The adversarial relationship of these House members with the NSF is caused by their adversarial relationship with science itself.
> There is an unfortunate adversarial relationship between some members > of the House Science Comittee and the National Science Foundation, > described in an article at > http://news.sciencemag.org/policy/2014/10/battle-between-nsf-and-house-science-committee-escalates-how-did-it-get-bad. > An outcome could be a negative effect on funding of some ecological > research. > > Several ecological projects are among the 50 NSF awards for which the > House Science Committee has requested (and received) NSF records > including the proposals, reviewer comments on their merit, > correspondence between program officers and principal investigators, > and any other information that had helped NSF decide to fund the project. > > Communicating Climate Change (C3) > > Ecosystem Resilience to Human Impacts: Ecological Consequences of > Early Human-Set Fires in New Zealand > > CNH: Does Community-Based Rangeland Ecosystem Management Increase the > Resilience of Coupled Systems to Climate Change in Mongolia? > > CRPA: How do We Learn the Fate of Tropical Forests under Climate > Change? -- A Multimedia Exhibition of Photographic Art Portraying > Scientists and Students at Work in Amazonia > > CNH-Ex: An Analysis of Disturbance Interactions and Ecosystem > Resilience in the Northern Forest of New England > > I've had some experience with similar political involvement with NSF > funding, as my previous grant was #35 on a list issued by two U.S. > Senators of the top 100 most wasteful uses of funding from the 2009 > "Stimulus Bill". > > David Inouye > President, Ecological Society of America >
