Comment from Carolyn Quam
Carolyn QuamOpposeAcademic
Summary: A scientist at Portland State University opposes the proposed regulation, arguing that it represents executive overreach and the politicization of federal science funding. The commenter expresses concern that requiring approval by political appointees will consolidate executive power and undermine legislative oversight of taxpayer dollars.
I am a scientist whose research has been previously funded by NSF and NIH. My ability to access funding opportunities for my research is currently being impacted by multiple forms of executive overreach in federal science funding. I work at a minority serving institution (MSI), Portland State University. Our university had a 2 million dollar grant from the Department of Education terminated, which was intended to support our student-focused work as an MSI (AANAPISI). I am also unable to revise and submit again to NSF, after a score of "Competitive," because my subdirectorate of Linguistics has apparently been reorganized out of existence. This "Regulation for Federal Financial Assistance" sounds like another attempt at politicization and executive overreach in the form of requiring grants to be approved by political appointees of the president. This would set yet another dangerous precedent in consolidating more power in the executive in an arena where the legislature is intended to have significant control and oversight of how taxpayer dollars are spent.