House Science Committee Starts Review of Academic Earmarking

“It is my opinion that academic earmarking has proliferated to the extent that the pork has turned rotten.” - House science committee chairman George Brown

Making good a promise made last year to continue his efforts to reduce academic earmarking, Rep. George Brown has started a series of hearings on the practice. At a well-attended June 16 hearing, Brown elaborated on points he raised on the House floor last year, citing a 70-fold increase in academic earmarking since 1980. In 1992, over $700 million was given to 209 specifically named colleges and universities in the thirteen appropriations bills. A recent survey found a 12 percent increase in earmarks in fiscal year 1993 to a total of almost $800 million.

Brown said that “earmarking has reached the point where it is distorting scientific and agency priorities and causing serious inefficiencies in the use of scarce research dollars.” Earmarked funds are awarded, he said, “in direct proportion to the influence of a few senior and influential Members of Congress.”

The committee received testimony from Robert Rosenzweig, former President of the Association of American Universities; Joe Wyatt, Chancellor of Vanderbilt University; and Ken Schlossberg, president of a consulting firm which handles earmarking. Schlossberg was not hesitant about defending his work, and characterized as “unbalanced” a “blanket indictment” of earmarking intended for academic facilities. In his view, institutions have been driven to earmarking by a scarcity of facilities funding. Absent changes in this situation, Schlossberg advocated a continuation of earmarking.

The other witnesses opposed earmarking, Rosenzweig saying that he had no faith in Congress to make scientific judgements. Rejecting Schlossberg’s argument, Rosenzweig said, “that strikes me as roughly akin to arguing that, because the bank will not lend you money for the purpose for which you want it, you are justified in robbing the bank.” He rejected as “simply preposterous” the argument that a limited number of universities receive federal research funding, citing a five-fold increase in universities engaged in serious research since World War II. Wyatt held that it was not the responsibility of the federal government to bail out universities for deferred maintenance. He also said that some Members of Congress have pressured the Congressional Research Service to stop its analysis of earmarking.

Brown has scheduled a July 28 hearing to receive testimony from university officials whose institutions have received earmarked funds, and from federal officials. He hopes that these hearings can be used to apply pressure against earmarking later this year, and to seek solutions to university funding problems. Despite general agreement with Wyatt’s query that “do you want the nation’s research agenda to be determined by the best scientists or by the most skillful lobbyists?,” there seems to be no clear or easy legislative remedy. As Rosenzweig concluded, "...the genie, I fear, is out of the bottle, and it is notoriously hard to put it back.”