U.S. ATLAS HL-LHC Upgrade Level 2 and Deputies-NSF only Management Mailing List

[Michael Tuts <tuts AT pmtuts.net>]

Dear NSF L2 Managers and Deputies,

 

Some of you have asked about the status of the FY25 NSF MREFC funding in light of news about the Trump administration cancelling FY25 MREFC funding. The current understanding is that this FY25 cancellation does not affect our ATLAS MREFC funding. The reason is that the full ATLAS MREFC funding from Congress was received by NSF in FY20-FY24 (note this is the full funding for the NSF ATLAS scope including going forward to the end of the project). The FY25 cut affects MREFC projects for the South Pole Infrastructure, a computing facility in Texas, and some mid-scale projects.

 

Information from Jim Shank (NSF) confirms this view. Information from our Columbia VP for Research in contact with their DC consultants/lobbyists also confirms this view with the caveat that if NSF were to decide to re-prioritize MREFC account funding to address their FY25 cuts, then that could impact us – they estimate that scenario only has a small probability of occurring. Note that we have received the FY25 Q3+Q4 funding in the latest amendment from NSF for our MREFC Cooperative Agreement amendment ($10M), so we do not anticipate any FY25 impact. Of course, we live in a chaotic environment as you know, but for now we proceed with business as usual, and as many of you know we are completing our discussions with all our subawardees for the remaining FY Q3+Q4 funding.

 

Cheers, PO