WASHINGTON - U.S. Senators Jeff Bingaman and Tom Udall today reported that a bill being developed in the Senate will support the state's military bases and key research to benefit the Department of Defense.
The Senate Appropriations Committee today approved the fiscal year 2011 Defense Appropriations Bill, which contains funding the Senators secured for defense work being done in New Mexico. That bill can now be sent to the full Senate for debate.
"New Mexico has long played a key role in our nation's defense. This spending bill ensures our state's military installations have the support they need, and provides research funding for a variety of key defense research projects being performed here," Bingaman said. "It also lends support to the New Mexico National Guard's important initiative to reduce the flow of drugs across the border into the United States."
"This legislation reinforces New Mexico's critical role in maintaining our national security," said Udall. "Passing it will ensure the stability of the important defense work being conducted at our universities, at our military installations, and will fund key project investments around the state. In addition, this bill will provide essential resources for our National Guard to help keep our southern border secure."
At the request of Bingaman and Udall, the bill contains funding for the following:
$2 million White Sands Missile Range, Fort Bliss and Holloman Air Force Base to facilitate scheduling, coordinate de-conflication of air, land and frequency assets, and coordinate real-time test and training missions.
$4.5 million to support Holloman's High Speed Test Track. The system provides the capability to test a variety of payloads at a ground level facility while simulating environments of flight at altitude.
$5 million High Energy Laser System Test Facility at WSMR for a series of five to ten shoot-downs of targets ranging from mortars and UAVs to advanced high-speed, maneuvering weapons. These live fire experiments are critical enablers for the development, test, and evaluation of future operational solid state laser weapons systems for all Services in the DOD.
$6 million New Mexico National Guard Counterdrug Program to help prevent drug trafficking across the New Mexico-Mexico border. The Guard's current counterdrug duties include camera surveillance of high traffic border areas, mobile vehicle inspection and dismantlement, vehicle barrier construction, and at-risk school counterdrug education programs.
$1 million New Mexico State University Center of Excellence for Geospatial Science.
The funding will help deliver education, training, equipment, and student scholarships for those seeking careers with the Department of Defense and in the Intelligence Community.
$2 million Algal Biofuels for Aviation, New Mexico State University. This funding targets biofuel production from algal biomass as an alternative source of fuel for aviation (both civilian and military) and will optimize gas turbine. This project is aimed at: algal biomass production, conversion to aviation fuel, electricity, and other valuable by-products; making design adjustments and improvements in a gas turbine (for power generation and aviation); and enabling transformational technology for the industry sectors of military and civilian aviation.
$2 million for Inland Water Quality and Desalination Program, New Mexico State University. This funding will conduct applied research in technological issues related to inland desalination. The focus will be on developing affordable and deployable technologies for sustainable water resources. Due to similarities in water resource chemistry, availability and the environment, the developed technologies will have direct use for DOD in the areas where troops are currently deployed. Additionally, the current research has direct application to the DOD's on-going effort in development of high efficiency/low energy water desalination
$2 million University of New Mexico's Partnership for Emerging Energy Technologies (PEET) to support research in the areas of energy conversion, storage, and power generation. National energy security will increasingly depend on the deployment of new technologies. PEET allows the Department of Energy and the Department of Defense to coordinate on research missions related to our energy security.
$1.5 million to Technology Ventures Corp., Albuquerque for Technology Research & Innovation Outreach for Space (TRIOS). Funding would be used to expand the number of private sector companies and universities participating in New Mexico's growing high-tech, small satellite, space industry and to promote workforce development to support this growing industry. The goal is to expedite the development and launch of the new small, lower cost, responsive space systems required to support DoD's numerous and rapidly changing war fighter missions around the world.
$2 million to Ball Aerospace and Technologies Corp., Albuquerque for Space Plasma Research Augmentation. This funding will equip the Air Force Research Lab's newly acquired Mumbo 2 vacuum chamber with test equipment, specialized vacuum plasma sources, and spacecraft solar cell simulation capacity. The funds will also support transitioning the legacy Mumbo 1 plasma system from its former operational role into a world-class training system.
$1 million to Applied Research Associates, Inc., Albuquerque for High Energy Conventional Energetics (HECE) Phase III This funding will provide the nation with the ability to defeat or neutralize chemical or biological weapons of mass destruction with little or no collateral effect with conventional weapons rather than the only other alternative means - radiological or nuclear weapons.
$3 million for New Mexico Tech's Playas Training and Research Center Joint National Training Experiment. This funding will be used to complete the establishment of the Playas Training and Research Center (PTRC) as a Joint National Training and Experimentation Site for Joint Force, including the National Guard Bureau. The focus is to develop facilities, establish training venues, and perform training experiments that will facilitate joint operations between the services and inter-governmental agencies, including state and local governments, during times of emergency, be they human-created or natural disasters.
$6 million New Mexico Tech University to support the state-of-the-art observatory being brought online. The observatory will develop and sustain smart, advanced instrumentation for imaging space objects, a capability that is increasingly need for the DOD as targets of interest proliferation in near-space orbit.
$2 million to Incitor, LLC, in Albuquerque for Biomass to Liquid Fuel Using Synthetic Enzymes (Phase II) This funding would continue existing research and further identify specific synthetic enzymes for efficient conversion of base camp waste and other cellulosic biomass materials into military grade fuel using solar thermal concentrator purification system and Incitor's nanoscale enzyme manufacturing platform. BTL biofuels will reduce DOD reliance on foreign oil, reduce costs, improve security, provide solutions to base refuse disposal, and contribute to mission readiness. In addition, convoying will be reduced, saving lives. The cost of fuel will decrease and logistics will improve.
A separate bill working its way through Congress will fund military construction projects in New Mexico.
