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FLOOR ACTION
House Passes NSF Reauthorization (H.R.
1867)
On May 2, 2007, the House of Representatives
passed the National Science Foundation
Authorization Act of 2007 (H.R. 1867) by a vote
of 399-17. H.R. 1867 authorizes appropriations
for the NSF for fiscal years 2008, 2009 and
2010. This legislation:
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Keeps NSF on a 10-year doubling path
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Establishes a pilot program of one-year seed
grants for new investigators to help improve
funding rates for young investigators and
stimulate higher-risk research
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Directs NSF to foster relationships (criterion
2 of the merit review process) between academia
and industry in order to promote U.S.
competitiveness
More specifically, the bill authorizes $21
billion for the NSF for fiscal years 2008–2010, including
$16.4 billion for research and related
activities (R&RA), $2.8 billion for education
and human resources (EHR), and $787 million for
major research facilities (MREFC).
Representatives Scott Garrett (R-NJ) and John
Campbell (R-CA) introduced two amendments to the
National Science Foundation (NSF)
reauthorization bill (H.R. 1867) which posed a
grave threat to the peer review system. The
amendments would have blocked funding from
specific research proposals, which had already
passed through the peer review system, based on
the perception that their titles characterized
the grants as ‘silly’ or wasteful. The proposals
targeted by the amendments were primarily social
science projects and included cognitive studies,
investigations related to reproduction and
aging, and historical anthropology projects.
However, the implications of such an amendment
reach well beyond the grants cited, assaulting
the very core of NSF’s funding program, the peer
review system.
FASEB responded swiftly to the attack on peer
review, sending a
letter to every member of the House of
Representatives, urging them to defeat the
amendments, and alerting FASEB societies.
“Judging a project by its title is inadvisable
and inappropriate; scientific discoveries arise
from unpredictable pathways and interfering
based on inadequate information could cause loss
of crucial breakthroughs,” wrote FASEB President
Leo Furcht. He quoted House Appropriations
Chairman David Obey (D-WI) who had said during a
previous debate, “the day that we
politicize…research, the day we decide which
grants will be approved…that is the day that we
ruin science research.” Fortunately, although
the debate on the NSF reauthorization bill
lasted well into the night, the amendments were
ultimately defeated. Congressmen Brian Baird
(D-WA),
himself a psychologist, and Vernon Ehlers, a
member of the House Science Committee, were
particularly eloquent in their defense of the
peer review system.
This is not the first attempt at congressional
micromanagement of the peer review system. The
NIH has been a frequent target in the past few
years of amendments that circumvent the peer
review system through blocking funds to specific
research grants. Former Representative Pat
Toomey (R-PA) tried to halt NIH funding of
grants related to sexuality transmitted diseases
and sexual behavior. This amendment was narrowly
defeated, losing by only two votes, and began a
trend of proposed amendments to NIH
appropriations bills in order to stop funding of
grants that were disliked by members of
Congress, a trend most recently supported by
Representative Randy Neugebauer (R-TX). Included
among the targeted grants have been basic
research studies using animal models or
molecular investigations. Such amendments hark
back to the days of the late Senator William
Proxmire (D-WI) who would give out “Golden
Fleece Awards” to government research projects
he considered to be wasteful spending.
Although FASEB and our partners in the
scientific community have been successful in
forestalling such efforts, their continued
appearance is a stark reminder of the poor
understanding of the peer review system among
policy makers, as well as the lack of
comprehension of the importance of basic
research. To that end, FASEB continues to
produce materials, such as our
Breakthroughs in Bioscience and
brochures like “Science Fortune: How
Unpredictable Research Advances Have Saved
Millions of Lives,” aimed at conveying to
lawmakers and the public how science is done.
The most recent Breakthroughs in Bioscience
article, “Science, Serotonin and Sadness: The
Biology of Antidepressants,” examines the
fundamental science discoveries that led to our
modern treatments for depression and is now
available on our
website. Along those same
lines, among the positive amendments adopted by
the House in conjunction with the NSF
reauthorization was an adaptation of the Science
Communications Act, recently introduced by
Congresswoman Doris Matsui (D-CA). FASEB
supported this bill, and the subsequent
amendment, which would begin an NSF-funded
communications initiative for science graduate
students.
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FASEB MEETINGS
FASEB Attends Meeting with Representative
Kennedy
On May 3, 2007, Jon Retzlaff, FASEB’s Director
of Legislative Relations, and colleagues from
the Campaign for Medical Research, met with
Patrick Kennedy (D-MA) to discuss how to help
him advocate for increased funding for NIH.
Representative Kennedy is a member of the L/HHS
appropriations subcommittee, the subcommittee
with jurisdiction over NIH funding.
