[Updates:
- 5/27/14: Full Committee mark-up on 5/21 with votes delayed until 5/28. Read more from Jeff Mervis: Democrat Assault on FIRST Bill Delays Vote by House Science Panel, ScienceInsider, 5/22. Pending votes here.
- 5/28/14: Full Committee amendment votes on 5/28 go mostly along party lines, defeating Democrats' amendments and approving Rohrabacher amendment to cut SBE Directorate another $50 million.
- 5/29/14: Jeff Mervis post on 5/28 votes: Amidst Partisan Split, U.S. House Panel Approves Controversial NSF Bill and Views of science clash in debate over NSF bill; AIP FYI report: House Science Committee Approves NSF and NIST Bill on Party Line Vote.
- 5/30/14: Where's France Córdova? In the Washington hot seat, Jeff Mervis, Science, 5/30/14.
- 6/5/14: Big Battle Over 15 Little Words, Jeff Mervis, ScienceInsider, 6/4/14.
- 7/22/14: Senate bill backs NSF's practices and calls for big funding boost, Jeff Mervis, ScienceInsider, 7/21/14.
- 8/1/14: Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee press release on its bill, 7/31/14
- 10/3/14: Battle between NSF and House science committee escalates: How did it get this bad?, Jeff Mervis, ScienceInsider, 10/2/14.
- 10/16/14: Congresswoman Johnson Defends NSF’s Merit Review Process, 10/6 COSSA Washington Update.
- 10/17/14: Controversy Over NSF Grants Continues, FYI: The American Institute of Physics Bulletin of Science Policy News
- 10/22/14: Congress, NSF spar on access to grant files, Jeff Mervis, Science, 10/10/14.
- 10/22/14: Smith: NSF Has No Business Using Taxpayer Dollars to Study Political Messages on Twitter, 10/21 House Science Committee press release.
- 10/23/14: The government wants to study ‘social pollution’ on Twitter, Ajit Pai, WashPost oped, 10/17/14.
- 10/23/14: No, the National Science Foundation is not building an Orwellian surveillance nightmare, Henry Farrell, Washington Post Monkey Cage blog, 10/22/14
- 10/23/14: #KillingFreeSpeech, blog entry from House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, 10/23/14
- 10/23/14: Congress Must Stop Yet Another Attempt to Muffle Free Speech, Mike Gonzalez, Heritage Foundation, 10/23/14
- 10/24/14: Five things to know about 'Truthy', Mario Trujillo, The Hill, 10/22/14
- 10/24/14: Kevin McCarthy Wants Academics to Stop Reading Your Tweets, Billy House, National Journal 10/23/14
- 10/24/14: Indiana University Statement about the Truthy project from Indiana University, 10/23/14
- 11/5/14: Research in the national interest, Chairman Lamar Smith, The Hill, 11/5/14
- 11/11/14: AAU board statement criticizes house science committee nsf inquiry, 11/10/14
- 11/11/14: Updated: What does it take to get your grant targeted by Congress? Jeff Mervis, ScienceInsider, 11/10/14.
- 11/14/14: For science, impact of Republican win may be muted, Jeff Mervis, Science, 11/14/14.
- 12/9/14: What Do House Republicans Want from NSF?, Paul Basken, Chronicle of Higher Education, 12/8/14
- 12/11/14: GOP chairman cheers science foundation move on transparency, Julian Hattem, The Hill, 12/10/14
- 12/12/14: NSF’s 2015 budget: A small increase and a big pat on the back, Jeff Mervis, ScienceInsider, 12/10/14.
- 1/14/15: No, the GOP Is Not at War With Science, Sen. Rand Paul and Rep. Lamar Smith, Politico, January 12, 2015
- 2/20/15: Malware and search engines: Lamar Smith goes far afield in his latest hit list of NSF grants, Jeff Mervis, ScienceInsider, 2/18/15.
- 3/4/15: Signs of a Breakthrough: House Science Committee Hearing on NSF Grant Making Policies and Procedures, FYI: The AIP Bulletin of Science Policy News, 3/4/15.
- 3/12/15: Mistrust and meddling unsettles US science agency, Boer Deng, Nature, 3/10/15.
- 3/13/15: In a turnabout, key congressional critic backs NSF peer review, Jeff Mervis, ScienceInsider, 3/12/15.]
As expected, the House Science Committee introduced and advanced a bill to re-authorize the 2007 and 2010 COMPETES Acts. H.R. 4186, the Frontiers in Innovation, Research, Science, and Technology (FIRST) Act, was introduced early last week and then
marked up in subcommittee on Thursday, advancing on party lines.
The ASA joined scores of other organizations and universities in
opposing the FIRST Act as introduced because of numerous provisions of the bill. Among the most concerning are its flat funding for the NSF, its cutting of funding for the Social, Behavioral, and Economic Sciences (SBE) directorate, and its language perceived as meddling with NSF's peer review process. The bill had the unusual provision of setting authorization level at the directorate level (and not just the top line, or R&RA and EHR lines.) In the subcommittee markup, $50 million was restored to the SBE directorate but it still cuts the SBE budget by 22% from FY14 funding levels.
As mentioned last week in
Ron Wasserstein's blog entry on ASA Advocacy, "This directorate funds important research across the board but two of the more important components [for the statistical community] are the
National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics and the
Methodology, Measurement, and Statistics Program."
The original COMPETES Act was a response to the National Academies' 2007 report,
Rising Above the Gathering Storm: Energizing and Employing America for a Brighter Economic Future, written by the Committee on Prospering in the Global Economy of the 21st Century: An Agenda for American Science and Technology. The report warned of the U.S. losing its lead in research and innovation, which in turn undermined U.S. economic competitiveness in the global economy. It urged large boosts in basic research funding and a strengthening of our STEM education system. The 2007 and 2010 COMPETES act authorized increased in basic research funding, with the former approving a seven-year doubling path and the latter a ten-year doubling path. FIRST has funding levels that don't match inflation.
My 12/26/13 blog entry,
2013 in Review for ASA Science Policy; Items to Watch in 2014, has some of the background on the House Science Committee's action last week. See the sections, "Funding for social, behavioral, and economic research" and "NSF Grant Funding Process."
See also:
- FIRST at Last: Controversial Bill Introduced to Guide U.S. Science Policies, Jeffrey Mervis, ScienceInsider, 3/10/14.
- First Step for FIRST Bill Exposes Party Differences, Jeffrey Mervis, ScienceInsider, 3/13/14.
- Lawmakers aim to restrict US agency’s social-science programmes, Jessica Morrison, Nature News Blog, 3/11/14.
- Hints of Detente Between NSF and Republicans & Dueling Visions for Agency, Jeffrey Mervis, Science, 3/21/14.
- Overview of H.R. 4186, the Frontiers in Innovation, Research, Science and Technology Act, FYI: The AIP Bulletin of Science Policy News, 3/21/14.
See
other ASA Science Policy blog entries. For ASA science policy updates, follow @ASA_SciPol on Twitter. For more on ASA science policy, see
http://amstat.org/policy/.