Friday, 10 July 1992 Washington, DC
1. GENERAL ACCOUNTING OFFICE PROBES PEER REVIEW
"VULNERABILITY."
Questionnaires from the investigative arm
of Congress have been sent to an unknown number of NSF proposal
reviewers, asking them how well they know the authors of SPECIFIC
proposals they have reviewed. The survey, which is generating
anxiety attacks among NSF officials as well as recipients of the
questionnaires, was undertaken at the request of Senator John
Glenn (D-OH), chair of the Government Affairs Committee. It was
prompted by the case of Jon Kalb. In 1976, NSF denied Kalb funds
for anthropology field research in Africa on the advice of a peer
review panel--after the panel had been informed by an NSF Program
Director of rumors that Kalb was involved with the CIA. The
source of the rumors was apparently a Kalb competitor. Kalb's
efforts to find out what had happened were thwarted by an illegal
"dual" filing system NSF used to hide documents from Freedom of
Information requests. As a result of the Kalb case, NSF changed
a number of its rules, but the GAO study seeks to determine how
vulnerable the peer review system is to other abuses, such as
cronyism. The questions, how-ever, are loaded, e.g., "Is the
focus of your research so similar that some scholars would
believe you and the PI are competitors?" My favorite: "Has the PI
ever reviewed one of your proposals? Yes or no?" If you check
either box, you are guilty of collusion.
2. THE SSC: IT'S NOT OVER TILL IT'S OVER--NOT EVEN IN THE
HOUSE.
In discussing the House vote to kill the Supercollider, WHAT'S
NEW (WN 19 Jun 92) speculated that even
if the Senate were to fully restore the SSC, funding would be cut
in half in conference with the House, which approved zip for the
big machine. But under the rules, if the Senate bill includes
funds for a program that is not in the House bill at all, the
House must vote on how to instruct its conferees. So, by zeroing
the SSC, rather than just slashing it, the House left the door
ajar for reconsideration. But will the Senate restore it? Some
DOE officials are privately saying they have the votes right now,
but Sen. Johnston (D-LA) is not so sanguine. He is reportedly
delaying the vote as long as possible to give supporters a chance
to do their thing. But in this election year, it won't be
delayed beyond the end of July.
3. GOLDIN WARNS THAT SPACE STATION FUNDING WON'T GO TO
SCIENCE,
if the orbiting budget eater is killed. In fact,
few opponents of the station are so naive as to expect funds to
flow from the station to science; what they seek to staunch is
the flow in the other direction. Goldin's comments came at a
meeting of the House Democratic Budget Study Group on Wednesday.
Rep. Howard Wolpe (D-MI) reminded the group that inside NASA,
EOS, AXAF and Cassini are already suffering because of the
station, while NSF and EPA are suffering outside. To help
science, he said, cut the space "albatross." Quoting the figure
of $100K/yr arrived at by WHAT'S NEW for the average cost of
space station jobs, he
noted that the station is not even an efficient jobs program.
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