U.S. Rep. Martin Heinrich, D-Albuquerque, spoke on the House floor today in favor of an amendment to an energy and water appropriations bill which would increase funding for research. Specifically, Laboratory Directed Research and Development (LDRD) funding would rise from six percent of the budgets of the country’s national laboratories — including Sandia and Los Alamos — to 7 percent.

The overall bill passed on a vote of a vote of 320 to 97 and now heads to the Senate for consideration.

The Heinrich amendment passed on a unanimous vote, 424-0.

Sandia Labs Chief Technology Officer Steve Rottler praised the amendment in a statement issued by Heinrich’s office, saying, “LDRD projects play an integral role in Sandia National Laboratories’ strategic goal of nurturing core science and technology expertise to enable our national security missions, including enhancement of the security and reliability of our nation’s energy and other critical infrastructures.”

But as the Albuquerque Journal’s John Fleck notes, Heinrich proposal to increase research funding is still a drop in LDRD research from recent years, when 8 percent of the labs budgets were set aside for research.

Meanwhile, Congressman Ben Ray Luján, a Santa Fe Democrat whose district includes Los Alamos National Labs, praised the passage of the overall bill in a statement.

“This bill makes important investments in energy technology and infrastructure. This bill will help us move toward energy independence and rebuild our aging infrastructure,” Luján stated.

Luján praised the water improvements the bill would provide for in rural areas, citing $3 million in funding set aside for repairs and to replace the Jicarilla Apache Rural Water System.

“This will help address the public health priorities in our region by fulfilling the promise Congress made seven years ago when they authorized funding to address the substandard and dilapidated water system serving our people,” Levi Pesata, president of the Jicarilla Apache Nation, is quoted as saying in a statement issued by Luján’s office.

Nearly $7 million will go to a U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Project that will provide “flood damage reduction as one unit of the flood control plan for the Rio Grande and Tributaries, New Mexico” according to Luján’s statement.