Jeff Bingaman United States Senator from New Mexico

WASHINGTON -- U.S. Senators Jeff Bingaman and Pete Domenici today urged top Senate appropriators to increase FY2008 funding in science by $350 million in a supplemental spending bill expected to be taken up by Congress this spring.

In a letter, the senators asked Senators Robert C. Byrd and Thad Cochran, the chairman and ranking member of the Senate Appropriations Committee, to consider adding $250 million to the budget for the Department of Energy’s Office of Science and $100 million for the National Science Foundation.

The letter, which was also signed by Senators Richard Durbin (D-Ill.), Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.), Ben Cardin (D-Md.), Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), Ted Kennedy (D-Mass.) and Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.), states the following:

“We anticipate there will be a strong push by the Administration and others for a supplemental appropriations bill that focuses funding solely on the troops, and we understand that desire. However, should the Committee choose to include additional funding, this emergency funding is needed to support our critically important scientific workforce, avoid cost increases to our major scientific projects, and fulfill commitments to the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER)Project.”

The Senators pointed out in their letter that the Office of Science and the National Science Foundation are key elements of the bipartisan America COMPETES Act, which Bingaman and Domenici helped write last year. The new law focuses greater attention on scientific R&D, and math and science education.

“We recognize the pressure you face to minimize the size of the supplemental appropriations bills in the face of competing budgetary priorities. However, we strongly believe that it is necessary to provide critically needed research funding immediately to avoid unintended and permanent damage to our critical scientific infrastructure and our standing in the world as the leader in science,” the senators’ letter states.

Bingaman and Domenici, who serves on the Senate Appropriations Committee, also teamed up last week on an amendment to the FY 2009 Budget Resolution that would set funding levels for the Department of Energy’s Office of Science at $4.722 billion and for the National Science Foundation at $6.854 billion.