Political Quotes

“First of all, I appreciate the majority leader. I know for certain that he has an interest, particularly in these areas that he has spoken about, because on one day, at the end of a long week, the two of us ventured over to the National Institutes of Health to sit and learn a little bit more about the merit-based selection process for investment and investigations to end diseases, and Lamar Smith, who is a great Member, led the effort on patent reform. However, I think that both are misguided in this attempt to move away from the world-renowned merit-based selection process at the National Science Foundation. All of our competitors are actually trying to mimic the merit-based selection process that the National Science Foundation utilizes, and it is critically important that the National Science Board, in the ways that these decisions are made, is not going to be influenced by politics. That was in the wisdom of the creation of this, and it has worked so well that we now lead the world. If we want to continue to lead the world, the last thing we want to do is to interject politics into the decisionmaking process of what basic scientific research should be supported. There are more proposals that come in than can be funded that are done on a peer-review, science-only basis, and I think it would be a very unwise signal for this Congress to send if we were to move in this direction.…”