[LMich]

In stark contrast to the casino, another economic project that will pay dividends in Mid-Michigan for decades to come, it appears as if the Facility for Rare Isotope Beams (FRIB) didn't just make the appropriations cut with the new budget, but surprisingly made it out whole getting every last dime it requested, and allowing actual construction to finally start.

U.S. funding bill includes $55M for MSU science facility

Marisa Schultz | Detroit News Washington Bureau

January 14, 2014

Washington — An appropriations bill released late Monday includes full funding for a highly touted Michigan State University science facility that will allow construction to begin this year, according to Michigan’s two senators.

The $1 trillion appropriations deal reached by House and Senate negotiators will include $55 million to fund MSU’s Facility for Rare Isotope Beams (FRIB) project. MSU won the cutting-edge nuclear science project in a competitive bid in 2008, but troubles with Department of Energy federal funding have hampered the project’s takeoff.

Congress already approved the overall budget figure in a bipartisan deal in December, but the appropriations legislation fills in the details for agency spending. Congress could vote on the measure as early as next week.

Sens. Carl Levin, D-Detroit, and Debbie Stabenow, D-Lansing, expressed relief Monday that the project will be funded at the levels they requested.

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The heart of the MSU facility would be a high-intensity linear accelerator that is 1,000 times more powerful than accelerators at nuclear science facilities in the nation, including those at MSU's National Superconducting Cyclotron Laboratory. The accelerator would be built underground next to the existing lab.

“FRIB is essential to America’s continued leadership in nuclear science,” Levin said in a statement. “It’s a powerful statement about Michigan’s role in maintaining that leadership.”