Fusion funding would remain flat in FY 2000. The U.S. has terminated its partnership in the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor. Federal support for physics research has resulted in billion-dollar industries employing millions of Americans. Advances in medical imaging and physics, lasers, new materials, national defense, computers, the Internet, transportation, and telecommunications are but a few of the areas that have benefited from discoveries made possible by fundamental physics research. These discoveries were often made decades before their eventual commercialization in products such as compact discs, semiconductors, the World Wide Web, MRIs, and the Global Positioning System.
Funding ranges from individual investigator grants to the construction of billion dollar facilities.
It ranks in the top five federal agencies funding basic and applied research, and first in construction of scientific user facilities. DOE funds approximately 90 percent of all federal research into the fundamental understanding of energy and matter through its High Energy and Nuclear Physics programs. DOE's Office of Science provides long-term, fundamental, civilian research that enhances understanding of the nature of energy, drives new energy technologies, and explores the consequences of energy production, development, and use. As funding increases in some areas have fallen below inflation in recent years, priority has been placed on maximizing the use of new, forefront facilities, even at the expense of underutilizing, or closing, older facilities. Neutron scattering research can lead to better fibers, plastics and catalysts, drugs with higher potency and fewer side effects, and improved automobile parts.