Based on prospective figures from the 2014 fiscal year federal budget released by President Obama on April 10, the Princeton Plasma Physics Lab faces a $6 million decrease in funding, or about 7 percent of its FY2012 $82 million operating budget.
While the federal budget for fusion research has increased to $458 million from $400 million, the domestic portion of the budget has shrunk significantly due to U.S. commitments to an internationally funded full-scale fusion power plant based in France, known as ITER, according to Dean for Research, A.J. Stewart Smith.
“There is definitely a bit of a funding crisis in fusion research,” PPPL Director and astrophysics professor Stewart Prager said. “Funding for the domestic research program goes down about 20 percent in FY2014.”
Prager said the estimated cuts would have a serious impact on the lab, especially if these decreased funding levels continue into FY2015.
“If they continue to occur over time, we will have to trim back on the staff a little bit, possibly as much as 10 percent,” Prager explained. “A $6 million cut is quite harmful. The lab will maintain its mission and its structure, but the lab staff is already quite lean for the work that we would like to do.”
While $6 million is a significant cut, the PPPL is relatively well-funded and will weather the effects of the cut better that other programs around the country, Smith explained.
“There are devastating effects on the programs at MIT,” Smith said, using an example of an affected program. “Everyone here is extremely concerned by this.”
Prager and Smith both noted that the lab can continue to compete for smaller government grants to try to make up for the budget gap. They said the PPPL has been successful in the past in these federal grant competitions.
Congressman Rush Holt, whose district includes both the lab and the University, also said he is concerned about government funding for fusion energy in FY 2014. “I call this an imbalance between the domestic and international programs,” he explained, referring to the ITER project. “I’ll be working with the appropriators to fix that.”
Holt noted that historically, appropriations committees have been able to shift around funds that are part of the President’s budget, allocating more to domestic fusion projects.
Holt, a physicist, served as the assistant director of PPPL from 1989 until his election in 1998.
Smith said the PPPL has been suffering from significant uncertainty due to the government’s current operation on a continuing resolution from the FY2012 and legislative sequestration. The lab has not yet received any new guidance on dealing with the effects of sequestration.
“We are in the insane situation right now that we are halfway through FY2013, but do not have a fiscal year budget,” he said. “We’re running on autopilot as the fuel runs out.”
Prager agreed that the funding situation of the PPPL was uncertain. “For us not to know our budget, this is very difficult,” he said.
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