Comment from Anon Anon

I am a professor at a research university who receives NSF funding. This funding has been fundamental in testing hypotheses that have made foundational changes in our field and in training the next generation of scientists. The Summary statement for the 2026 proposed changes assumes facts not in evidence, which, ironically, would not be publishable in peer-reviewed science. Especially misleading and incorrect are assertions that recipients of federal grants are not accountable, fail to meet standards, or the grant making process is not transparent, or discriminatory. As written, the new proposed changes would implement all of these practices. Accountability: The authors of this rule clearly have not even an elementary understanding of what science is, how it works, or how the funding process works. If scientists do not publish, if they do not present results at meetings, if they do not make their work known and hold up to peer-review, then they will not be awarded federal funding. The publication of results, requirement in federal funding to make federally funded data freely available, and the peer-review process at meetings, publications, and grant review panels are what ensure accountability. Many provisions remove this, including §200.461, and §200.421. Standards: §200.205 removes any scientific standards from the process of funding awards for science and instead imposes political standards. For science! This is not only insane, it is dangerous and incredibly wasteful of taxpayer dollars. Transparency: §200.204 does a truly remarkable thing, by allowing behind the scenes no-bid research funding making the entire process not just opaque, but impenetrable. This reads as another mechanism for easy siphoning off of taxpayer dollars to favored contractors that, in this case, need not even know what the scientific process is. Discrimination: §200.300 eliminates anti-discriminatory practices and blatantly adopts discriminatory ideology. §200.206 openly allows discrimination against any applicant who does not share the same ideology as the political appointees. I fear that basic scientists have done a poor job of explaining to the public how basic science is the driver for economic growth and all innovation in the U.S. Businesses do not, in almost all cases, develop their own basic science research, depending instead on government-funded basic research to make the discoveries that they can then turn to profit. Without these scientists, business will suffer in the years to come. The complete loss of merit and idea-driven, peer-reviewed, open, transparent, and undirected basic science in the United States will be stifling, and in the end a loss that will be felt for multiple generations, taking the U.S. from a system that created our position as first in the world, to one that puts us on par with developing countries. Why mess with the system that put us on top in terms of innovation and wealth at all?