The Senate Appropriations subcommittee on Veterans Affairs, Housing and Urban Development, and Independent Agencies, chaired by Senator Mikulski in the last Congress, is important for science: It funds the National Science Foundation (NSF), the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), and the Environmental Protection Agency, as well as the Departments of Housing and Urban Affairs and of Veterans Affairs, along with smaller agencies. (note: Appropriations committees are distinct from authorizing committees. The former ``write the checks,'' i.e., allow agencies to actually spend, while the latter set policy direction.) Thus although the subcommittee is usually allocated a large amount of discretionary funds, it also receives funding requests from a diverse portfolio of programs serving broad constituencies. In the subcommittee science competes with housing for the poor and veterans' medical care---a politically tough league. (Some have suggested that to avoid such competition, science should have its own subcommittee and funding allocation. This suggestion raises caution flags; one reason the VA/HUD subcommittee gets a large allocation is the broad political strength of the programs it funds. Were science isolated it might get much less.)
When a bill is approved by a committee and sent to the full House or Senate for action it is accompanied by an explanatory report, signed by the committee or subcommittee chair. Report language often reaches beyond explanation of the bill and directs the funded agency to take certain actions, often things that might be difficult or embarrassing to achieve in legislation (e.g., egregious ``pork barrelling''). In theory report language is not binding, but in fact no agency wants to be seen as evading it, because Congress could cut next year's funds in retaliation.
In the report accompanying the FY 1994 appropriation for NSF Senator Mikulski included language which would change the agency's charter through several instructions [Mikulski, 1993]. This could not have been done in the bill itself because to do so would have violated the jurisdiction of the committees which authorize, i.e., set the charter for, the agency. The first two instructions to NSF are most important, and are best explained if taken in reverse order.
The second instruction to NSF was to spend 60% of its funds on ``strategic'' research which Mikulski has defined as ``investments in science that are focussed around important national goals'' [Mikulski, 1994]. This mandate---that a majority of the funding for the nation's main agency for basic research go instead to support strategic or focussed research---attracted most attention and negative comment, perhaps because it was a clear target [Marshall, 1993]. Alone, this requirement is not too onerous; after all the National Institutes of Health spends several billions of dollars annually, much more than NSF, on research focussed on a national goal, i.e. the improved health of our citizens, yet many of the projects it funds are considered basic research. Further, 40 percent of NSF funds would remain in basic research.
The main change lies in the first instruction which requires each NSF program, including basic research directorates, ``to specify... annual, quantifiable, performance milestones''[p 165]. These milestones should ``include a vigorous evaluation component that guarantees that programs... can be terminated if they lose their effectiveness or are displaced by higher priority initiatives,... specify the degree of industrial participation... [and] assist in determining relative priorities in times of funding constraints'' [p 165] By implication low priority is given to maintaining the strength of disciplines and quality of science, high priority to meeting national needs. And Senator Mikulski wants more than talk: ``It is time for the Foundation to move beyond rhetorical statements... . Instead, it is now the time for the Foundation to move to identify that which is specific, immediate, and realizable in pursuit of this broader [i.e., strategic] mission'' [p 164-5]. Requiring ``immediate'' demonstration of relevance, presumably during a program's life, would affect much university research.
The only national goal specifically identified is increasing our national economic competitiveness, particularly through references to industrial participation and pursuing critical technologies. The report includes threats to shift funds to other agencies if NSF does not respond positively, and it selectively uses or misuses the findings of other reports to support its own conclusions. For example, the report says ``the National Academy [of Sciences] report, 'Science, Technology, and the Federal Government' seems to suggest that performance milestones, greater accountability, and an ability to provide a strategic focus on basic research must occur if science is to be a full partner in helping the United States regain its competitive edge''[p 164]. My reading of the Academy report [NAS, 1993] is that the government should spend what is necessary to make sure U.S. science is world-class, and then the benefits will flow virtually automatically, a la Vannevar Bush. This is almost the opposite of Mikulski's thrust.
Mikulski's report language was written to close any loopholes through which the agency might wriggle. However, in the face of strong negative reaction, the Senator has softened her position. In the FY 1995 bill her subcommittee increased NSF's funding 17% and approved the Foundation's response to the instructions in the 1994 report [Mervis, 1994]. The 1994 report had said she was only trying to help; perhaps that is what she has done:
``Rather than seeing this challenge as a threat to the status quo, the academic research community should see it as perhaps the last, best chance to seize the opportunity to be an integral part of the solution to the scientific and technological problems our country and its economy now confront. Science is fundamentally about pursuing new ideas and new ways of thinking. This era of change is in that spirit, and is about the renewal of science rather than its diminution.'' [p 165]
Has the crisis passed? Some may be encouraged by Mikulski's FY 1995 actions and the recent election to believe that the 1994 language is passe', and that the status quo ante prevails. I do not believe this is the case because both the Clinton Administration and many members of Congress basically agree with Mikulski's original position. A review of the position of the White House and statements of other Members of Congress illustrates the agreement.