[IP] [Politics] Congress Trims Money for Science, but Punxsutawney Phil will save meteorology
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From: "Jon M. Peha" <peha@xxxxxxx>
Date: November 30, 2004 11:08:50 AM EST
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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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