New budget deal called job-saver for BNL

The pending federal budget compromise would save nearly 1,000 jobs at Brookhaven National Laboratory and avoid "draconian" cuts that would have shuttered some of the Upton lab's key facilities, Sen. Charles Schumer and Rep. Tim Bishop said Tuesday.

The continuing funding resolution bill that passed the House earlier this year would have slashed $1.1 billion from the federal Office of Science, which funds the Brookhaven lab, and forced the lab to close facilities such as its prized Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider, Schumer said.

But Friday's budget compromise, which averted a government shutdown, will cut only $35 million from the Office of Science, allowing the lab to maintain operations close to current levels.

Doon Gibbs, the lab's deputy director for science and technology, stressed that "we won't know the final outcome until the budget is approved by Congress, signed by the president, and apportioned by the Department of Energy."

But Schumer called the budget deal -- part of a package with $38.5 billion in spending cuts -- a "huge victory for Long Island" because it will allow "job-creating, cutting-edge scientific work" to continue at Brookhaven Lab.

"We held the line of budget cuts that could have decimated Brookhaven National Lab and resulted in almost 1,000 jobs being lost. We can and should cut costs, but not at the expense of cutting jobs on Long Island or limiting our nation's ability to out-innovate our competitors," Schumer said in a statement.

The original budget bill passed by the House would have represented a 30 percent cut from fiscal 2010 funding levels, a lab source said.

The restoration of funding to Brookhaven Lab shows a "willingness to protect the lab and its programs," Gibbs said.

The original $1.1-billion cut would have forced the closure of the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider and National Synchrotron Light Source and cuts to research in alternative fuels and sustainable energy, Schumer and Bishop said in a statement. Research in life science would also have been trimmed, the lawmakers said.

The cuts would have caused hundreds of layoffs and stunted research in which the federal government has invested billions of dollars, Bishop said.

The budget compromise "helps ensure that America will continue to drive innovation and reap the economic benefits of advanced research," said Bishop (D-Southampton).