Vernon Ehlers: “I have fought hard here to keep this body and the other body from providing earmarks for scientific research, because…”

“I have fought hard here to keep this body and the other body from providing earmarks for scientific research, because all grants should go through the peer review process. I oppose earmarks in general, but particularly in scientific research. The fact that industry supports us is not indicative of the National Science Foundation doing industry's research. National Science Foundation does the basic research, the fundamental research, which has no apparent immediate use. Industry picks up on that and says, okay, let's see whether we can develop something out of that. In other words, industry does not do very much research, they do a lot of development. NSF does almost totally research and essentially no development. The rate of return on our research money in the National Science Foundation has been incredible. Any accountant looking at this would say this is the best investment that the United States Government makes because it has great results in our economy.”