An alcohol research center has been funded by drunk drivers.

The Bowles Center on Alcohol Studies has received money from a fee paid by people who had their licenses restored after charges of driving under the influence.

For years, $25 of the $75 fee has gone to the University of North Carolina system to for an endowment for the alcohol research center at UNC-Chapel Hill. Next year, the payments would have totaled about $500,000.

The fee was designed to sunset when the endowment reaches $10 million, which is expected on June 30. Gov. Beverly Perdue proposed to use the half-million dollars to help balance next year's budget.

Rob Nelson, a spokesman for the UNC system, said that the center will now rely on interest from the endowment and grants from national health groups.

Already, some in the state Senate are pushing back.

Sen. Richard Stevens, a Cary Republican, has filed a bill that would continue to give the money to the Bowles Center for annual expenses. One of his cosponsors is Democratic Sen. Linda Garrou, a budget writer.

Update: An earlier version of this post was unclear. The $25 fee itself, not just the transfer of money, would expire this summer if no action is taken. 

A research center on alcoholism could lose funding.

For more than 26 years, the Bowles Center for Alcohol Studies at UNC-Chapel Hill has conducted scientific research on the genetic and physiological causes and effects of chronic alcohol abuse.

Its $500,000 annual appropriation is among 20 programs that Gov. Beverly Perdue proposed eliminating as part of her $21 billion budget. 

Recent studies by the center have looked into how some former alcoholics train their brains to think harder about long-term consequences, how binge-drinking impairs the brain and how an injectable drug could reduce alcohol dependence.

Reducing the state's contribution to the center would hurt, but the research would continue thanks to regular grants from the National Institutes of Health and other sources.

"Very little of our overall funding comes from the state," said spokeswoman Elizabeth Thomas. 

Perdue's proposed budget also includes a 5 percent increase on the tax on alcohol. The center is named for Hargrove "Skipper" Bowles, father of UNC system president Erskine Bowles.