Last week's House Subcommittee on Research hearing on H.R.
4664 was very positive. All three witnesses expressed
considerable support for this legislation authorizing 15%
increases in the National Science Foundation's budget in each
of the next three years. At the conclusion of the hearing,
subcommittee members approved the bill and sent it to the full
House Science Committee, which will mark up the bill next week
In opening remarks, subcommittee chairman Nick Smith (R-MI),
the bill's author, explained that part of the reasoning
behind the legislation was the subcommittee's concern that NSF
"may be rejecting too many of the grant applications that were
coming in" because of financial constraints. Increasing the
foundation's budget would allow it to increase the number of
grants, their size, and duration. A larger budget would also
reduce the backlog of research facilities' upgrades. Smith
repeated a point made at a previous briefing that funding for
physical sciences research had lagged, and he wanted the NSF
to do more than to just continue the current distribution of
funds. Finally, he stated that the bill would "minimize
political decisions" in the appropriation of facilities
funding.
University of Maryland President C.D. Mote described financial
constraints facing principal investigators hiring students to
perform research. Of even greater concern to Mote were
looming scientific manpower shortages. "Your authorization
bill will send a strong signal to the appropriators, the rest
of the Congress, and the Administration that support for NSF
is strong, it is bipartisan, and it is grounded in sound
arguments," he told the subcommittee.
Tufts University Engineering Dean Ioannis Miaoulis testified
that "our nation has an unbalanced R&D portfolio," adding,
"underfunding the physical and engineering sciences will in
the long run have a detrimental effect on the life sciences."
He later said, "the proposed legislation will enable NSF to
fund more great ideas at a higher funding level and duration.
The Nation's creative minds should spend more time focusing on
their research and less time trying to get funding."
The third witness to testify was MIT Professor Jerome
Friedman, winner of the Nobel Prize in Physics and past
president of the American Physical Society. Friedman also
expressed support for H.R. 4664, and devoted most of his
testimony to major research equipment and facilities
construction. Commenting on NSF's decision-making process for
the construction and operation of major facilities, Friedman
said, "NSF currently does not provide the science community or
Congress with a prioritized list of approved projects. The
lack of transparency has prevented orderly planning by the
research community. As a result, science has suffered and
international research partners have been left dangling."
Friedman cited the lack of an NSF funding request for the Rare
Symmetry Violating Process project as an example. He
recommended a process similar to that outlined in the
legislation.
Some interesting points were made in the Q&A session that
followed. Chairman Smith predicted that "competition for
money is going to become much more aggressive" following last
September's attack, and said that performance and results are
going to become important. Rep. Judy Biggert (R-IL), a
sponsor of the bill and vocal supporter of DOE, cautioned that
"if you increase it [funding] in one place, you take it away
from another place." Friedman described the large decline in
students enrolled in physics since the 1960s, noted the
reduction in physics research funding, and said that many
students "felt that they had no future in it." Rep. Gil
Gutknecht (R-MN), who is also a member of the House Budget
Committee, outlined the difficult fiscal challenges facing the
Congress, saying that it would be unable to do as much as it
would like to do. Congress reflects the will of the people,
he said, and the people want homeland security, national
security, prescription drug coverage, and lower taxes.
Following further discussion the subcommittee moved to mark up
the bill. The only change was to rename H.R. 4664 as the
"Investing in America's Future Act." The full committee will
take up the bill next week.
Enlarge text
Shrink text
Print
E-mail
Digg this
Del.icio.us
Furl