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[Politics] Congress Trims Money for Science, but Punxsutawney Phil will save meteorology
From: David Farber <dave () farber net>
Date: Tue, 30 Nov 2004 14:03:51 -0500
Begin forwarded message: From: "Jon M. Peha" <peha () cmu edu> Date: November 30, 2004 11:08:50 AM ESTTo: +dist+/afs/andrew.cmu.edu/usr4/pc0x/dlists/ eppfaculty.dl () andrew cmu edu, +dist+/afs/andrew.cmu.edu/usr4/pc0x/dlists/ epprestaff.dl () andrew cmu edu, +dist+/afs/andrew.cmu.edu/usr4/pc0x/dlists/eppgrads.dl () andrew cmu edu Subject: Congress Trims Money for Science, but Punxsutawney Phil will save meteorology
Congress Trims Money for Science Agency November 30, 2004 By ROBERT PEAR WASHINGTON, Nov. 29 - Congress has cut the budget for the National Science Foundation, an engine for research in science and technology, just two years after endorsing a plan to double the amount given to the agency. Supporters of scientific research, in government and at universities, noted that the cut came as lawmakers earmarked more money for local projects like the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland and the Punxsutawney Weather Museum in Pennsylvania. David M. Stonner, director of Congressional affairs at the science foundation, said on Monday that the reduction might be just the beginning of a period of austerity. Congress, Mr. Stonner said, told the agency to expect "a series of flat or slightly declining budgets for the next several years." In renewing the legal authority for science programs in late 2002, Congress voted to double the budget of the science foundation by 2007. The agency finances the work and training of many mathematicians, physicists, chemists, engineers, computer scientists, biologists and environmental experts. The $388 billion spending bill for the current fiscal year, approved by both houses of Congress on Nov. 20, provides $5.473 billion for the National Science Foundation, which is $105 million less than it got last year and $272 million less than President Bush requested. Representative Vernon J. Ehlers, Republican of Michigan, said the cut was "extremely short-sighted" and showed "dangerous disregard for our nation's future." "I am astonished that we would make this decision at a time when other nations continue to surpass our students in math and science and consistently increase their funding of basic research," said Mr. Ehlers, a former physics professor who is chairman of a technology subcommittee. "The National Science Foundation supports technological innovation that is crucial to the sustained economic prosperity that America has enjoyed for several decades." Representative David R. Obey of Wisconsin, the senior Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee, said the cut was "the most Luddite provision" in the entire bill. Republicans who helped write the measure said the reduction was a necessary part of an overall effort to hold down domestic spending. Congress, with bipartisan support, doubled the budget of the National Institutes of Health from 1998 to 2003, and Mr. Bush often takes credit for completing that increase. But Mr. Obey said that biomedical research was "heavily dependent on basic initial research done by agencies like the National Science Foundation." Diagnostic imaging techniques, like magnetic resonance imaging and PET scans, depend heavily on physics, just as research on the human genome depends heavily on computers to catalog and analyze billions of bits of data. Dr. Harold E. Varmus, former director of the National Institutes of Health, said the budget cut was "very distressing." Dr. Varmus, now president of Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York, said: "We have the ability to understand the genome of the cancer cell in our hands. But we need computational improvements, faster and better machinery and software to compare the genome of cancer cells with the genome of normal cells." While cutting the budget of the science foundation, Congress found money for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, the Alabama Sports Hall of Fame in Birmingham, the Country Music Hall of Fame in Nashville, bathhouses in Hot Springs, Ark., and hundreds of similar projects. The science foundation helped finance research that led to Web browsers, like Internet Explorer and Netscape, and to search engines like Google. Its research has produced advances in fields from astronomy to zoology, including weather forecasting, nanotechnology, highway safety and climate change. At the University of Southern California, the foundation is supporting research on an artificial retina, to restore sight to blind people, and on silicon chips that could be implanted in the brain to replace neurons damaged by disease or injury. Cornelius W. Sullivan, vice provost for research at the university, in Los Angeles, said the budget cut "sends a very bad signal to scientists." Mr. Stonner, of the science foundation, said the cut would erode the confidence of graduate students and encourage professors to be more conservative in conceiving and pursuing new ideas - just the opposite of what the agency wants. "We hope a lot of researchers will think wild and crazy thoughts," Mr. Stonner said. "That's how you get breakthroughs in science." Todd C. Mesek, a spokesman for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, which is receiving $350,000, said the money would be well spent on education programs to teach children about language, the mathematics of music and geography ("cities where rock and roll was fostered"). Some of the money, Mr. Meek said, will be used for "toddler rock," a music therapy program. One of the more contentious provisions in the bill provides $12 million for the Yazoo Backwater Pumping Plant in Mississippi. Senators Trent Lott and Thad Cochran of Mississippi, both Republicans, defended the project, saying it would prevent floods, save lives and protect homes and businesses. But Melissa A. Samet, a lawyer at American Rivers, an environmental group, said: "It's a horrible project. It will drain wetlands so that farmers can intensify production. In the process, it will damage natural resources that are vital to wildlife and clean water."http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/30/politics/30spend.html? ex=1102802416&ei=1&en=6b806ac9115b39a5
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- [Politics] Congress Trims Money for Science, but Punxsutawney Phil will save meteorology David Farber (Nov 30)