History of the SLI Program

30 Year-Old Transformer Requiring Replacement

The Science Laboratory Infrastructure (SLI) Program was originally established as the Multiprogram Energy Laboratories Facilities Support (MEL-FS) Program in 1981 under the authority in Section 647 of the DOE Organization Act, Public Law 95-91. Its original purpose was to address the large backlog of deficiencies in general purpose facilities at all the DOE multiprogram laboratories including the weapons laboratories and the Central Area of the Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory. These deficiencies arose due to:

• age of the laboratories;
• technological obsolescence of support systems;
• the increase in environment, safety and health (ES&H) requirements;
• the changing nature of research activities (e.g. the intensive use of computers); and
• the limited capital investment funding over a number of years.

In FY 1986, with the initiation of the Defense Infrastructure Revitalization Initiative, the program was refocused to support the five Office of Science (formerly Energy Research) multiprogram laboratories only. In the late 80's, the program funded an Environmental Compliance program at ORNL. This was the first separately identified and funded environmental compliance program in the Department of Energy.

This $25 million program was transferred to the Office of Environmental Management when it was created in FY 1989. The program has also served as the Energy Research landlord program for ORNL and ORISE for three years in the early 90's. This responsibility was transferred to other SC programs in FY 1996. And, the program had established programs in the early 90's to address environment, safety and health needs and inactive and surplus facilities needs at the multiprogram labs. These programs were discontinued as separately managed and budgeted activities when the operating funds were transferred to research programs in the FY 1997 budget. 

In FY 2002, Congress mandated a new $10 million Facilities and Infrastructure (F&I) program, stipulating that 25 percent of the funds must be used to remove excess facilities. The Office of Science allocated 100 percent of these funds to expedite the cleanup and removal of excess SC equipment and facilities no longer needed; some facilities will be cleaned up permitting reuse by SC programs. This program is being integrated into the SLI program in FY 2003 to continue addressing the excess facility backlog.

In FY 2002, the former MEL-FS program was expanded to include the five single program laboratories and the Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education (ORISE).