There was a minor storm in the science community over the past couple of days as two Republican House members offered amendments (here’s one, here’s the other) to the NSF authorization bill (H.R. 1867) to strip funding for existing projects.

This kind of debate has been going on for decades, really since the beginning of post-WWII science policy, but it’s important to revisit the issue. Should Congress step in for peer-review panels of experts in determining project funding? Maybe. It’s an open values question that we are constantly rehashing, and for good reason. Elected politicians should constantly question how the taxpayer’s money is spent. That’s their job. But should individual Members perhaps read past the title and abstract of a project they object to when speaking on the House floor? Probably.

The latest iteration of this long-running fight is covered well by Jeffery Brainard in a Chronicle of Higher Ed story posted today.