Even the Exploration of the Cosmos Falls Victim to Government Shutdown

By Bay City News Service and Patch Staff —  It looks like even the search for how the universe was created is going to have to stop thanks to the government shutdown.

Government workers at the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory in Menlo Park, the esteemed Stanford-operated science research center, will join thousands of others in the Bay Area this week facing furlough due to the federal budget stalemate.

The Menlo Park lab, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and other Bay Area-based national research institutions face a nearly total closure this week if the partial federal government shutdown continues. 

As for how that might affect your daily life, it doesn't get any more sobering than shuttering a facility that, among other things: discovered some of the fundamental building blocks of matter, created the first website in North America, takes movies of the insides of atoms and is exploring the cosmos, right down to the origin of the universe and the nature of dark energy.

The shutdown that began Oct. 1 when Congress was unable to vote on a budget is threatening to close the nuclear weapons and national security research institute starting today, Lawrence Livermore lab spokeswoman Lynda Seaver said. 

The effects of the fiscal fiasco, which immediately closed national parks and dozens of other federal offices and programs, are starting to reach Bay Area-based national research institutes. Seaver said there are more than 6,000 employees at the Livermore lab, and that the furloughs will be "across the board." 

In total, there are 13,000 government contractors working there and at Sandia National Laboratories in Livermore, the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in Berkeley and the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory in Menlo Park.

 Thousands of researchers, engineers, scientists and other employees at these research centers are facing furloughs by the end of this week as existing funds run out and may not be paid, according to a statement from Rep. Eric Swalwell, D-Dublin. 

A group of politicians urged the Department of Energy to give "back pay" to employees once the shutdown ends in a bicameral and bipartisan letter written Friday by Swalwell, along with U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-San Francisco, Rep. Zoe Lofgren, D-San Jose, Rep. Mike Thompson, D-St. Helena, Barbara Lee, D-Oakland, and other members of Congress. 

The letter states, "Lab employees have expressed their concerns about the uncertainty they face and the economic hardship which would be caused by the furloughs." He continued to ask for compensation "for people who do so much for our country on a daily basis and unfairly are being subjected to this uncertainty."