Science in jeopardy at Brookhaven lab
Work continues in early 2011 to build the National Synchrotron Light Source II at Brookhaven National Laboratory. Credit: U.S. Department of Energy
Budget cuts at every level of government are inevitable right now, but there are smart cuts and dumb cuts. The ones that bring science to its knees and chop spending for energy efficiency and renewable energy -- at a time when America can't afford to lose any ground in global scientific competition and gasoline prices are soaring -- are really dumb.
Those cuts, passed by the House of Representatives, would cripple Brookhaven National Laboratory, a cornerstone of our regional economy. But the stakes are a lot larger than Long Island. The cuts would put shackles on science just when it's looking for ways to make solar cells and fuel cells more efficient, to develop batteries better able to store the energy from renewable sources, and to transport energy with less loss of power en route. A lot of that work is happening right here at Brookhaven.
Yesterday, the Senate took up -- and rejected -- the $61 billion in cuts in the entire budget that the House passed for the remaining seven months of this fiscal year. A cut that size is what the fire-breathing freshman class thinks it needs to deliver on the promise to cut spending ruthlessly. Last week, the two houses agreed on a stopgap bill to fund the federal government for two weeks, up to March 18. It included $4 billion in cuts. But the House bill cut much deeper.
Those cuts, still in play in the budget bargaining, could lop nearly $2 billion from the Department of Energy's Office of Science and from the department's energy efficiency and renewable energy programs -- a bizarrely counterintuitive move at a time when gas prices are rising steadily toward $4 a gallon.
If those cuts stand, Brookhaven figures it would have to close down its National Synchrotron Light Source, which directs bright light at small objects for 2,200 users. The lab would also have to close its Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider, which does basic science about the origins of the universe and trains the next generation of physicists. In all, that could mean 900 layoffs -- almost a third of the lab's staff.
The result would be a major hit to the regional economy. A new study says the lab in fiscal year 2009 accounted for $647 million in economic output and 5,190 full-time equivalent jobs on Long Island. Without all the research that won't get done, Long Island's chances of creating the high-tech jobs of the future will be severely reduced. And it would be devastating for science. There's no guarantee the cuts won't slow progress on building the lab's new light source, due to open in 2014, which will be the brightest in the world and give America an edge again.
Whatever the misguided ideological rationale behind the science cuts, our two senators, Charles Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand, and Rep. Tim Bishop (D-Southampton) know their job: to make sure the final budget solution doesn't turn out the lights on the science that our region and our country so desperately need to remain world leaders.
