Located within the Department of Energy, the Office of Science is one of the federal government’s largest distributors of research money for science exploration. The office supports research in areas ranging from high-energy physics to nanoscience to bioenergy. Much of the work funded by the Office of Science involves research universities from across the country, including some of the top schools in academia. Although the office is responsible for distributing billions in federal money to support important science experiments, it has endured budget cuts in recent years in spite of President Bush’s push to promote scientific research in the physical sciences.

By the close of World War II, the United States was at the dawn of a new era. With the development of the first atomic bombs through the Manhattan Project, the federal government faced decisions over what to do with this new, highly-powerful and potentially destructive energy source. Realizing the commercial as well as military potential of nuclear power, the federal government established the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) in 1946 and transferred to it the responsibility for atomic energy research from the War Department. AEC oversaw research programs in nuclear and radiation physics, as well as chemistry and applied mathematics, much of which was carried out by universities and national laboratories in conjunction with research labs owned by private companies.

In the early 1970s the OPEC crisis prompted Congress to expand the research mission of AEC to include other forms of energy and related technologies. However, as the worry over energy supplies grew, lawmakers came to the conclusion that AEC had outlived its usefulness and that a new government agency was needed to meet the energy challenge. On December 31, 1974, as part of a larger series of energy-related policy initiatives, AEC was abolished and replaced by the newly created Energy Research and Development Administration (ERDA). Chartered with an expanded research mission, ERDA was responsible for programs involving nuclear, solar and geothermal power, fossil fuels and energy conservation.

ERDA, however, was short-lived. President Jimmy Carter believed that a cabinet-level department was needed to address the country’s energy concerns. Thus, in 1977, the Department of Energy (DOE) was established. DOE gathered under one authority most of the energy-related activities that had evolved during the 1970s among a number of federal agencies. Included in the reorganization were the missions of ERDA, the Bureau of Mines, the Federal Energy Administration and the regulatory responsibilities of the Federal Power Commission.

Under DOE, energy technologies were not divided by fuel type, such as fossil, nuclear or solar, but grouped under assistant secretaries ranging in responsibilities from research and development to application and commercialization. Over time DOE placed less emphasis on research of nuclear power in favor of other energy sources. This work was done within DOE by the Office of Energy Research (OER) which was established at the same time DOE was created. OER managed R&D programs, as well as laboratories conducting non-weapons-related research. It also oversaw education and research activities that promoted science careers. These duties continued after OER’s name was changed to the Office of Science in 1999.

The Office of Science is one of the federal government’s largest distributors of research money for science exploration. As the single largest supporter of basic research in the physical sciences, the office provides more than 40% of total funding in this area. It also oversees research programs in high-energy physics, nuclear physics, fusion energy sciences, basic energy sciences, biological and environmental sciences and computational science. In addition, the Office of Science is the federal government’s largest single financial supporter of materials and chemical sciences, and it supports programs involving climate change, geophysics, genomics, life sciences and science education.

The Office of Science operates six interdisciplinary program offices: Advanced Scientific Computing Research, Basic Energy Sciences, Biological and Environmental Research, Fusion Energy Sciences, High Energy Physics, and Nuclear Physics. It also sponsors a range of science education initiatives through its Workforce Development for Teachers and Scientists program.

Office of Science Organizational Chart (pdf)

Another key duty of the Office of Science is managing the “crown jewels” of America’s national laboratory system. Considered the most comprehensive research system of its kind in the world, the 10 labs are: Argonne National Laboratory; Brookhaven National Laboratory; Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory; Oak Ridge National Laboratory; Pacific Northwest National Laboratory; Ames Laboratory; Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory; Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility; Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory; and Stanford Linear Accelerator Center.

Office of Science Organization

The Office of Science also oversees the operation of some of the nation’s most advanced R&D user facilities located at national laboratories and universities. These include particle and nuclear physics accelerators, synchrotron light sources, neutron scattering facilities, supercomputers and high-speed computer networks. In 2007 these facilities were used by more than 21,000 researchers from universities, national laboratories, private industry and other federal science agencies.

