June 16, 2017

Duckworth in Meeting with Argonne & University of Chicago: Trump Cuts to Science Funding Will Kill Illinois Jobs

 

[WASHINGTON, DC] - U.S. Senator Tammy Duckworth (D-IL) met with leaders of the Argonne National Laboratory and the University of Chicago yesterday to discuss the world-class research Argonne is conducting and the importance of maintaining funding for scientific research in the face of potential budget cuts. The Trump administration has proposed cutting the Department of Energy's Office of Science by nearly 20 percent, which is the primary source of Argonne's funding. Duckworth recently led 24 of her colleagues in writing to the Chairman and Ranking Member of the Appropriations Subcommittee on Energy and Water Development to instead request that the Office of Science receive at least $5.4 billion of funding, which is how much it received in the current fiscal year. A photo of Duckworth's meeting with the Interim Director of the Argonne National Laboratory, Paul Kearns, and the Executive Vice President for Research, Innovation and National Laboratories at the University of Chicago, Eric Isaacs, is available here.

"Argonne is one of Illinois's crown jewels of scientific innovation. It provides a key source of economic growth and job creation for our state," said Duckworth. "I appreciated the chance to meet with Director Kearns and Vice President Isaacs to discuss the breakthrough research being done at Argonne and how we can protect it from harmful budget cuts."

Senator Duckworth has been a strong supporter of investing in our national laboratories as a member of the Senate Energy & Natural Resources Committee. Last week, she introduced a resolution that passed the Senate unanimously congratulating Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (Fermilab) on 50 years of groundbreaking discoveries.

Argonne National Laboratory, located in Argonne, Illinois, is the largest national laboratory in the Midwest. It employs more than 3,400 full time employees and hosts thousands of students and visiting scientists. Argonne scientists are currently working on a number of important projects critical to our national security and to our nation's energy resources. Its Exascale project is developing a supercomputer capable of making over a billion calculations per second and its Advanced Photon Source facility is pioneering new drugs and nanotechnologies.