Comment from Paul Grannis

[200.205 ] To Whom it May Concern: I am a Research Professor and Distinguished Professor emeritus who has worked on experimental particle physics. I was the leader of the D0 collaboration that conducted research at Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory' Tevatron Collider for 40 years. I have served as Chair of the Division of Particles and Fields of the American Physical Society and as Science Advisor to the Director of the Office of High Energy Physics in the Department of Energy. Section CFR 200.205 of the Rule poses a threat to the vitality of the US scientific enterprise. Overriding the peer review of scientific research proposals by experts in the field will result in squandering the innovative opportunities that have made American science and technology the world leader. The high quality of the US scientific establishment rests to large degree on selection of the best proposals through review by experienced professional peer scientists. Introducing a layer of approval by federal political appointees who are unlikely to have the scientific knowledge to fully appreciate the potential importance of proposals will have serious consequences. I suspect that failing to recognize truly transformative, but highly speculative, research will be even more damaging than judging science by political standards. Let me give a few examples of past esoteric research proposals that have nevertheless sparked paradigm-shifting social changes. In the early 1950's Charles Townes wanted to investigate transitions between molecular energy levels, but needed more powerful beams than were available. He proposed a complex device that did create a highly collimated microwave beam, but only with a millionth of a watt of power. But the idea of this Maser, when extended to light beams, developed into the Laser that is ubiquitous in applications ranging from supermarket scanners to laser surgery to CD players. No one would have predicted the impact on society from the approval of this study of molecular properties. In the 1970's some physicists noted that it was conceivable that an ‘antenna' to pick up gravitational waves from the cosmos could be built, but calculations showed that environmental noise would completely swamp a signal and that the precision control of the optical elements were beyond could be imagined. However, the National Science Foundation agreed to let the proponents try. Finally, in 2015, the first gravitational waves with amplitudes a thousandth of the diameter of a proton were discovered by the LIGO observatory. We now have a completely new window for observing the universe that complements the instruments using light and radio waves. What political appointee would have agreed to a billion dollar bet with such staggering odds against it? In 1990, the first World Wide Web browser went live on Tim Berners Lee's computer at the CERN laboratory for particle physics in Switzerland. It was conceived to facilitate sharing of information among physicists from nations around the world who were working on a common project. The Web is now everywhere in our interconnected society. Would a project enabling communication among scientists in Russia, China, Europe and the US get approval under the proposed Regulation for Federal Financial Assistance? The use of scientific experts to give well-considered peer reviews of new proposals has underpinned scientific and technological advances for decades. Giving non-experts whose orientation is more political than scientific a final say in granting research funds will negatively change the scientific health of the United States. I urge OMB not to finalize this rule.