Date: 2016-02-10
Speaker: EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON (democrat)
Chamber: H
State: Texas

Mr. Chairman. I yield myself such time as I may consume. I rise in strong opposition to H.R. 3293. the Scientific Research in the National Interest Act. I oppose this bill because I believe that this bill will hurt the Nations premier basic research agency. lead to less high reward research. and. ultimately. leave America less competitive. My Republican colleagues have a simple argument for their legislation: Shouldnt NSF research be in the national interest? That is a very good question. but one that can be easily answered. My answer is that NSF research is already in the national interest. It has been for more than 60 years. The Federal investment in basic research over the past 60 years has been the primary driver of our Nations economic growth and innovation. In innumerable ways. our investments in basic research have paid back a wealth of dividends. This fact is widely recognized across academia and industry. The National Academies "Rising Above the Gathering Storm" report made this point a decade ago. That panel. chaired by the former head of LockheedMartin. understood that investment in basic research was fundamentally in the national interest. When we passed the America COMPETES Reauthorization Act of 2010 as part of the Democrats innovation agenda. that bill was endorsed by hundreds of business and research organizations. including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the National Association of Manufacturers. They all understood that investment in basic research is in the national interest. What is this bill really about? Is it really about enhancing our Nations ability to innovate? No. Sadly. this bill continues the Republican majoritys preoccupation with secondguessing Americas best and brightest research scientists. For the past 3 years. the Committee on Science. Space. and Technology majority has been engaged in a relentless and pernicious campaign against research grants with silly or odd sounding titles. Republicans have used that time to carry out an unprecedented rifling through the 70 NSF grants reviews. After all this effort. did they find any evidence of wrongdoing? No. The only thing they found was what they already knew: each of the research grants had passed NSFs merit review process with flying colors. The majority may not like it and wish the results were different. but those are the facts. Let me be clear. Some of the greatest scientific achievements of the past 60 years were the result of funny sounding research. including research that was ridiculed in Congress as frivolous. There are scores of examples. One of my favorites is "The Sex Life of the Screwworm." surely one of the silliest sounding titles for research there could possibly be. So silly. in fact. that in the 1970s. the grant was ridiculed as an example of government waste on the Senate floor. Sounds a lot like what the majority is doing here today. It turned out that the screwworm was costing the U.S. cattle industry a small fortune. As a direct result of this silly sounding research. the cattle industry saved approximately $20 billion in the U.S. and significantly reduced the cost of beef to U.S. consumers. [ 1500 At its core. this bill is about secondguessing our Nations best and brightest scientists and the grantmaking decisions they make. Perhaps this is not surprising when so many of my Republican colleagues openly question the validity of whole fields of established science. from the social sciences to climate science to evolutionary biology. Far from adding anything useful to the NSFs review process. H.R. 3293 would add more bureaucracy and paperwork. Yet. my biggest concern about these requirements is that they will push NSF reviewers to fund less highrisk research. which. by its very nature. entails the pursuit of scientific understanding without it necessarily having any particular or known benefit. We know that highrisk research tends to have the highest reward. something that we have seen throughout the history of the NSF. I am not alone in my concerns. The Presidents science adviser. Dr. John Holdren. noted: H.R. 3293 would create doubt at NSF and in the research community about Congress real intent in calling into question the adequacy of NSFs gold standard meritreview process for applied as well as for basic research. This could easily have a chilling effect on the amount of basic research that scientists propose and that NSF chooses to fund. with detrimental consequences for this Nations leadership in science. technology. and innovation alike. Mr. Chair. I choose to stand with the scientists when it comes to science. For that reason. I strongly oppose this legislation. I reserve the balance of my time.