🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <1992Dec19.175237.28599@cerberus.ulaval.ca> ddepir@curie.phy.ulaval.ca (Didier Depireux) writes:
>
>1. FY 1993 NSF OPERATING PLAN IS APPROVED--WITH A FEW EXCEPTIONS!
>At this point the plan itself is still a state secret; it was not
>shared even with NSF Division heads.  Why such secrecy?  Perhaps
>it was concern that some grantees would lobby the Appropriations
>Committees to urge that parts of the plan be rejected.  

Given the expected impact of this plan, viz. the unscheduled 
reduction in some lab budgets by amounts on the order of 
1 M$ described below, it would be surprising if some of the 
gored oxen did not object to the consequences of the LIGO 
decision by congress on other areas of physics. 

>2. IN A TOUGH YEAR, LIGO SEEMS TO BE THE MOST CONTENTIOUS ISSUE.
>When it became clear that this was going to be a rotten year, NSF
>sought to scale back its $48M request for LIGO to $16M. Alas, the
>LIGO pitchmen did not let up.  Over NSF objections, Congress ear-
>marked $38M for LIGO construction, with another $5M for LIGO R&D
>to be taken from Physics.       ... 
>              ...        In this year's operating plan, NSF tried
>to reduce LIGO to $25M, but the Appropriations Committees did not
>agree to the reduction, and the Mikulski/Traxler letter instructs
>NSF to go ahead and allocate the $5M to LIGO from Physics.    ...

The consequences of this are significant.  The 0.7% cut in actual 
dollars at the NSF was bad enough, but could be lived with since 
we managed to survive other years with less-than-inflation increases. 
That cut coupled with the need to use some of those funds for a new
purpose will require a major cut in nuclear physics funding that 
runs counter to the peer-reviewed long range plan and necessitates 
a series of site visits by various review committees at 10 labs 
around the country.  

The biggest impact will be felt at Michigan State (not so far from 
Traxler's district) and Indiana University, whose labs will probably 
have to absorb a 10% cut (almost 1 M$ each) for the coming year.  
Some layoffs have already been made at MSU.  Since these are national 
user facilities, the impact will be felt by experimenters from coast 
to coast.  It will be interesting to see if such a diverse group 
can affect what happens in next year's budget. 

--
J. A. Carr                                    |  "The New Frontier of which I  
jac@gw.scri.fsu.edu                           |  speak is not a set of promises
Florida State University  B-186               |  -- it is a set of challenges."
Supercomputer Computations Research Institute |   John F. Kennedy (15 July 60)