Scientific Facilities Initiative

[B. Kamitakahara]

To:  Members of the NSSA
From:   Sam Werner, President

Date:  March 17, 1995

Next week you will receive via the regular mail a 4-page letter
from me discussing a number of issues that confront the neutron
scattering community in the U.S. at the present time.  This mailing
will have about 30 pages of background information pertaining to
these issues.  I want to ask you for your immediate general support of
the 4 DOE neutron scattering centers encompassed in the Scientific
Facilities Initiative currently being considered in Congress.

SCIENTIFIC FACILITIES INITIATIVE
     The DOE has included in the President's budget a $100 M Scientific 
Facilities Initiative (SFI).   The purpose of this initiative is to
make various cost-effective upgrades to certain major DOE 
facilities, so as to substantially improve their efficiency, operating 
schedules, and their ability to serve their scientific users.  A copy of
the DOE announcement of the initiative is enclosed in the mailing you
will receive from the NSSA.  Approximately $19.1 M is slated to go to the 
four DOE neutron scattering facilities (IPNS $4.5M, HFBR $3.8M, HFIR $3.8M,
LANSCE $7.0M).  The appropriations legislation is now being considered
by various committees in the House and Senate.  Included in the mailing are
the membership lists of these committees, as well as the addresses of 
people in the DOE (Hazel O'Leary, Martha Krebs, Iran Thomas), 
to whom you may write, since they will be carrying the ball for us 
on this initiative, and they may need your reasons for backing the SFI.
The address of Dr. John Gibbons, the President's Science Advisor, is also
included.

I would like to ask you to write your local Congressional representative 
regarding the importance of these facilities to your own research program, 
and the potential impact that this additional funding would have on 
scientific research and technology development in the U.S. generally.
Please avoid promoting one facility at the expense of another, since 
this SFI will succeed or fail as a package.