Nanoscience is another area of research that the office supports. Nanomaterials - typically on the scale of billionths of a meter or 10,000 times smaller than a human hair - offer different chemical and physical properties than bulk materials and have the potential to form the basis of new technologies. To support the synthesis, processing, fabrication and analysis at the nanoscale, the Office of Science has developed five new Nanoscale Science Research Centers (NSRC). The centers are part of DOE’s contribution to the National Nanotechnology Initiative. These facilities are:

• The Center for Nanoscale Materials
  Argonne National Laboratory
  Argonne, Illinois
• The Center for Functional Nanomaterials
  Brookhaven National Laboratory
  Upton, New York
• The Molecular Foundry
  Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
  Berkeley, California
• The Center for Nanophase Materials Sciences
  Oak Ridge National Laboratory
  Oak Ridge, Tennessee
• The Center For Integrated Nanotechnologies
  Sandia National Laboratories and
  Los Alamos National Laboratory
  Albuquerque, New Mexico

The Office of Science also runs several Bioenergy Research Centers with the goal of developing substitutes for gasoline through the conversion of cellulose in plant material into ethanol or other biofuels. The centers are:

• DOE BioEnergy Science Center (Oak Ridge National Laboratory). This center will focus on the resistance of plant fiber to breakdown into sugars and is studying the potential energy crops poplar and switchgrass.
• DOE Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Center (University of Wisconsin in Madison, in collaboration with Michigan State University in East Lansing). This center is studying a range of plants and, in addition to exploring plant fiber breakdown, aims to increase plant production of starches and oils that are more easily converted to fuels. This center also has a major focus on sustainability, examining the environmental and socioeconomic implications of moving to a biofuels economy.
• DOE Joint BioEnergy Institute (Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory). This center will concentrate on “model” crops of rice and Arabidopsis, in the search for game-changing breakthroughs in basic science and is exploring microbial-based synthesis of fuels beyond ethanol.

Education programs are also supported by the Office of Science. Approximately a third of the office’s research funding goes to support research at more than 300 colleges and universities, mostly to graduate students and postdoctoral researchers early in their careers. The office also conducts outreach to K-12 schools to help improve students’ knowledge of science and mathematics and their understanding of global energy and environmental challenges. To attract and encourage students to pursue science or engineering educations, the office supports the National Science Bowl®, an educational competition for high school and middle school students involving all branches of science. Each year, the National Science Bowl® attracts over 17,000 students from across the country.

The Office of Science is one of the federal government’s largest distributors of research money for science exploration. As the single largest supporter of basic research in the physical sciences, the office provides more than 40% of total funding in this area. It also oversees research programs in high-energy physics, nuclear physics, fusion energy sciences, basic energy sciences, biological and environmental sciences and computational science. In addition, the Office of Science is the federal government’s largest single financial supporter of materials and chemical sciences, and it supports programs involving climate change, geophysics, genomics, life sciences and science education.

• The Molecular Foundry
  Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
  Berkeley, California
• The Center for Nanophase Materials Sciences
  Oak Ridge National Laboratory
  Oak Ridge, Tennessee
• The Center For Integrated Nanotechnologies
  Sandia National Laboratories and
  Los Alamos National Laboratory
  Albuquerque, New Mexico

• DOE BioEnergy Science Center (Oak Ridge National Laboratory). This center will focus on the resistance of plant fiber to breakdown into sugars and is studying the potential energy crops poplar and switchgrass.
• DOE Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Center (University of Wisconsin in Madison, in collaboration with Michigan State University in East Lansing). This center is studying a range of plants and, in addition to exploring plant fiber breakdown, aims to increase plant production of starches and oils that are more easily converted to fuels. This center also has a major focus on sustainability, examining the environmental and socioeconomic implications of moving to a biofuels economy.
• DOE Joint BioEnergy Institute (Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory). This center will concentrate on “model” crops of rice and Arabidopsis, in the search for game-changing breakthroughs in basic science and is exploring microbial-based synthesis of fuels beyond ethanol.

