Impending layoffs and budget cuts at Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory and Argonne National Laboratory could be put off after a U.S. Senate vote Thursday to restore $250 million in science cuts.
The 75-22 vote would add $100 million to the Office of Science’s budget for this year, including $55 million for fusion energy sciences and $45 million for high energy physics, said U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.). An additional $150 million would go toward federal science research.
Representatives from both labs were cautiously optimistic at the news. The measure now must go to a conference committee with the House, which didn’t include the money in its version of the bill.
After Fermi learned its budget would be cut by $52 million, the Batavia lab began planning for a reduction of nearly 200 employees through layoffs and attrition. Argonne, facing $21 million in cuts, talked of slowing research and cutting staff.
Durbin said the restored money would allow the laboratories to finish the year without further cutbacks.
“The big problem will be whether the White House will accept this, and we’re going to work hard to get them to accept it,” Durbin said by phone. “We know that we’re in a desperate situation at Argonne and Fermi, and that the budget cuts really have cut into their mission and, equally important, into their professional staff.”
Fermilab spokeswoman Judy Jackson called the Senate’s action “good news,” but suggested that the laboratory isn’t in the clear.
“The supplemental bill has passed its first major hurdle,” she said. “One step at a time.”
The money approved by the Senate was included in a two-part package that budgets $168.9 billion for war funding and an additional $46.8 billion in domestic funding.
A spokeswoman for U.S. Rep. Bill Foster, a Democrat from Geneva who represents the district that includes Fermilab, said he is hopeful the funding can be inserted into the House version.
“We know it’s going to be a fight ahead of us, but we are prepared to fight as hard as we can and talk to leadership and try to get this included in the final conference report,” spokeswoman Shannon O’Brien said.
The prospect of cutbacks began just before Christmas, when Fermilab officials learned of this year’s budget cuts. That left the lab scrambling. Fermilab Director Pier Oddone described the cuts as “a bolt out of the blue.”
Jackson said for now Fermilab will go ahead with plans for layoffs, which the lab has said would affect about 140 employees and are scheduled to begin this month. But if the funding comes through, it would allow Fermilab to rehire employees.
“We have to go ahead and plan for layoffs in any case,” Jackson said.
The money could also restore some programs that were cut, including superconducting research and development, and an upgrade in the neutrino science program.
That program studies subatomic particles called neutrinos and could lead to new discoveries about the origins of the universe.
At Argonne, near Lemont, about 40 employees lost their jobs when the lab closed the Intense Pulsed Neutron Source, although some of them were rehired elsewhere within Argonne, said spokesman Steve McGregor.
The program studied neutrons, or the uncharged particles found in the nuclear core of nearly all matter, which are useful for materials research because of their penetrating power.
The new funding is a positive sign, but it’s too early for Argonne to celebrate, McGregor said.
“It really is only the first step,” he said.
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