Orbach gets undersecretary of science nod

Physicist Raymond Orbach, the director of the US Department of Energy’s Office of Science, was nominated by President Bush in December to become DOE’s first Undersecretary for Science. The position, created last August as part of the Energy Policy Act of 2005, elevates Orbach to the same level as the existing undersecretaries for defense, and for energy and the environment.

Orbach must be confirmed by the Senate and could not comment on his pending promotion, but Mildred Dresselhaus, Orbach’s predecessor at the Office of Science, said giving Orbach more power should be good for science. “I think an undersecretary has a better chance of solving problems and getting things done,” she said. “In physics research positions it doesn’t make a whole lot of difference who a person is because it is the ideas that prevail.”

But in government, rank is important, she said. “When I was in that position [Office of Science director], being of the same status as the other assistant secretaries and below the undersecretaries made it difficult to work with them.”

The science community has been pushing for the establishment of an undersecretary for science since at least 2000, and in 2003 a review panel, led by then–MIT president Charles Vest, recommended elevating the science director to undersecretary level to serve as a high-level science advocate within DOE. The department provides about 40% of all federal funding of physical sciences in the US, with physics research receiving about 60% of its funding from DOE.