Education programs are also supported by the Office of Science. Approximately a third of the office’s research funding goes to support research at more than 300 colleges and universities, mostly to graduate students and postdoctoral researchers early in their careers. The office also conducts outreach to K-12 schools to help improve students’ knowledge of science and mathematics and their understanding of global energy and environmental challenges. To attract and encourage students to pursue science or engineering educations, the office supports the National Science Bowl®, an educational competition for high school and middle school students involving all branches of science. Each year, the National Science Bowl® attracts over 17,000 students from across the country.

Some of the nation’s most prestigious universities operate the national laboratories and other research centers that the office manages. Key stakeholders, and the labs they help run, include: Iowa State University (Ames Laboratory); Princeton University (Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory); Stanford University (Stanford Linear Accelerator Center); State University of New York (Brookhaven National Laboratory); University of Chicago (Argonne National Laboratory and Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory); University of California (Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory); University of Tennessee (Oak Ridge National Laboratory); and University of Wisconsin/Michigan State University (Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Center).

In addition to these higher education institutions, two university consortiums are involved with the work of certain national laboratories. The Universities Research Association, a consortium of 89 universities in the United States, with members also in Canada, Japan, and Italy, co-operates the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory with the University of Chicago. Also, the Southeastern Universities Research Association, a collection of 60 universities from across the US, helps run the Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility along with Computer Sciences Corporation. The state of Virginia and the City of Newport News, Virginia, also provide funding to the Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility.

The largest private contractor involved with the Office of Science is Battelle, an applied science and technology company that co-operates the Brookhaven National Laboratory with the State University of New York and the Oak Ridge National Laboratory with the University of Tennessee. Battelle also runs the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory without a university partner.

Other private contractors help operate Sandia National Laboratories and Los Alamos National Laboratory, where the Center for Integrated Nanotechnologies is located. These lab contractors include Lockheed Martin Corporation, Bechtel, BWX Technologies and Washington Group International.

Budget Cuts under President Bush

Since 2004 the Office of Science has seen its appropriations reduced either as part of President Bush’s proposed budget plan or by Congressional Democrats.

In 2005 the White House trimmed almost 4% from the Office of Science’s budget. This decision stood in contrast to the Bush administration’s support for greater research into new generations of nuclear power plants, which resulted in the Office of Nuclear Energy receiving even more money than it had requested (see Office of Nuclear Energy). One of the hardest hit programs for the Office of Science was the field of supercomputing, which sustained an almost 11% reduction by the Bush administration. 

As a result of the budget cuts, some Office of Science-funded experiments were shut down or delayed, and some scientists laid off. The cuts proved especially dangerous for a plan to have the US serve as host of an international linear collider, which represented a significant loss for researchers involved in high-energy physics.

In 2006, the Bush administration bolstered funding for Office of Science programs. Those increases were cut, however, after negotiations between the President’s and Congressional negotiators. “It was glorious for (Fiscal Year) ’07 and it was glorious in (Fiscal Year) ’08, and in neither case was it realized,” said Persis Drell, director of the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center, which terminated about 120 workers, including some scientists, from its staff of 1,600 because of budget cuts. Officials at the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, the nation’s top institution in particle physics, also decided to cut 10% of its staff.

In January 2008, the Bush administration again proposed budget increases for research in the physical sciences. In July, Congress agreed to raise the annual budget of the Office of Science from $4 billion to $4.65 billion. The larger appropriation means the United States can resume contributing to an international collaboration to build an experimental fusion power plant called Iter.

Physicists Hope U.S. Budget Will Mean an End to Research Cuts (by Kenneth Chang, New York Times)

Alexander Urges Increased Science Funding In Continuing Resolution (The Chattanoogan)