AIP FYI #69: From the House Floor: Debate on NSF Bill
Excerpts from last week’s three hour debate on H.R. 4664, the
Investing in America’s Future Act, that would authorize an
eventual doubling of the National Science Foundation budget
(abbreviations have been substituted whenever possible):
“The long-time president of MIT, physicist Karl Taylor
Compton, once said, ‘Modern science has developed to give
mankind a way of securing a more abundant life.’ Through this
important investment in science, technology and research, this
Congress can help ensure for the American people and
communities across our Nation a more abundant life.” – Rep.
Thomas Reynolds (R-NY)
“This reauthorization bill was unanimously referred to the
House by the Committee on Science. The funding level called
for in this legislation is above the President’s request, and
it addresses the growing imbalance between Federal support of
biomedical research and physical sciences research. It also
helps to ensure that America’s present and future scientists
and engineers are globally competitive.” – Rep. James P.
McGovern (D-MA)
“Basic research is that research which is done to understand
the basic underpinnings of science, the basic underpinnings of
the nature of our universe and how it operates. It is very
broadly based. It is not specifically directed toward any
particular problem in society and sometimes not even toward a
problem in the sciences. It is an effort to really learn more
about the universe and how it and all its composite parts
work. That makes it very difficult to defend in the
political process. . . .” – Rep. Vernon Ehlers (R-MI)
“. . . I serve as a member of the House Subcommittee on Labor,
Health and Human Services, and Education of the Committee on
Appropriations. A number of years ago, we set off on this path
to double the funding for the NIH. We are in our last year of
that doubling effort. It was very important to the health of
the American people. So, too, is the doubling of the NSF. Not
only do we have to do this, but we should do more.” – Rep.
Nancy Pelosi (D-CA)
“The scale of NSF’s budget today is simply not commensurate
with the breadth and importance of its mission. Congress
reached that same conclusion about the NIH, and we have
followed through by doubling that research agency’s budget.
But health research is not the only kind of research on which
our Nation depends. And, indeed, even health research itself
depends on advances outside of biomedicine, the kinds of
advances that produce new research tools and new
understandings of chemistry and physics.” – Rep. Sherwood
Boehlert (R-NY)
“Unfortunately, the simple truth is that during the 1990s we
under invested in the fields that NSF supports. A recent
report from the National Academy of Sciences provides specific
examples that make this case. The report shows that between
1993 and 1999 Federal research support at academic
institutions fell by 14 percent in mathematics, by 7 percent
in physics, by 2 percent in chemistry, and by 12 percent in
electrical engineering. Inadequate funding for basic
research in such important fields imposes a price on society,
because new ideas are lost that would otherwise underpin
future technological advances. Of even more importance, anemic
funding of academic science and engineering research reduces
the numbers of new young scientists and engineers who
constitute the essential element necessary to ensure the
Nation’s future economic strength and security. . . We were
not alone in calling for substantial funding increases. Such
prominent figures as Federal Reserve Chairman Greenspan,
former House Speaker Gingrich, and former presidential science
advisor Allan Bromley have pointed out the importance of
increasing support for basic research in science and
engineering.” – Rep. Bart Gordon (D-TN)
“Mr. Chairman, 5 years ago we made a historic pledge to double
the budget of the NIH. It took a lot of hard work to get the
initial commitment, and even more to see it through. Despite a
war on terrorism and an economic downturn, Congress and the
administration kept its word and fulfilled that promise. The
NIH is funding twice the work it did a mere 5 years ago. That
is a tremendous accomplishment. In the 21st century,
revolutions in our understanding of biology will rival those
of physics in the 20th, and work sponsored by the NIH must
continue to be a priority. However, their initiatives cannot
and must not be pursued exclusively. Science has become
intricately interconnected; discoveries in one [field] drive
innovations in others. Without adequate research into the
underlying fields of physics and chemistry, advancements in
biology and medicine will stall. If we expect the myriad
achievements of recent years to continue, we must support the
underpinning science and engineering more robustly. As such, I
believe we need a more balanced portfolio and need to champion
the traditional areas of research, as well as the exciting new
projects that have generated so many headlines of late.” –
Rep. Connie Morella (R-MD)
” A lot of the projects that we fund at the beginning . . .
[are] hard to defend. But ultimately the reason that we live
in the world we live in today is because brave legislatures in
the past and brave business people in the past have been
willing to invest in projects that may not have made a lot of
sense at the time. I think we have to have the courage to
stand up and say research is a very important responsibility
to the Federal Government. We get a huge rate of return on the
money that we invest in research, and we will determine today
what kind of a world our children will live in.” – Rep. Gil
Gutknecht (R-MN)
“Yet despite the importance of basic research to the future
economic health and well-being of our country, NSF now must
decline more than 1 billion dollar’s worth of high quality
research proposals each year. Why? Because NSF’s budget is
insufficient to meet the demands of our Nation’s vibrant
research sector. Mr. Chairman, while it is true that everyone
must learn to live within their budget, and NSF has, it is a
shame that top-notch proposals go unfunded for lack of
resources.” – Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson (D-TX)
“It is also important to recognize the return on investment to
this Federal investment. Economists will argue about whether
the return on investment in research and development is 20
percent, 40 percent, or 60 percent. Whatever it is, it is
extraordinarily high. This is one of the best things that we
as a Congress can do who have been entrusted with the
worthwhile expenditure of taxpayer money.” – Rep. Rush Holt
(D-NJ)
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Richard M. Jones
Media and Government Relations Division
The American Institute of Physics
fyi@aip.org
(301) 209-3095
http://www.aip.org/gov
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