SCHUMER, GILLIBRAND: JUST-PASSED FEDERAL FUNDING BILL PROVIDES MORE THAN $6.2 BILLION FOR LABS AND SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH, INCLUDING AT LONG ISLAND’S BROOKHAVEN NATIONAL LAB; BILL PROVIDES $30 MILLION ALONE FOR BNL REVITALIZATION PROJECT
Just-Passed Federal Spending Agreement Provides Over $800 Million More in Funds for Office of Science Than Last Year
Schumer, Gillibrand: This Is A Win For Science, For BNL & For Long Island’s Economy
U.S. Senators Charles E. Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand today announced that the just-passed federal spending agreement provides $6.259 billion for the Office of Science, which helps fund universities and national laboratories like Long Island’s Brookhaven National Lab (BNL), a world-renowned lab responsible for innovation, research and nearly 3,000 LI jobs. This is a $867 million increase from last year. The bill provides $30 million specifically for core facility revitalization at BNL, which will enable the lab to renovate the old National Synchrotron Light Source (NSLS) building to support the lab’s growing computational science needs.
"Brookhaven National Lab is home to some of the world's brightest minds and most cutting-edge innovations, which both advance human knowledge and spur our economy, and this massive investment will help BNL carry out critical projects that help put Long Island on the map as global leader in research. I have always been a fierce advocate for BNL — and technology and research in general – because it creates jobs, spurs innovation and is essential to keeping Long Island and America number one,” said Senator Schumer.
“This funding is an important investment that will ensure Long Island continues to be at the forefront of scientific progress and the high-tech economy,” said Senator Gillibrand. “Brookhaven National Laboratory is an incredible asset for New York and the nation. Scientists are drawn to Brookhaven to conduct cutting-edge research that is vital to our nation’s homeland security, creates thousands of good-paying, local jobs for the Long Island economy, and attracts some of the best scientists to New York. I was proud to fight for this funding, and will continue to work with my Senate colleagues to ensure that BNL the necessary support to success in the years ahead.”
Overall, the spending bill provides $6.259 billion for the Office of Science, which is an increase of $867 million from Fiscal Year (FY) 2017.
- Basic Energy Sciences: $2.09 billion, compared to $1.871 billion in FY2017.Nuclear Physics: $684 million, compared to $622 million in FY2017. DOE is also directed to give priority to optimizing the operations for several facilities, including the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) at BNL.
- This funding includes not less than $490 million for operations of the five BES light sources, of which NSLS-II at BNL is one.
- The omnibus also includes $30 million for core facility revitalization at BNL. This multi-year, $75 million project will renovate the old NSLS building to provide the physical facilities and infrastructure that will enable computing and data storage capabilities in support of the lab’s growing computational science needs. But more immediately, it will be the primary U.S. hub for receiving, storing, and processing the growing volume of data from the ATLAS detector at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) in Switzerland, for use and analysis by American high energy physicists.
The DOE Office of Science is the nation’s lead federal agency supporting scientific research and basic research in the physical sciences. The office supports 10 of the 17 DOE laboratories, including Brookhaven National Laboratory on Long Island. With the funding it receives from the DOE Office of Science, Brookhaven National Laboratory conducts cutting-edge research that helps improve our nation’s energy security, address environmental challenges, and produce innovative technological breakthroughs that help fuel our economy and create jobs. Overall, BNL employs over 2,700 people, and operates and maintains a number of scientific facilities on which approximately 2,500 visiting scientists rely every year to conduct research.
BNL is operated and managed by Brookhaven Science Associates, a limited-liability company founded by the Research Foundation for the State University of New York on behalf of Stony Brook University, and Battelle, a nonprofit applied science and technology organization. BNL is home to world-class facilities like the Center for Functional Nanomaterials; the NASA Space Radiation Facility; the Accelerator Test Facility; the Computational Science Center; the Brookhaven Linac Isotope Producer; the National Synchroton Light Source-II; and the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider.
The Basic Energy Science program within the DOE Office of Science supports BNL's National Synchrotron Light Source-II, a next-generation X-ray light source scientific user facility that is poised to foster breakthroughs in fields like energy security, environment, and human health. According to BNL, it will enable the study of material properties and functions with nanoscale resolution and exquisite sensitivity by providing world-leading capabilities for X-ray imaging and high-resolution energy analysis.
The Brookhaven National Lab’s Relativistic Ion Collider (RHIC) is a scientific user facility that allows over 1,000 scientists and 200 students from around the world to study what the universe may have looked like in the first few moments after its creation. Schumer and Gillibrand have said that RHIC has fueled work with industry, the Department of Defense, and other DOE programs on next-generation hadron radiotherapy facilities for cancer treatment, superconducting magnet energy storage systems, high-current energy recovery linacs for potential defense applications, and advanced medical imaging techniques and detectors.
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