Comment from Don Zobel

[200.202(e), 200.220] To Whom it May Concern: I am Emeritus Professor of Botany at Oregon State University. I spent several years working in three Asian countries, doing research and teaching, bring skills and capacity to overseas scientists that they did not have, and taking away invaluable insight and information that I could not have learned at home and used throughout the rest of my career in Oregon. I am writing in my personal capacity to oppose the proposed revisions to sections 200.202(e) and 200.220 that would restrict international scientific collaboration and isolate American scientists. My work included study of cypress trees in Taiwan that were closely related to a native species in the US; study of water relations in pine and oak in India and Nepal in a climate with a wet summer, helping to learn how related species in Oregon better adapt to drought; and teaching in Nepal, where I developed teaching materials that I continued to use at home. None of these activities were possible without US federal financial support designated for cooperation with foreign scientists. I am afraid that, without opportunity to work in other countries, US scientists will not learn the lesson that some parts of the world have natural process that differ from how those work in the US. Our ignorance and hubris, in assuming that ecosystems elsewhere are just like ours, will badly hurt everyone in the world, including the US.