Dr. Raymond Orbach visited Fermilab Tuesday to learn about the laboratory's advances and long-range plans as well as to offer support for its future for decades to come.
The DOE Under Secretary for Science told a crowd of nearly 1000 that they, and American science as a whole, face a critical time where America must decide whether it wants to remain a leader of nations.
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The President in his State of the Union address continued to support science, Orbach said. The long-range plans under formation by the Department of Energy and the Particle Physics Project Prioritization Panel, or P5, also support the continued success of Fermilab.
"In my view, we have worked together to come up with a plan for high-energy physics that will support Fermilab for decades to come," Orbach said.
The P5 plan is due in early May, and Congress will get the first five years of the DOE plan this summer.
Orbach stressed that the efficiency, attention to safety, and productivity of Fermilab, especially in the face of budget cuts, give Congress confidence that the laboratory can use the money it requests wisely. Orbach particularly praised the Tevatron's increase in luminosity to more than 300 times above the accelerator's original design, putting experimenters ever closer to the Higgs boson.
"Your efforts have given you strength for future operations that otherwise we wouldn't have had," Orbach said. "I cannot tell you personally how proud I am of Fermilab in the face of such treatment to show what you can do."
Congress looks closely at past performance when deciding where to invest. Fermilab's history of getting projects built on time and on budget, as well as producing a top safety record, sends a message that the laboratory is worth Congress's investment, Orbach said.
He offered no promise for improved FY08 funding, but hope that the future looks brighter. The personal struggles and damage to the United States' reputation as an international partner caused by the FY08 budget have resonated with Congress, he said.
Scientists, engineers, and technicians must work in tandem with DOE to convince Congress and the American people to pass the President's FY 2009 budget request and lay the groundwork for a FY 2010 budget that supports HEP.
The HEP community also must work together with the Office of Science to present a 10-year plan that shows the importance of basic science and its budget-driven achievability on which the next administration can build its base of scientific initiatives.
"Every one of us has a responsibility to get the message out about science," he said.
You can view the entire talk.
