To the Editor:
A hallmark of a great university is an active, engaged board of trustees that asks tough questions and holds university leadership accountable for meeting the highest standards. So I was surprised that the leaders of the Association of American Universities recently registered concern about similar oversight efforts by the House Science Committee, which I chair, involving requests for information from the National Science Foundation.
The committee’s request for information is simple and straightforward. The U.S. Constitution requires Congress to oversee federal agencies’ use of taxpayer funds. In order for Congress to determine whether taxpayers’ hard-earned dollars are spent properly, the law requires agencies to provide Congress with access to all official documents. No federal agency is exempted.
Congressional oversight isn’t a threat or a punishment; it is helpful. What federal agency has been harmed by too much public knowledge and accountability? When agencies conceal information, bad things can happen. Last year’s shocking Veterans Administration health-care scandal was a direct result of top VA officials concealing information and avoiding oversight. Congress needs information to ask the right questions and help agencies anticipate and fix problems before they get out of hand.
The House Science Committee is reviewing NSF grant files to better understand the merit review process through which NSF annually awards close to $7-billion of taxpayer money to approximately 10,000 scientific research proposals. Most NSF grants are scientifically meritorious and deserve taxpayer support. But it is Congress’ constitutional responsibility—and its obligation to taxpayers—to ask questions when NSF spends public funds for projects like a climate-change musical ($700,000) or an investigation of Tea Party activity on social media ($919,000).
Oversight also enables Congress to understand the impacts of legislative policy changes. For example, I and others on the Science Committee have proposed that the NSF accompany the announcement of each grant award with a plain English explanation of scientific merit and why it’s in the national interest.
The AAU and others have wrongly claimed that the committee would use access to NSF grant files to make public the names of NSF’s external reviewers, whose expertise and work are essential to NSF’s merit review system. However, by written agreement between NSF Director France Cordova and me, NSF redacts the names and identifying information of its external reviewers from all files that members and staff are permitted to read.
The progress of science in the United States as well as our future economic and national security depends on federal support of basic scientific research. House Science Committee questions about NSF grant-making have one goal: to make NSF and our nation’s scientific research enterprise stronger and more relevant to our nation and its people.
U.S. Rep. Lamar Smith (21st Congressional District of Texas)
Chairman of the House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology
Washington
