After over 17 hours of debate, the House of Representatives voted last night, 331-87, to pass the fiscal year 2015 Commerce-Justice-Science (CJS) Appropriations bill that funds the National Science Foundation (NSF).
Although the CJS bill made its way through subcommittee and committee markups with few threats to social, behavioral, or education sciences, AERA and other science advocates prepared for potential amendments on the House floor. The amendments materialized, but the overall damage was less than feared.
As anticipated, during floor debate Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) expressed that he was troubled by the administration’s spending on political science and social science.
Cantor applauded an effort by Rep. Lamar Smith (R-TX) to “reform NSF” and stated that an amendment would be offered by Smith, chairman of the House Science Committee to hold the Social, Behavioral, and Economic (SBE) Sciences Directorate funding in 2015 at 2014 levels.
Rep. Chaka Fattah (D-PA), ranking minority member on the CJS subcommittee (who recently spoke at the AERA Annual Meeting), responded that it would be “unwise” and “misguided” for Congress to require NSF to move away from its “world-renowned, merit-based process” for reviewing proposals.
Also of concern were possible amendments directed at reducing funding for the Education and Human Resources (EHR) Directorate, and one or more targeting individual grants awarded by NSF.
Of interest to education researchers and the broader social and behavioral sciences community were the following:
AERA staff and colleagues from other research associations have spent considerable time on Capitol Hill ensuring that members of Congress understand the important role that the SBE and EHR Directorates play in building knowledge that is critical to the country’s needs.
Working in collaboration with the Coalition for National Science Funding, a statement was sent to House members urging them to hold the line on NSF funding that was championed by retiring Subcommittee Chairman Frank Wolf (R-VA) and Fattah. It also urged opposition to any amendments that threatened EHR, the social and behavioral sciences, and individual grants.
The Senate will take up its version of the CJS bill next week. It is expected to be a good bill for SBE and EHR, although the spending allocations for the overall bill must fit within the Bipartisan Budget Act agreed to in December, minus some additional cuts due to lower-than-expected revenues from the Federal Housing Authority.