The following letter from Sid Drell, Chairman of the HEPAP Subpanel on Vision for the Future of High Energy Physics, is being sent via e-mail to facilitate prompt distribution. It may not be received by all those who have interest in its contents. Please share it with those in your area.

14 February, 1994

Dear Colleagues:

This is a follow-up to my December 15 letter to bring you up to date on the activities of the new "Future Vision Panel" formed to redefine the future of the U.S. High Energy Physics program now that the SSC, our top priority commitment of the past decade, has been cancelled. As I wrote in my first letter to you - "We must clearly define and convey our scientific goals and a practical path to achieving them with international collaboration." The Panel is hard at work. I sought broad advice in forming it and received many excellent suggestions for Panel membership, particularly from the chairman of HEPAP and from the Division of Particles and Fields. I believe that our community is admirably represented and served by the members selected. You have heard by now of planned town meetings being organized in cooperation with the Division of Particles and Fields. I also remind you of my invitation to you in the letter of December 15 to convey thoughts, concerns, recommendations, etc. to the Panel. I promised, and repeat, they will be given serious consideration.

I regret and am very disappointed that I have to make a correction to my December letter to you. I wrote then that following discussions with the Secretary of Energy and the Director of Energy Research "I am satisfied with the working assumption underlying this Panel's work. It is that the U.S. High Energy Physics base program will be adequately supported to achieve its currently defined goal of completing the Main Injector at Fermilab and the B-Factory at SLAC circa 1998 while maintaining a healthy program of utilizing existing facilities. This will enable the new panel to focus on developing a vision of our field's future." The White House has now published the FY95 budget. It is not what I believed it would be when I sent out that letter. In fact what it presents to us is a budget for the DOE High Energy Physics program in FY95 that will require further sub- stantial contraction of the ongoing program, while it is trying to absorb scientists returning from the SSCL. Our current budget situation is as follows: The proposed (but not yet appropriated) budget for FY95 contains construction funds for the Main Injector and the B-Factory as scheduled. That is the good news. The bad news is that it also marks the third year in a row in which there is a decrease of more than 7% in constant dollars for support and equipment in the ongoing program. There was also, in FY94, an additional loss of about $58M, or 9-1/2%, of resources that came to the community from SSCL and Texas funds in support of detectors and magnet research. Fortunately, that loss is, in part, offset by $14M of SSC closeout funds that have been made available in FY94, but no such funds are provided in the budget presented for FY95.

With this budget the problems facing our field following the demise of the SSC are all that much more difficult. Many of you have suggested that my Panel should recommend specific changes and new priorities in today's program in order to bring it in line with the current budget realities. While I agree with the urgency of this need I am writing to make clear that this is not the charge to the Panel. What the Panel will consider is the evolution of the current program as scientific and financial resources transfer to R&D in preparation for working at the new frontiers. That is part of building a new vision and practical strategies for the field in the light of the loss of the SSC. This is what the Secretary has asked of us and this is what I believe is urgently needed if we are to command national support for world competitive program in the next century.

Sincerely,