January 14, 2008

Budget Cuts Slam Stanford Physics Lab

The Stanford Linear Accelerator Center has to go on an unexpected crash diet this year, thanks to budgetary blues brought on by the Iraq war and Congress’s insatiable appetite for pork. The high-energy physics laboratory, which is run by the university for the Energy Department, will have to cut 125 jobs and will shut down a major particle experiment seven months earlier than it had planned, according to Persis Drell, the lab’s director, who announced the bad news last week.

This was supposed to be a stellar year for high-energy physics and for SLAC, as the Stanford center is known, in particular. The lab had just last month brought in Ms. Drell as its new director and had started its last run of the B-Factory, which collides electrons and antimatter particles called positrons to create B mesons. By studying how those particles decay, physicists hope to learn why the universe contains mostly matter, instead of an equal mixture of matter and antimatter.

Congress had promised in last year’s America Competes Act to increase support for physical sciences and to put the Energy Department’s Office of Science on track to double its budget. The president had requested a 16-percent increase for the 2008 fiscal year, but Congress trimmed it back to 5.3 percent, according to an analysis conducted by the American Association for the Advancement of Science. The high-energy physics program suffered the worst of all Energy Department science programs.

At SLAC, that translates into a $25-million drop in support from what the lab expected, which means a 20-percent cut in the high-energy-physics operating budget there, said Ms. Drell. So SLAC will shut down the B-Factory in early March, instead of continuing the experiment through the end of September. And the lab will announce approximately 125 layoffs next month.

Meanwhile, according to the AAAS analysis, the Energy Department’s Office of Science budget contains $124-million in earmarks — money set aside for particular projects that have generally not gone through the same kind of peer-review process as the B-Factory experiments.

SLAC is not alone in facing cuts. The Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory will have to trim 200 jobs, and the budget slashes support for the proposed International Linear Collider — the next big accelerator project, which American physicists hope to lure to this country.

Michael Tuts, a professor of physics at Columbia University, called the current budget woes “a crisis.” In an interview with The Chronicle, he said the situation would hurt morale just as the focus of high-energy physics is shifting from the United States to Europe, where the Large Hadron Collider is expected to start operations this summer. —Richard Monastersky

Comments

1. Better try thanking the Democrats’ insatiable thirst for revenge on Bush. See details at
   http://gordonwatts.wordpress.com/2008/01/08/screwed-by-the-democrats/

   — Gordon Pasha    Jan 14, 03:58 PM    #

2. If you read Gordan’s comments, he doesn’t really put the blame on the democrats. It’s not a political issue. Both parties have been supportive of science and were moving to double funding of the physical sciences until budget realities (i.e. war) forced omnibus staffers to slash away.

   — CDF friend    Jan 15, 07:43 AM    #

3. Despite Pasha’s ignorant post to this list, the bottom line is financial not political, as others have recognized for many administrations past (see the national debt and then tell me, Gordon, that it’s still the Democrats). In general, we all seem to have an inability to live within our means – and an unethical and very costly war does not help. Someday we’ll look back and realize the true cost of these Bush wars – both financially and in human capital. Yes it is sad, but real villans are those who continue to support the war either actively or passively, democrat or Republican.

   — David    Jan 15, 08:56 AM    #

4. The real story is that American Science has lost. SLAC will cut 225 people, or about 15 percent of its staff, by April as a result of federal budget cuts and a change in direction of research at the prestigious lab.

   — Jim    Jan 15, 12:10 PM    #

5. I think a donor will step up to the plate. This is chump change for a lot of Americans.

   — marci    Jan 15, 02:18 PM    #

6. To have to rely on “chump change”, which may or may not be available for labs, is very unfortunate (and I don’t label it “chump change.”) Not only am I concerned about the lack of funds available due to the Iraq war, but also the earmark situation (and for education, health, space exploration and progress stemming from that, the country’s infastructure, etc.). I thought Democrats were going get rid of pork more stringently. Pork especially (from either party) ought to have to pass through the same rigorous peer review system as the other physical sciences requests. No wonder American Science is falling behind Europe.

   — RJG    Jan 15, 06:35 PM    #

7. Anybody is willing to consider that it might be a constructive action on the long run? Assuming that scientific funding will rebound soon…, this temporary cut is simply the politician’s way to tell scientist to spend their money “wiser”. Maybe the 300 salaries can be better used by other fields?

   — Pyrrhon Sanches    Jan 18, 09:27 PM    #

8. Maybe Asia can help. They have a huge cash flow from the US. So, for a small amount of cash they could buy the staff and scientific results of America’s best physics labs. Or start an aggressive recruiting program, they would probably get some volunteers. They’ve done well in infusing cash to buy into US mortgages / banking business just recently.

   — David    Jan 19, 11:37 AM    #

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