Representative Kennedy encouraged us to bring
succinct examples of research activities that
won’t be funded without a significant increase
for NIH in FY2008. He is supportive of
increasing NIH’s budget, but remarked that a lot
will depend on the budget resolution and the
allocation the subcommittee receives.
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AAAS FORUM ON S&T POLICY
KEYNOTE ADDRESS: John H. Marburger, III,
Ph.D., Director, White House Office of Science
and Technology Policy
Dr. Marburger was making his sixth consecutive
appearance at this annual policy forum. He
talked about how there exists wide consensus on
the importance of federally funded science to
our nation’s long term economic competitiveness
and specifically cited the recommendations in
the National Academies’ 2005 report, “Rising
Above the Gathering Storm,” to increase funding
for basic research in the physical sciences,
mathematics, and engineering – areas that had
stagnated while the budget for biomedical
research soared. He reminded the audience that
the Administration’s response to this consensus
was the American Competitiveness Initiative,
which among other things proposed doubling the
budgets for NSF, NIST and the Department of
Energy’s Office of Science over ten years.
However, he expressed disappointment that the
110th Congress funded the President’s proposed
ACI science budget for FY2007 only at half the
requested level, and stated that the
Administration's FY2008 request aims to catch
up.
Dr. Marburger also commented that earmarking has
increased rapidly during the past five years,
and has reached the point where it now threatens
the missions of the agencies whose funds have
been directed toward purposes that do not
support the agency work plans. He criticized
AAAS for not explaining the treatment of
earmarks in the Administration's budget
proposals, and urged AAAS to work with OSTP and
OMB to develop a mutually comprehensible
approach to the problem of taking earmarks into
account in analyzing the annual science budgets.
Dr. Marburger also expressed his concern about
the mismatch between research capacity and the
federal resources to sustain it. He cited the
doubling of the NIH budget as an experiment in
the rapid expansion of a broad but still
well-defined scientific field, and remarked that
the most obvious lesson from this rapid growth
is that it could not be sustained. The response
to the NIH doubling has been an abrupt increase
in research capacity, financed not only by the
direct federal investment, but by state
governments and private sector sponsors eager to
leverage this investment, not least to enhance
competitiveness for additional federal funds.
Another concern is that we now have an enlarged
biomedical R&D labor pool– a new generation of
researchers– who are populating new, expanded
research facilities and writing federal grant
proposals in competition with the previous
still-productive generation of their faculty
advisors. And they are training yet another
generation of new researchers who hope to follow
the same pattern. He remarked that he cannot see
how such an expansion can be sustained by the
same business model that led to its creation.
The new researchers will either find new ways to
fund their work, or they will leave the field
and seek jobs in other sectors of the economy.
Lastly, Marburger believes new capacity can
be sustained only through new revenue sources, and
believes that federal science policy should
encourage university-based research to change to
a new model with diversified sources of revenue.
His message is that federal funding for science
will not grow fast enough in the foreseeable
future to keep up with the geometrically
expanding research capacity, and that state and
private sector resources should be considered
more systematically in formulating federal
science policy.
AAAS Analysis of Federal Budget Proposals
for R&D in FY2008 – Kei Koizumi, Director, R&D
Budget and Policy Program, AAAS
Kei Koizumi pointed out that scientific agencies
are facing numerous challenges and obstacles due
to the following:
1. A balanced U.S. budget is part of both the
President’s and Congress’ plans.
2. Non-defense, non-homeland security
discretionary spending (which is where federal
R&D programs are funded) continues to bear the
brunt of the burden of deficit reduction
proposals and is projected to grow at levels
below inflation rates.
3. Federal research investments as a share of
the U.S. economy are shrinking (currently 2.6
percent of GDP). This is happening at a time
when South Korea and China are increasing its
share, and Japan has long been above the U.S.
rate.
Mr. Koizumi informed us that the one piece of
positive news for federal research involves the
Administration and Congressional plans to
increase the physical sciences through the
American Competitiveness Initiative. However,
while NSF, DOE’s Office of Science and NIST are
projected to increase, overall spending on
research and development would be flat or
decline, even in the physical sciences. Mr.
Koizumi also said that earmarks are going to be
an issue for the scientific community in FY2008
because the discretionary funds that are used to
support them will take away from the overall
pool for Federal research programs.
Mr. Koizumi also explained that while federal
government spending for research and development
(R&D) is at record levels, it is because of
increased support for the developmental part of
the equation (specifically, development of
weapons and space craft). The research part of
the equation has declined during the past few
years.
