Comment from Iain Stewart

[200.205, 200.340] To Whom it May Concern: I am a full professor of physics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. I am writing in my personal capacity to oppose the proposed revisions to sections 200.205 and 200.340 that would undermine the integrity of federal grant review processes and federal science agencies' ability to identify and fund impactful research. Federal grants are the lifeblood of the US research enterprise which fuels our economy in many ways, including with new discoveries, and education of the future workforce for companies and institutes. Politicizing the grant process by allowing an override of peer review would greatly weaken the science done in the US, since grant allocation will no longer go to the strongest applications. If active grants can be terminated at any time, then it will no longer be possible to rely on them when carrying out long term planning. Currently grants in physics are used to fund 5-years of research assistant salary for graduate students, and 3-years of salary for postdoctoral fellows. These junior researchers are the future of the US workforce. The number of people hired into these positions will have to drop dramatically if grants cannot be relied on for their future funding. The integrity of the grant process and of US science overall has been a key element in our past success. It enables us to attract the strongest scientists and train them for a future roll in a dominant US industry. The rules proposed by OMB will weaken our grant funding relative to other countries around the world. Many of these countries have already started to try to recruit top US scientists to leave the USA. We need to make changes that strengthen rather than weaken the strength of the US scientific enterprise for the future. Unfortunately the proposal by OMB works against this goal.