The House science committee on Wednesday approved a Republican-sponsored bill to tighten control over the National Science Foundation, overriding a series of Democratic objections while leaving the legislation with thin odds for eventual passage in the Senate.
The committee voted, 20 to 16, in favor of the measure, known as the First Act, with all of the panel’s attending Republicans supporting it and all of the Democrats opposing it. Several amendments also were approved or defeated along the same party lines.
The partisan result left the bill facing an uphill path in the Democratic-controlled Senate. No such bill has even been introduced in the Senate, and strategists representing both Democrats and universities suggested the party divisions left prospects for action in the upper chamber doubtful in the remaining months of the current session of Congress.
The chairman of the House science committee, Rep. Lamar Smith of Texas, alluded to such difficulties as he adjourned the meeting, when he thanked the panel for “a very successful markup, at least from the point of view of having so many members present.”
Mr. Smith was appointed to the post by Republican leaders in January 2013. Soon afterward, he proposed a forerunner of the First Act, draft legislation that aimed to significantly modify the NSF’s peer-review system by requiring that grant applications be judged by their ability to advance U.S. national interests in economics, defense, and other areas.
Mr. Smith initially retreated under criticism by Democrats and university leaders, who warned of the danger of political interference in science, especially in basic research, where the eventual benefits of a project might not be known for decades.
The First Act legislation finally put forth this past March reflected many of Mr. Smith’s original goals, albeit with tempered language. It included a plan to set specific spending levels for divisions within the NSF—a controversial practice already used by Congress for the National Institutes of Health budget—and then to sharply cut spending in the social and behavioral sciences.
The bill also proposed tougher rules against scientific misconduct, new hurdles for researchers who had received previous NSF grant money, and a period of two years for scientific journals to maintain exclusive control over articles that drew on federally financed research.
In the end, virtually all of those key provisions were maintained by the full committee, on votes of either 20 to 16 or 19 to 17, with unanimous or near-unanimous Republican support. The one exception was a voice vote largely endorsing the Obama administration’s suggestion of just one year for the period of publisher exclusivity.
A Question of Motives
Both Democrats and universities remained dissatisfied. The final version of the bill “does little to advance science and close our nation’s innovation deficit,” and it should be rejected by the full House, Hunter R. Rawlings III, president of the Association of American Universities, said in a written statement.
The bill “seems preoccupied with questioning the motives of America’s premiere science agency and the integrity of the scientists it funds,” Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson of Texas, the committee’s top Democrat, said in a statement after the voting.
In his own statement after the votes, Mr. Smith denied that he had ever meant to “change NSF’s peer-review process.” The bill, however, “does expand accountability and requires transparency so that only high-quality research receives taxpayer funds,” he said.
Along with its policy pronouncements, the First Act would authorize an increase in the NSF’s budget for the 2015 fiscal year below the expected rate of inflation. The full House, however, began voting late Wednesday on an actual appropriations bill that would give the NSF $7.4-billion in 2015, an increase of 3.2 percent from this year and exceeding by 2.1 percent the amount requested by the Obama administration.
Still, the pending appropriations bill would maintain some of the intent of the committee’s measure, by requiring that the $149-million the House would provide beyond the presidential request be devoted to traditionally hard sciences such as mathematics, computers, and engineering. Key areas left out of that House definition include the social sciences and climate research.
And during the floor debate, the House majority leader, Rep. Eric Cantor of Virginia, said he planned to support an amendment by Mr. Smith that would use the appropriations bill to again try to cut social-sciences spending at the NSF. “This is the first step of many that I hope we’ll take to protect taxpayers while ensuring that high-quality research is funded,” Mr. Cantor said.
The White House, in a statement on Wednesday about the appropriations bill, said it “appreciates” the support for the NSF but warned that the bill “inadequately funds areas critical to the nation’s economic growth, security, and competitiveness in the global marketplace,” including spending on climate research. It made no threat of a veto.
