As the Bush administration sent its final-year budget proposal to Congress, advocates for the physical sciences were still hopeful that lawmakers might restore most of the last-minute cuts they took from current-year Department of Energy science programs.

Raymond Orbach, DOE undersecretary for science, told reporters that “a presidential decision” will determine whether additional funding for DOE’s Office of Science will be included in a supplemental appropriations measure the White House will send to Capitol Hill sometime in the coming weeks. Such requests are supposed to cover emergency spending only—in this case, military operations in Iraq—though members of Congress in the past have attached nonemergency riders to the must-pass bill.

Orbach and White House science adviser John Marburger unveiled President Bush’s budget request for fiscal year 2009 on 4 February. As they did so, they sought to dampen expectations that Congress will provide additional spending in the current year to either...

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