TABLE OF CONTENTS:
1. CONGRESSIONAL APPROPRIATIONS PROCESS ACCELERATING
2. WASHINGTON FUSION DAY A SUCCESS
3. PPPL SOLICITING PARTICIPATION IN UNIVERSITY RESEARCH SUPPORT PROGRAM
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1. Congressional Appropriations Process is on the Fast Track
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FY 01 CONGRESSIONAL APPROPRIATIONS PROCESS
The fact that this is a Presidential election year and that control of the House of Representatives is being hotly contested has put the Congressional budget and appropriations process on a fast track. According to numerous staff and Members with whom the fusion community met last Thursday (see below), Congressional leaders are pushing hard to have all the appropriations bills completed by the end of July. Further, the Energy and Water Development bill is expected to be one of the first in line.
Consequently, Members have been asked to get their annual requests into the Energy and Water Appropriations Subcommittee by the end of this month. (By way of brief explanation, Members of Congress who have projects or programs that they want funded must make their wishes know by a letter to the the Subcommittee Chairman - - Congressman Ron Packard (R-CA) It is that request that is due by the end of the month). Therefore, if you haven't contacted your Member(s) of Congress to discuss fusion and ask their support for a $300 million budget in FY01, please do so as soon as possible as time is running out!
Committee rosters, your Member of Congress and everything else you might want to know about Congress can be found at the Library of Congress' "Thomas" web site at http://thomas.loc.gov
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2. Summary of Washington Fusion Day Activities
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(from Mark Haynes et al.)
WASHINGTON FUSION DAY 2000
By all accounts, last Thursday's Washington Fusion Day was a great success. 28 members of the fusion research community along with several of us "Washington-types" attended the breakfast at Tortilla Coast restaurant and then went on to have a whole slew of meetings with Members and staff on Capitol Hill.
Six Congressional staff also attended the breakfast and briefly addressed the group. All conveyed the sense of urgency surrounding the FY 01 appropriations process as described above. In addition, the staff were very complementary of the fusion community as a whole in terms of its unity and its activities in Congress. They reinforced the importance of contacting Congressional offices and made it clear that the FY01 budget is going to be very tight and that it is therefore important for the community to remain very active in making its needs known.
With regard to the numerous individual meetings held with the various individual Congressional offices, it is clear from the feedback received by everyone that these visits are greatly appreciated and quite beneficial to the program. They serve as a way for staff and Members to hear about the program and its needs and to associate a human face with this rather esoteric sounding research in their state or district - - all very important!
Many staff indicated their support for the $300 million number and that they would work to have fusion included in their Member's request letter to Chairman Packard.
SOME THOUGHTFUL SUGGESTIONS FROM A MEMBER OF CONGRESS
Yesterday afternoon, the California fusion "delegation" met with Congressman Bob Filner (D-CA) to thank him for his support for the program and to briefly discuss the status of the program. During that meeting, Congressman Filner (a former professor of the history of science) said that coming to Capitol Hill to meet with Members and their staff is essential but not enough.
Filner, one of a small handful of Members of Congress with credentials in science, reminded the group that Members are most attuned to the rank and file voters in their district and that unless a particular issue makes it way to the local papers (editorials and letters to the editor), to the Lions Clubs and Rotary Clubs (etc.) and to the tongues of the voters in general, then it is not likely to every be a true priority. Fusion, for all its promise and importance to the future has not done this.
Therefore, Congressman Filner strongly suggested that the various fusion facilities make the effort to write editorials and letters to the local papers (which are all closely watched by the politicians) and speak to Lions Clubs and Rotary Clubs, and invite church groups, school groups, scouting groups, etc. to visit their facilities and learn about this research and its importance.
Obviously, many of our labs and facilities do this, but we should all take inventory and ask ourselves if we're doing enough. Editorials and letters to the editor don't take much effort and the same is true of speeches and visits to facilities. So, perhaps a little bit of consistent and long term effort in these areas will result in a deeper level of appreciation and support for the program.
THANKS!
Thank You to those members of the fusion community (listed below) who came to Washington yesterday to represent and speak for the fusion program! Everyone who works in the field should be grateful to them for their activity and sacrifice of time.
FUSION RESEARCHERS WHO ATTENDED THE MARCH 9TH WASHINGTON FUSION DAY
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3. PPPL support for university research.
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University fusion and plasma scientists are invited to participate in PPPL's continuing program of scientific and technical support for university research. This program can provide assistance and collaboration in such areas as experimental design, diagnostics, data acquisition and analysis, plasma heating, engineering, and theory. The focus of this program is now being broadened to include smaller University groups and more support in the areas of basic and applied plasma science. All OFES efforts, including innovative concepts in MFE and IFE, can now be supported through this program.
For further information, please contact Stewart Zweben at szweben@pppl.gov.
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