that was ap eighted. >> as a member of the budget committee and moving forward with the appropriations committee, it's my intent to make sure we do everything possible to make sure we have the full commitment to be able to move forward with this project. i hope the department is going to keep its commitment going into the fifth year of a very important, not only science project but economic development project that's going to create over a billion dollars in economic activity and makes no sense to me why as we go into the fifth year that we're having this conversation when those conversations were conducted at the very beginning of all of this and priorities were set, decisions were made, dollars were spent. and now we go into the fifth year. it's in the budget. it seems to me we ought to be talking about what we need to break ground and to be able to move forward with this rather than another evaluation. i'm all for evaluations, but this project has been evaluated and evaluated and, in fact, has come out with stellar reviews every step of the way. i would hope that the department will

figure out within the constraints of the nuclear physics budget in the office of science, how to best ap eight all the precious dollars. so the question is precisely that, and ultimately it's going to be the nuclear physics community that will be deciding what to do. so -- it's not targeted after efrib, it's targeted at the entire nuclear physics program. we think nuclear physics as is high energy physics are important parts of the department of energy portfolio. but the budget has said that we have constraints. we also need to use our budget in the office of science to help on the mission oriented research that could lead to energy solutions and lead to more competitive america in the near term. we recognize the value of the michigan state project. we have asked for a budget that's the same level as what was appropriate last year. we will continue this. but in the end we need -- the nuclear physics community at large to comment on all the projects, not projects, but the program in general. >> mr. secretary, let me ask you to clarify this. the president has indicated support for this in his bu