Comment from Daniel Barowy

The proposed regulation will not improve the cost-efficiency or competitiveness of science in the United States. For context, I am an Associate Professor of Computer Science at Williams College. I have publications in top CS conferences/journals, including two "best-of" awards, I have done work for Microsoft and IBM, and I have participated in peer review countless times, including reviewing numerous grant proposals for the National Science Foundation. Moreover, my career would not have been possible without strong federal support for basic science. I earned my PhD at a public university, largely supported by federal grant money, and was able to attain an education and career that I would not have otherwise been able to afford. This goes for many of my own mentors, some of whom are highly-impactful computer scientists. The work that I do, and that my peers and mentors do, provides its users with tremendous advantages: because we are all based in the US, and because many of us collaborate with US corporations, those advantages largely benefit Americans themselves. Our peer-reviewed model of science works. When scientists produce duds--which is bound to happen no matter how you structure funding--the current system is self-correcting. This regulation destroys the very system that has made the American model of science the envy of the world. We should be doubling down on our advantage, not issuing heavy-handed dictates over inquiry or installing incompetent political hacks to run the show. Moreover, the language in this regulation is deeply offensive to the work done by the vast majority of scientists: we endure years of training and hard work, and we do this work for the good of humanity often for little pay, despite generous federal support, because we know that it matters. If the apparatchiks who wrote these dreadful regulations cannot recognize the amazing improvements in the quality of life that American scientists have brought to the US and the world, then they are simply not capable of running the show. I strongly oppose this regulation.