Scientific Research in the National Interest Act

Floor Speech

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Mr. BEYER. Mr. Chair, I rise to voice my strong opposition to H.R. 3293, the legislation of my friend, Chairman Lamar Smith, the so-called Scientific Research in the National Interest Act.

I understand the genesis of this bill: Mr. Smith's dismay at some of the titles of the National Science Foundation's funded research.

This bill is the wrong approach to addressing the very occasional misuse of NSF grants, and it represents classic short-term thinking.

I am a businessman, and I know of no one in the business community who wants politicians or government to decide business winners or losers.

Of course, none of us, Democrat or Republican, believe that politicians should be making science decisions either. I believe Representative Bill Foster is the only Ph.D. scientist in the House, and the rest of us don't qualify.

By proclaiming the seven definitions of what science is in the national interest, we politicians are, in fact, deciding what is worthy of scientific research. By the way, no one on this side yet has raised any objections to the transparency or the accountability of the National Science Foundation. That completely mischaracterizes our objections.

These standards sound constructive and benign--increased economic activity, advancement of health and welfare, support for the national defense, et cetera--but only one of the seven definitions even mentions science. The last one says for the ``promotion of the progress of science for the United States,'' whatever that means.

Where, oh, where is the commitment to basic research, the kind of fundamental research that I know all of us value?

Listen to all the funny names that would have sounded especially funny at the time: Would Einstein's 1905 papers on special relativity, on the photoelectric effect, and on Brownian motion even qualify under the seven definitions? How about Niels Bohr's research on quantum mechanics? How about Murray Gell-Mans' work on particle physics in quarks? How about Rosalind Franklin's work on the crystallography of DNA?

My college roommate spent 4 years at Berkeley, 1972 to 1976, studying something called Roman spectroscopy. He had no idea what it would do. Today we call them MRIs.

That is the whole point of basic research. We don't know where it will lead. We don't know that it is in the national interest. It just adds to our knowledge.

On the Science, Space, and Technology Committee, we reveled in the NASA presentation of the Pluto photographs. How does our New Horizons mission to Pluto possibly qualify under the seven definitions of the national interest?

I respect that the chair of the Science, Space, and Technology Committee wants the NSF funds expended into legitimate scientific research. I agree. Mr. Smith used the phrase ``demonstrably in the national interest.'' How could we definitely know, when all of basic research is, by definition, long term rather than short term?

Let's let the scientists decide and oppose this well-meaning but ill- conceived legislation.

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