In a now-annual ritual for these times of austerity on Capitol Hill, lawmakers from both sides of the aisle are starting to lash out at the Department of Energy for a plan to slash funding to the research laboratories in their districts.

The budget proposed by the Obama administration for the next fiscal year would go too far with its cuts to large nuclear research programs within the national laboratory system, several lawmakers told Energy Secretary Steven Chu yesterday during a hearing of the House Science, Space and Technology Committee.

Los Alamos National Lab, the complex in northern New Mexico that was the birthplace of the atomic bomb, is on track to lose $273 million in the span of two years for its portfolio of research into nuclear energy, renewables and basic science. That stems largely from a decision to zero out funding for the Chemistry and Metallurgy Research Replacement Project, a $6 billion facility for nuclear research that critics say is too costly.

Rep. Ben Ray Luján (D-N.M.) said yesterday that the 10 percent decrease in federal funding could cripple projects at the lab, which has already announced a cost-cutting plan that includes buyouts for 400 to 800 employees (Greenwire, Feb. 22).

"As I look at the budget, it looks like Los Alamos took a much bigger hit than any of the other labs, and quite honestly, almost as much as the other labs combined," he said. "What I'm looking for is some assurance, a long-term commitment."

Other lawmakers had similar reasons to fret. Rep. Paul Tonko (D-N.Y.) criticized the cuts to Brookhaven National Lab on Long Island, which would see its federal funding trimmed by 10 percent, to $531 million, and would have to cut the operating hours in half at its Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider, which supports nuclear research.

Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.) said she is working with Republicans on a proposal to defund next year's contribution to the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor, or ITER, out of frustration with a deep cut to a similar facility being developed at Lawrence Livermore National Lab, near San Francisco. She said the National Ignition Facility, a fusion research center completed three years ago after 12 years of construction and a series of cost overruns, could be forced to shut down without more money in next year's budget.

Republicans on the committee, including Chairman Ralph Hall of Texas, spent much of the hearing yesterday criticizing DOE for tilting money toward clean energy. Rep. Randy Hultgren (R-Ill.) said a tack toward these "pet projects" of the administration will hurt the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, which is located in his district outside Chicago.

Under the budget plan, the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy would get a double-digit budget increase.

"It really does seem clear to me that this is an anti-science budget aimed at pushing short-term political agendas," Hultgren said. "I really do believe it's going to hurt our long-term economic competitiveness, our scientific enterprise and our country."

President Obama has vowed to double the federal government's annual spending on basic research, but his proposed budget for DOE's Office of Science in fiscal 2013 would increase it by 2.4 percent.

At that rate, it would take 30 years to double DOE's research spending, not taking inflation into account.

Still, "it is a high priority," Chu, the Nobel Prize-winning physicist, said of basic research. "As you well know, I spent my life doing fundamental science. I know the value of fundamental science and what it leads to."

Who gets the help?

As it moves through Congress this year, the budget will likely change substantially from the form in which the Obama administration introduced it. Still, the attempt to craft a spending plan that promotes clean energy without ballooning agency budgets has chafed some of the laboratories that focus on new ways of harnessing nuclear power.

The programs that focus more heavily on clean energy stand to benefit. The National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Colorado would get an $11 million bump under the budget, as would Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, the research center in the San Francisco Bay area where Chu was previously director.

Chu said after the hearing that the cuts to nuclear energy laboratories do not reflect an overarching goal, but rather, the tough choices made after a review of their individual projects.

He said the fusion research center in Lofgren's district remains a key part of the U.S. plan for nuclear energy research and that he does not think the proposed budget cuts would force it to shut down.

"The members were doing their job," Chu told reporters. "They were speaking up for the laboratories in their districts, and I understand that."

Aside from worries about major employers in their backyards, Democrats on the committee largely backed Chu's argument that it is time to invest in new energy sources after decades of spending on new technologies for nuclear energy and fossil fuels.

DOE's proposed budget would "level the playing field" so newer, cleaner technologies can compete with mature energy sources, said Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson (D-Texas), the ranking member of the science committee.

Research into nuclear and fossil fuels drove down energy costs, letting the economy "grow to what it is today," Johnson said. She criticized Republicans for slamming clean energy even as they support those longstanding research programs.

"We have to find the greatest value for the taxpayer dollar, and today it is in the emerging energy technology sectors that can most benefit from government support," Johnson said.

Chu said his agency is taking this mentality with renewables as well. Now that onshore wind energy has become more widely accepted on the marketplace, DOE has started shifting its research funding toward other technologies, such as offshore wind.

He announced yesterday that DOE will ask Congress to spend $180 million over six years on offshore wind, including $20 million to be spent this fiscal year under existing budget authority.