[Congressional Record Volume 162, Number 25 (Thursday, February 11, 2016)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E163]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]





            SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH IN THE NATIONAL INTEREST ACT

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                               speech of

                          HON. EARL BLUMENAUER

                               of oregon

                    in the house of representatives

                      Wednesday, February 10, 2016

       The House in Committee of the Whole House on the state of 
     the Union had under consideration the bill (H.R. 3293) to 
     provide for greater accountability in Federal funding for 
     scientific research, to promote the progress of science in 
     the United States that serves that national interest:

  Mr. BLUMENAUER. Mr. Chair, today, I will vote no on H.R. 3293, the 
so-called ``Scientific Research in the National Interest'' Act.
  This bill is the latest in the House Majority's campaign to undermine 
science and the scientific community. The scientific peer-based, merit 
review process that the National Science Foundation (NSF) currently has 
in place is widely regarded as the ``gold standard'' for funding 
scientific research. This bill would add unnecessary bureaucratic 
paperwork to this process, but more troublingly, it would undermine our 
nation's basic research enterprise. The attempts to insert politics 
into this process have already caused our nation's scientists to shy 
away from high-risk, potentially high-reward research that some House 
members may find controversial.
  We must not allow elected officials to arbitrarily override expert 
scientific review. We have seen this type of stunt time and time again 
with efforts to undermine climate change science, and today, the target 
is on basic research. It is time to stop this charade. We should be 
focusing more on evidence-based, performance-based policymaking, rather 
than finding a solution in search of a problem.

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