September 12, 1996

House-Senate Conferees met September 11 to resolve differences between their separate FY1997 Appropriations Bills passed earlier. The House had provided $225M and the Senate had provided $240 M, compared to this year's budget of $244M and the Presidents FY1997 request of $272M. The conferees split the difference, providing $232.5M. Rapid floor action in House and Senate is expected so that the President can sign the Appropriation bill into law before Congress recesses for the election campaign.

The conferees removed restrictive "earmarking" language that was contained in the House bill. The new language does not specifiy a particular dollar amount for subelements of the fusion program, although it does state that they expect TFTR to continue to operate, with FY1997 being its final year of operation. The language also specifies that Congress expects the U.S. to continue to participate in the ITER EDA, though they do not specify a dollar amount. ITER EDA currently receives $55M plus $5M within the "base program."

Since the conferees only provided $25M of "relief" above the original House bill for all of DOE's civilian programs, observers feel that fusion fared "remarkably well."

The conferees provided the full President's request level of $366.5M for the Inertial Confinement Fusion program as part of DOE's Defense Programs, including $191.1M for construction of the National Ignition Facility. This year's ICF budget is $240.7M.

DOE will ask its Fusion Energy Sciences Advisory Committee (FESAC) to provide guidance on how to allocate the budget to subelements of the program at the FESAC meeting scheduled for September 24-25 at the Hilton Hotel, Gaithersburg, MD. The meeting is open to the public. Persons wanting to make 5 minute presentations to FESAC should sign up either before or at the meeting with Al Opdenaker at DOE. His email address is: albert.opdenaker@mailgw.er.doe.gov

For more information, contact: Stephen O. Dean