Politicians Rally To Save SERI

Can Colorado’s congressional delegation rescue the Solar Energy Research Institute? The Golden, Colo. based lab, whose Department of Energy funding has been sliced nearly in half over the last eight years,’ is facing an additional 32% cut for fiscal 1990, which begins in October. Although Congress has traditionally boosted low presidential requests for solar research, members of the state delegation fear that the federal deficit will make such a rescue much more difficult this year. The legislators warned colleagues on the Senate Appropriations Committee last month about the need to avoid “a devastating cut for SERI in an already bare-bones budget,” and called for an increase in funding at least to the level of the lab’s current allocation of $52 million. “We’re not just crying wolf," says Sen. William Armstrong (R-Colo.), “If we cut it any more, it’s just gone too far.” The lab has...

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