Tuesday, March 31, 2009

Durbin Announces $99 Million in Recovery Act Funding for Argonne National Lab

From the Office of U.S. Senator Dick Durbin

[WASHINGTON, D.C.] – Assistant Senate Majority Leader Dick Durbin (D-IL) today announced on a conference call with the Director of Argonne National Laboratory, Eric Isaacs that the lab will receive $99 million in funding through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act to accelerate environmental cleanup work and create jobs. The Director of Fermilab, Pier Oddone, was also on today’s call.

“Last week, Congressman Foster and I announced forty-eight million dollars in Recovery Act funding for Argonne and Fermilab,” said Durbin. “Today, the directors of both labs and I discussed more great news for Illinois. Ninety-nine million dollars will be used by Argonne to create jobs at the lab and reduce environmental risks associated with nuclear waste – two main goals of the Recovery Act.”

On March 23, Durbin and Congressman Bill Foster (D-IL) announced that the Department of Energy (DOE)’s Office of Science has awarded a total of $48 million in funding to Fermilab and Argonne National Laboratory to protect jobs and support critical research. The funding from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act was part of the $1.2 billion in funding announced by the Office of Science last week.

Today’s funding is part of a Department of Energy (DOE) announcement of $6 billion in new funding under the Recovery Act to accelerate environmental cleanup work and create thousands of jobs across 12 states. Projects identified for funding are focused on accelerating cleanup of soil and groundwater, transportation and disposal of waste and cleaning and demolishing former weapons complex facilities. These projects and the new funding are managed by the DOE’s Office of Environmental Management, which is responsible for the risk reduction and cleanup of the environmental legacy from the nation’s nuclear weapons program.

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