Plan calls for $22 million on MSU nuclear project

EAST LANSING, Mich. (AP) -- President Barack Obama's $22 million funding proposal for a nuclear research facility at Michigan State University is less than half of what school officials expected under an agreement with the U.S. Department of Energy. The funding for the Facility for Rare Isotope Beams project was part of Obama's 2013 budget plan released Monday. About $55 million in funding was stipulated by the original agreement. William Brinkman, director of the Department of Energy's Office of Science, told the Lansing State Journal that the department is planning a review of its entire nuclear physics program over the next nine months. Asked if the project would go forward, though perhaps more slowly, he replied: "We don't really know the answer to that question, but the idea of this committee is to figure out what we can afford and go forward with what we want to go forward with. Not start everything." Officials working on the $600 million project, however, remain optimistic about its future. "We are ready to convince the committee that the discovery science opportunities at FRIB, as well as its applications to medicine, industry, national security, energy and the environment, are foremost in the national interest," said Bradley Sherrill, the project's chief scientist. Democratic U.S. Sens. Carl Levin and Debbie Stabenow of Michigan released statements saying they plan to work to ensure the project is properly funded and moves forward. Levin said he was "disappointed" that the proposed funding was short of previously agreed upon levels. Last month, the university's governing board approved a request to take the next step for the Facility for Rare Isotope Beams project, establishing a $20 million budget for site preparation and excavation. Michigan State won a national competition to land the project in December 2008, and work is under way to design the facility. But U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu said in January that federal funding for the research facility could be in doubt because of federal budget pressures and the economy. Project manager Thomas Glasmacher said he still wants to push ahead with construction, which could start this year. "MSU has been a good partner to DOE and has done exactly what it said it would," he said. "DOE is not doing what it said it would, and so we need to now work with the nuclear physics program and figure out what that means and how to go forward." The facility is designed to accelerate atomic nuclei to high speeds, then shatter them to create rare isotopes. Published: Wed, Feb 15, 2012