SEQUIM – The Marine Sciences Laboratory on Sequim Bay moved closer this week to winning $1.75 million in federal funding for oceanic wave and tidal power research.
A bill introduced by Sen. Patty Murray to earmark the funding for the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, which operates the facility just east of Sequim, passed the full Senate on Wednesday.
Murray, a Democrat from Freeland, visited Sequim and the lab last October and learned about its scientists’ work developing tidal-power turbines that don’t harm fish, as well as biofuel grown from algae.
For research
The $1.75 million for tidal power research is confirmed as part of the Senate’s 2010 spending bill, said Murray spokesman Eli Zupnick.
The House of Representatives passed its own spending bill last week without the Pacific Northwest lab funding, he added, and both bills will go to a House-Senate conference committee.
“Sen. Murray will continue pushing for [her legislation] as it moves through the process,” Zupnick said.
Murray’s goal
Congress will go on recess in August, but Zupnick said the senator’s goal is to have the spending bill, with Marine Sciences Laboratory funding intact, on President Barack Obama’s desk before Oct. 1, the start of the new fiscal year.
When Murray brought her proposal to the Senate Appropriations Committee in early July, she emphasized that tidal-power research will put Washington state at the forefront of renewable, clean-energy development.
Investing federal dollars here, she said, will create jobs and boost the local economy without harming the natural environment.
Marine Sciences Laboratory director Charlie Brandt has said that the 2010 funding would fuel a few new staff positions, but the largest portion would be poured into pure research on how a tidal-power facility could be built without disrupting ocean life.
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Sequim-Dungeness Valley reporter Diane Urbani de la Paz can be reached at 360-681-2391 or at diane.urbani@peninsuladaily news.com.
