Interim Laboratory Director Paul Kearns
Today the President issued his budget request for fiscal year 2018, marking the first step in a long and complex process to reach a final federal budget. Members of the House and Senate will now review the request and over the next few months work toward agreement on a funding bill that would reflect the priorities of all parties. Congress will then send its bill to the President for his signature.
While that work gets underway in Washington, we have our own tasks to tend to here at Argonne. I, along with laboratory directors from around the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) complex, am discussing with DOE leadership how the President’s budget request affects the department and what is expected of us as the budget process moves forward. Office of Science Director Steve Binkley already has been on the phone with lab leaders to comb through the budget, with program managers planning to follow suit in the coming week. Argonne leadership will be offering our feedback and taking what we’ve learned to ensure the lab is responding appropriately. In the coming weeks, you will hear more about this from your Associate Laboratory Directors and Division Directors directly. DOE has posted the FY 2018 Budget Justification on its website.
Your task is to keep doing what you already do so well — fulfilling Argonne’s mission to make energy breakthroughs, deepen our understanding of the world we live in and provide the nation’s researchers with one-of-a-kind user facilities. I thank each and every one of you for your unique contributions as we work together to meet those goals.
I thank you also for your continued patience and perseverance as the budget process moves along. And I thank you for your trust that my fellow lab leaders and I are staying on top of the budget process, equipping all Argonne stakeholders with comprehensive, up-to-date information about the mission, capabilities, accomplishments and potential of our lab.
The federal budget process naturally generates a great deal of media interest, even here locally. Should you receive a call from a reporter about the budget, please forward him or her to Argonne Media Relations Manager Chris Kramer at ext. 2-5580.
I will share more information as it becomes available. In the meanwhile, if you want to brush up on your knowledge of the budget process, I encourage you to check out Budget 101, a guide to the federal budget process presented by our own Government Relations Director Norm Peterson. A video is available here, and an encore live presentation is being scheduled. Watch Argonne Today for details.
As always, I encourage you to contact me with any questions or concerns you may have, about the budget or anything else. You can reach me at listen@anl.gov, or stop by Conversations with Kearns, Mondays from 8:30 to 9:30 a.m. in the Bldg. 213 Cafeteria. I look forward to talking to you.
June 5 Conversations with Kearns: Add to Your Calendar