• The New Congressional Landscape and the FY
2008 Budget - David Goldston, Visiting Lecturer,
Princeton University; and former Chief of Staff,
House Committee on Science
Mr. Goldston stated that the closely divided
Congress presents a lot of uncertainty on
Capitol Hill. He stated that while Congress and
the Administration both support funding the ACI,
both parties also favor balancing the budget,
which presents a challenge. He believes
significant increases for NIH will have to come
at the expense of other important programs, such
as education. The $29 billion base budget for
NIH creates a situation where even small
percentage increases results in large dollar
outlays.
• Managing Academic R&D in Times of Unstable
Federal Budgets - Mary Sue Coleman, President,
University of Michigan
Ms. Coleman observed that the university “public
or perish” mentality has been replaced by
“partner or perish.” She said that the
challenges that exist today are too complicated
to believe that such problems can be solved in
individual labs. She encouraged universities to
partner with additional universities, industry
and the public. According to her, industry is
looking to be close to intellectual resources
and need access to an educated work force. She
observed that the opportunities to collaborate
also create interesting problems, such as issues
involving conflicts of interest. However, the
benefits of collaborating outweigh the problems,
provided that the universities take proactive
action to address the potential conflicts of
interest issues and implement policies for
researchers, as well as the institution to
follow.
Coleman also spoke passionately about the
importance of taking the time to explain to the
public the impact of the research that is taking
place at universities across the country. She
said that we must educate the public extensively
and demonstrate the return on the public’s
investment if we want the public’s support.
R&D in International Perspective: The
European Case - Helga Nowotny, Ph.D., Vice
President, European Research Council, Vienna,
Austria
Dr. Nowotny was struck by the debate on the NSF
reauthorization bill, specifically the concerns
about international competitiveness, the
political pressure to defend peer review and the
country’s priorities with regard to research and
development. She said that Europe faces the same
concerns. She also observed that politicians
have difficulty with the unpredictability
associated with research, and that continued
nurturing of policy makers, as well as the
general public, is necessary.
Address by Bart Gordon, U.S. House of
Representatives (D-TN); Chairman, House
Committee on Science and Technology
Chairman Gordon arrived a few minutes late for
his lunchtime speech because he was on the floor
of House of Representatives working to ensure
passage of H.R. 1868, the ‘Technology Innovation
and Manufacturing Stimulation Act of 2007.’ The
House passed H.R.1868 later that day on a vote
of 385-23. Chairman Gordon urged the scientific
community to help build support for the all
the Innovation Agenda bills, including H.R. 362
and H.R. 363 (see the
4/27/07 edition of
Washington Update for addition information on
this legislation). He also noted that the
recently passed NSF Reauthorization bill was
amended to include H.R.1453, the Scientific
Communications Act of 2007. Lastly, Mr. Gordon
mentioned that the House’s Innovation Bills
would likely be bundled and conferenced with S.
761, the America COMPETES Act, which passed the
Senate on April 30, 2007.
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UPCOMING HEARINGS
May 15
House Science and Technology Subcommittee to
Hold Hearing on Federal Science/Math Education
Programs
The House Committee on Science and Technology’s
Subcommittee on Research and Science Education
will hold a hearing to examine educators’
experiences working with science, technology,
engineering, and math (STEM) education programs
for K-16 students supported by federal R&D
mission agencies (NASA, NOAA, NIST, EPA and
DOE). Witness to include: Linda Froschauer,
President of the National Science Teachers
Assn.; Michael Lach, director of mathematics and
science for Chicago Public Schools; George
Nelson, director of science, mathematics, and
technology education at Western Washington
University; Van Reiner, director of the Maryland
Science Center; and Iris Weiss, president of
Horizon Research, Inc.
May 16
Senate Appropriations Subcommittee to Hold
Theme Hearing on FY 2008 Budget
The Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor,
HHS, and Education (Senator Tom Harkin [D-IA],
Chairman) will hold its fourth NIH theme hearing
on the FY08 Budget for the National Institutes
of Health: A New Vision for Medical Research
(Part I)” with Drs. Ruth Kirschstein, Acting
Director, NCCAM; Duane Alexander, Director,
NICHD; Lawrence Tabak, Director, NIDCR; Paul
Sieving, Director, NEI; and David Schwartz,
Director, NIEHS.
May 21
Senate Appropriations Subcommittee to Hold
Theme Hearing on FY 2008 Budget
The Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor,
HHS, and Education (Senator Tom Harkin [D-IA],
Chairman) will hold its fifth NIH theme hearing
on the FY08 Budget for the National Institutes
of Health: A New Vision for Medical Research
(Part II)” with Drs. John Niederhuber, Director,
NCI; Anthony S. Fauci, Director, NIAID; Barbara
Alving, Director, NCRR; Patricia Grady, NINR;
and John Ruffin, Director, NCMHD.
CONGRESSIONAL SCHEDULE
The House and Senate are in session.
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