Dear group members,
Given the current stock crisis, Bush's horrible plan to "fight" the
mortgage crisis and the funding crisis below, I ask you to write to
congress using the tool below.
Alan
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: opa(a)aps.org <opa(a)aps.org>
Date: Tue, 22 Jan 2008 19:15:36 UT
Subject: Update: impacts of FY08 budget on Science
To: alan(a)aspuru.com
From: Arthur Bienenstock, President, the American Physical Society
To: Members of the American Physical Society
Re: Update: Impact of FY08 Federal Budget on Science:
http://www.aps.org/policy/tools/alerts
Thank you to the 3000 of you who answered my request last week to write
to Congress. I am writing to update you on further impacts of the FY08
Budget on science and to urge more of you to write to your representative,
senators, and the president.
While the FY08 budget impacts federal science funding agencies and the
various disciplines of physics and science differently, it is important
for us to work together as a community to remedy the situation. I urge
you to be part of a coherent voice addressing lawmakers.
The Department of Energy Office of Science released a document last week
listing the impacts to all of its programs. In addition to the damage to
the Fusion and High Energy Physics programs that I emphasized last week,
there are major impacts in Basic Energy Sciences (BES) and Nuclear Physics
programs. The Intense Pulsed Neutron Source at Argonne National Laboratory
is being closed permanently and various construction projects will be
delayed by as much as a year. Operations at the light sources will also
likely be reduced by as much as 10%, and nearly 700 proposals responding
to a BES solicitation for energy research have been declined.
In the Nuclear Physics program, operations at the Relativistic Heavy Ion
Collider (BNL) will be reduced from 30 weeks to 13 and at the Continuous
Electron Beam Accelerator Facility (Thomas Jefferson National Laboratory)
from 34 weeks to 24 weeks. Operations at the Argonne Tandem Linear Accelerator
and the Holifield Radioactive Ion Beam Facility are also reduced and
construction projects at these facilities and others are also delayed.
For the complete listing of impacts at the Office of Science and further
details, please see
http://www.aps.org/policy/issues/research-funding/upload/SC08Omnibus.pdf.
The National Science Foundation has yet to release an impact statement.
However, as I reported in my previous message, proposal funding rates are
likely to go down. The research and related activities account was increased
by less than the rate of inflation and increases in facility operation costs
are likely to further constrain the award funding.
The impact statement from the National Institute of Standards and Technology
reports major setbacks to their FY08 agenda with the NIST laboratories having
received only a small fraction of their previously approved increase. As a
result, they will not be able to fund initiatives on quantum science, climate
change, cybersecurity, nanotechnology and many other programs.
Taken as a whole, the FY08 budget is a major blow to the
innovation/competitiveness
proposals of Congress and the Administration. If you are not among the 9% of
U.S. members who have already written to Congress and the president using the
APS software, please take a moment to do so now. It is quick and easy:
http://www.aps.org/policy/tools/alerts.
I would also ask that you forward this message to colleagues, students, friends
or family that support science research funding.
At this URL, you will find pre-written messages to your Senators,
Representatives
and President Bush. You may send these letters as they are, modify
them, or write
your own. While individualizing your letter is not essential, please at least
make minor edits to the subject line and the first line of the text
of each email
so that these emails are more individualized. (See webpage pointers below for
further instruction.)
The APS Washington Office continues to work hard for to mitigate the damage to
science and relies on your actions to convince lawmakers that they must provide
remedies.
WEBPAGE POINTERS:
(1) While individualizing your letter is not essential, we ask that you make
minor edits to the subject line and the first line of the text of
each email.
(2) If you are a government employee, please do not use government resources
to send a communication.
(3) Your browser will take you to a page where you will enter your name and
address.
(4) After entering your address, click the "Edit/Send Email button". A
window with an individual email message to the four offices will appear.
Click "Send Emails" to transmit the communication.
(5) Electronic submission is preferred.
(6) For further help, write to opa(a)aps.org.
*******************************************************************
To remove yourself from OPT email list, please go to:
http://apps.aps.org/cgi-bin/scrconf.pl?MID=61025338&OPA=-1
--
Alan Aspuru-Guzik
Assistant Professor
Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology
12 Oxford Street
Harvard University
Cambridge, MA 02138
Tel: (617)384-8188
Group URL:
http://aspuru.chem.harvard.edu