOE's $17.5 million nuclear medicine activity, currently housed in the Office of Biological and Environmental Research (BER), to the nuclear physics program, but fails to transfer the associated funding from the BER budget, resulting in an effective $17.5 million cut to the underlying program. 
  
• Restore funding for the low energy nuclear physics program.  The House bill includes report language specifically mandating a $10 million reduction for the low energy program.  The low energy nuclear physics program is an important element of our research portfolio. 

We recognize the fiscally constrained environment in which you are working.  However, a DOE nuclear physics budget that is unstable from year to year would inflict significant harm to our efforts to provide cutting-edge research, successfully train a new generation of nuclear scientists, and develop cutting-edge research facilities that keep the U.S. at the forefront of this important field.

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