On the recordFebruary 10, 2016
I oppose the gentlewoman's amendment, which undermines the bill and weakens accountability and transparency. First, the amendment seeks to dilute the bill's requirement that the grant must be worthy of Federal funding. It is difficult to understand why anyone would have objections to requiring that a research grant be worthy of taxpayer support. Worthy means: having adequate or great merit, character, or value; and commendable excellence or merit; deserving. The opposite of worthy of Federal funding are awards of taxpayer money to frivolous, low-priority projects, like producing a climate change musical, creating a voicemail game, or studying tourism in Norway. One would think that fundamental standards like ``worthy of Federal funding'' and ``in the national interest'' would already be embedded in the standards the National Science Foundation uses to evaluate thousands of grant applications and decide which ones should receive $6 billion in basic research grants each year. From the Science, Space, and Technology Committee's review of past NSF grants, we have learned that this is not always the case. This amendment eliminates the requirement that each grant be worthy of Federal funding. It asserts that any grant approved by NSF through its merit selection system will be considered worthy of Federal funding. With this change, every NSF-funded project would be considered worthy of Federal funding, no matter how absurd.…
