[mmaimcal]Senate Appropriations Report Language on NSF

[Al Wootten]

Accompanying the recently drafted Senate FY 2004 VA, HUD, and
Independent Agencies Appropriations Bill is a report spelling out
the details of the committee's recommendations regarding the
National Science Foundation.  Selections from Senate Report 108-143
are below; the full report may be accessed at
http://thomas.loc.gov/

"The Committee is concerned that NSF has not proposed to maintain
adequately its existing astronomy facilities. Support for enhanced
operations, maintenance, and development of new instrumentation at
the Very Large Array and the Very Long Baseline Array in New Mexico
and the Green Bank Telescope in West Virginia continues to be a
priority for the Committee.  These astronomy facilities need to be
supported in their operations, and new instrumentation and upgrades
must be provided to keep them as world class facilities. The
Committee provides the National Radio Astronomy Observatories [NRAO]
$55,310,000 for annual operations. Also within the increase provided
for NRAO, the Committee approves $9,400,000 specifically to continue
the Expanded Very Large Array program, and $10,300,000 for the Green
Bank Observatory. The Committee is also aware that the rail upon
which the Green Bank telescope turns is showing premature wear and
will require either retrofitting or replacement. For the purpose of
engineering studies and cost for repair or replacement, in addition
the Committee is providing $4,600,000 in funding out of the funds
provided in the Math and Physical Sciences activity."

...

"The Committee has provided $51,040,000 for the Atacama Large
Millimeter Array [ALMA], $43,730,000 for EarthScope, and $35,460,000
for the IceCube Neutrino Observatory. The Committee has also
provided $10,060,000 for Terascale Computing, $8,090,000 to continue
the construction of the Network for Earthquake Engineering
Simulation [NEES], and $1,300,000 for funding of the current South
Pole Station modernization efforts. Due to budgetary constraints, no
funding is provided for new starts within this account for fiscal
year 2004.