Comparing Senate Calm, House Storm on SBE Front
This week, and with no drama, two panels in the U.S. Senate—first the Commerce, Justice, Science and Related Agencies Appropriations Subcommittee and then the full Appropriations Committee “marked-up” the Senate’s version of the Commerce-Justice-Science Appropriations Act. The act, with just a handful of minor changes (the most prominent removing law enforcement barriers to industrial hemp!) now goes to the whole Senate for debate and likely passage.
That so-called CJS legislation contains funding for the National science Foundation, an agency which provides more than half of the grant money for basic social science research emanating from American universities. In the bill, the NSF budget is $7.25 billion for the new fiscal year, which begins in October. That amount is $83 million higher than the current year’s budget.
The lack of hoopla was very different from the scene in the Senate’s sister chamber, the House of Representatives, which passed its version of the CJS bill in the wee hours of last Friday morning after two days of mostly partisan amendment mongering, including a number of changes—some accepted, some rejected—that affected either NSF, its Directorate of Social, Behavioral and Economic Science (SBE), or data-gathering efforts to assist both policymakers and researchers. (Eventually the House and Senate bills must emerge as a sing;e piece of legislation.) The House also saw action on an authorization bill for the NSF that—oddly—concerns the budget for both the rapidly expiring current fiscal year and the one coming up.
While Social Science Space has reported on the House actions (see the timeline below), here Paula Skedsvold, the advocacy consultant for the Federation of Associations of Behavioral and Brain Sciences, offers a detailed account of the House’s flurry of activity.
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Under the leadership of Subcommittee Chairman Frank Wolf, R-Virginia, and Ranking Member Chaka Fattah, D-Pennsylvania, the appropriations bill was crafted with bipartisan support, and had the endorsement of numerous scientific, higher education, and business organizations as it moved to the House floor.
This post is republished from the Federation of Associations of Behavioral & Brain Sciences, a Social Science Space partner.
Timeline
House GOP Officials Slap at Social Science Funding (May 29)
$50 Million SBE Cut Moves Forward to the Full House (May 28)
House Panel Wants to Strip That $50 Million from SBE Again (May 21)
Two Visions of NSF Funding Before House This Week (May 19)
NSF Funding Bill Report Includes Two Curious Items (May 7)
Largest-Ever NSF Budget Passes First Test (April 30)
National Science Board Critical of FIRST Elements (April 24)
NSF Boss Finds Friendly Reception in Appropriations Panel (March 27)
NSF Chief Presents Budget to House Thursday (March 21)
FIRST Bill Passes First Legislative Hurdle (March 13)
Social Science Advocates Uniting to Oppose FIRST (March 11)
How Much NSF Funding Goes to Social Science? (March 10)
Cuts to Behavioral and Social Science Funding Threatened (February 26)
Science and higher education advocates, however, were concerned that amendments on the House floor could reduce overall NSF funding or target areas of science. Indeed, the FY 2013 spending bill included an amendment that put restrictions on political science research at NSF. In addition, House leaders had sought to “prioritize” and shift NSF funding from social and behavioral sciences to the physical sciences.
There was more reason for concern. On the same evening that the CJS Appropriations bill reached the House floor, the House Science, Space, and Technology Committee completed its markup of Frontiers in Innovation, Research, Science, and Technology (FIRST), a bill to reauthorize NSF programs. With the support of Chairman Lamar Smith, R-Texas, an amendment was offered by Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, R- California, during committee consideration of the bill to cut funding for the SBE by $50 million.
The original FIRST bill cut SBE funding by $100 million, or 42 percent. In subcommittee markup, Rep. Daniel Lipinski, D-Illinois, got $50 million restored to SBE, only to have it removed again at the full committee level. The science and higher education communities have expressed serious concerns with the bill, due to overall funding levels for NSF; cuts to the SBE and Geosciences Directorates; and measures that put conditions on review of grant proposals, among others.
Back on the House floor for debate on the CJS bill, and with massive cuts to the SBE directorate tucked into in the reauthorization bill, Majority Leader Eric Cantor described his appreciation for Rep. Lamar Smith’s efforts to “reform NSF,” explaining that he was troubled by the Administration’s spending on political and social science. In response, Fattah argued that it was “unwise” and “misguided” for Congress to substitute political judgment for a “world-renowned” merit review process.
The following day, Smith offered his amendment to the CJS bill. It removed $15 million from NSF’s research account and then restored the full amount. By offering the amendment, Smith could use the floor time to criticize NSF for “dozens or hundreds of questionable grants.” Although he explained in his floor statement that the intention of his amendment was to redirect any increase in SBE funding to the physical sciences, the text of the amendment was narrow and did not include reference to any areas of science. In the end, there was no net effect on social and behavioral sciences in the CJS bill, but Rep. Smith made clear that his amendment “is only the first step.”
Again, Fattah provided a strong and spirited response to criticisms of NSF research, describing how the social and behavioral sciences help us understand the behavior of people in disasters; those suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, which affects our returning soldiers and traumatized children; and how a paralyzed monkey was taught to move her arms through her thoughts. “Eliminating the science here would be disastrous,” he said.
Like Smith, Rep. Paul Goser, R-Arizona, questioned the use of federal funds for various research projects and introduced an amendment to ban NSF funding of them. “None of the funds made available by this act may be used to study…”
- The social effects of online interactive games;
- How humans react to trends in popular culture;
- Any facet of professional or collegiate sports, their games, or their playoff systems;
- Whether or not humans are more or less racially-focused when seeking love online; or,
- Whether or not any social media application is able to predict trends in the stock market or any global trading market.
The amendment addressed 14 different areas of research (including those mentioned above), but was ruled “out of order.” However, introducing the amendment gave Goser an opportunity to highlight grants that he thought were of questionable scientific merit.
Rep. Paul Broun, R-Georgia, sought to reduce funding in non-research accounts for “silly things” that NSF has funded such as climate change media games, but this amendment failed on a voice vote. One amendment that passed and has implications for the social sciences was offered by Rep. Ted Poe, R-Texas. Poe’s amendment made participation in the American Community Survey voluntary. The survey generates data to help in allocating $400 billion in federal and state funds to communities each year.
Other champions of NSF responded to the criticisms.Retiring Rep. Rush Holt, a Democrat from New Jersey and a physicist, stated: “People value the fruits of research, but have no clue how it’s done.” Noting that social and behavioral sciences research is important in understanding how people make decisions about energy use, respond to disasters, or how the brain works, he said that the idea of cutting back on this research is “terribly misguided.“
Rep. David Price, D-North Carolina, strongly opposed the Broun amendment and offered that he wished his colleagues would spend more time learning about the grants that they questioned than trying to level “cheap shots” at them. Price applauded NSF for funding many Nobel Prize winners, including SBE-funded scientists, and added: “SBE taps the best minds in the country.”
