With the US government focused on deficit reduction, justifying the worth of federally funded research has arguably never been more important. Spending cuts are likely to be the norm, rather than the increases that President Obama requested in February for science and technology programs, and basic research, historically held in high regard on both sides of the aisle, will do well to break even in fiscal year 2012.
The House bill that provides FY 2012 funding for the Department of Energy demonstrates lawmakers’ attitudes toward basic research: In that bill, appropriators order DOE to conduct performance assessments of its basic research programs. The measure takes particular aim at the portfolio of investigator-initiated research grants that make up four-fifths of the DOE Office of Science’s $855 million basic energy sciences program. The House bill instructs the office to carry out performance reviews of those grants and to terminate $20 million worth...
