Iter funding eliminated

In a game of budgetary hardball between the White House and Congress, the House of Representatives passed an amendment eliminating funding for ITER and prohibiting the US from joining the international fusion project until March 2006. The amendment, added by Committee on Science Chairman Sherwood Boehlert (R-NY) to the fiscal year 2006 Energy and Water Development Appropriations bill, is intended to force the administration to clarify where the estimated $1 billion US share of the project will come from.

“I want to make sure that before we commit a dime to ITER that we have a consensus on how we will find that money,” Boehlert said in offering his amendment. He added that although he is a strong supporter of ITER, he is “very, very tired of the US signing on to international science agreements that we later come to regret.”

Over the past couple of budget cycles the Department of Energy has proposed funding ITER primarily through significant cuts to most other domestic fusion programs. Boehlert said that shifting other fusion money to ITER “makes sense,” but DOE’s Fusion Energy Sciences Advisory Committee has repeatedly warned against funding ITER at the expense of other projects. Congressional appropriators agreed with the committee and restored non-ITER fusion funding last year. The White House said in a statement that “elimination of the [ITER] funding … would have a serious negative impact on US participation in future international fusion efforts.”