House Passes Bill Requiring NSF to Justify Each Grant as 'in the national interest"

[muriel_volestrangler]

The House of Representatives approved legislation Wednesday that would require the National Science Foundation to provide written justification for how every grant furthers the "national interest."

The legislation, H.R. 3293, passed largely along party lines in the Republican-controlled House. Its sponsors characterized the measure as designed to "ensure that the National Science Foundation (NSF) is open and accountable to the taxpayers about how their hard-earned dollars are spent."

But Representative Eddie Bernice Johnson, the senior Democrat on the House Science, Space and Technology Committee, said the bill "is about second-guessing our nation’s best and brightest scientists, and the grant-making decisions they make. Perhaps this is not surprising, when so many of my Republican colleagues openly question the validity of whole fields of established science, from the social sciences to climate science to evolutionary biology."

https://www.insidehighered.com/quicktakes/2016/02/11/house-passes-bill-requiring-nsf-justify-each-grant#.VrzJU6t_Lxh.twitter

As PZ Myers says, could the NSF grant for the discovery of gravitational waves have survived this?

Examples of what they want to stop:

For instance, the NSF awarded $700,000 of taxpayer money to support a climate change-themed musical that quickly closed. And almost one million dollars for a social media project that targeted Americans’ online political speech. A few other examples of questionable grants include:

$487,000 to study the Icelandic textile industry during the Viking era;
$340,000 to study early human-set fires in New Zealand;
$516,000 to help amateurs create a video game to "Relive Prom Night."
$233,000 to study ancient Mayan architecture and their salt industry; and
$220,000 to study animal photos in National Geographic magazine.

https://science.house.gov/news/press-releases/house-votes-open-accountable-science

[truedelphi]

1. When some foundation gives out grants for the Dummies of the Decade -

Many current House members will be notified as to the amount of their award!

[Sanity Claws]

2. War costing billions does not have to be found to be in the national interest

but grants have to go through that.

[xocet]

3. Here is a Statement of Administration Policy on that issue...

EXECUTIVE OFFICE OF THE PRESIDENT
OFFICE OF MANAGEMENT AND BUDGET
WASHINGTON, D.C. 20503

February 9, 2016
(House Rules)

STATEMENT OF ADMINISTRATION POLICY
H.R. 3293 – Scientific Research in the National Interest Act
(Rep. Smith, R-TX, and 22 cosponsors)



The Administration strongly opposes House passage of H.R. 3293, the Scientific Research in the National Interest Act.

The scientific-peer-based, merit-review process that the National Science Foundation (NSF) has in place is widely regarded as the "gold standard" for funding scientific research. In the interest of transparency and accountability, moreover, the NSF publishes online the abstracts of every one of the more than 10,000 research grants it makes every year.

Contrary to its stated purpose, H.R. 3293 would add nothing to accountability in Federal funding for scientific research, while needlessly adding to bureaucratic burdens and overhead at the NSF.

And, far from promoting the progress of science in the United States, it would replace the clarity of the National Science Foundation Act of 1950 with confusing language that could cast a shadow over the value of basic research which, by its nature, will have outcomes with contributions to national interests other than the progress of science which cannot be predicted in advance.

If the President were presented with H.R. 3293, his senior advisors would recommend that he veto the bill.


*******

https://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/omb/legislative/sap/114/saphr3293r_20160209.pdf

[muriel_volestrangler]

4. Good to know - we can put this in the ever-expanding list of 'why it's vital to elect

a Democratic president this year, and as many Democrats in Congress as feasible". You can bet no Republican would veto the bill if submitted again.

[Matthew28]

5. Yep

The republicans want to do away with our leadership in science and adopt the mindset of the isis. Very scary times we're facing.

[DetlefK]

6. How is forcing the Pentagon to buy material it doesn't want in the national interest?

[Orsino]

7. When they hear the word intellectual, they reach for their sidearms. n/t

[phantom power]

8. The people supporting this bill wouldn't give a shit if we didn't discover gravity waves.

They're the modern incarnations of the know-nothings.