The underlined part should be frightening to anybody who follows scientific research. This is for scientifically literate people-- like NSF program officers-- to determine, not weasels in congress that don't know the first thing about science (and not the public either, for the same reason).

For example, the bill would require the NSF to ensure that one grant recipient didn't receive a grant from another federal agency for research with the "same scientific aims and scope." The idea was to prevent double dipping. But advocates warn that it could dry up funds for research with multiple components.

The thought process here is misguided to begin with, but the larger question is who determines whether a grant has the "same scientific aims and scope" and how? Proposals to federal agencies already require disclosures of other funding. This is already happening-- the GOP in congress just wants to exert more control over it? They are the last people that should have control over it.

Another part of the bill stipulates that if an investigator receives more than five years of funding from the NSF, he or she can only get additional funding by contributing "original creative, and transformative research under the grant." Ensuring that the government doesn't plow resources into stalled projects may be laudable. But scientists shudder at the idea that they, let alone politicians, can definitively tell whether research will pay dividends after half a decade.

This is absurd, especially in basic science, and again-- who determines what is "original creative, and transformative research"? Do they not think that the NSF is already doing this? Again, this is the GOP trying to exert control where they absolutely should not have it.

"What is broken is NSF's refusal to provide Congress and American taxpayers with basic information about how NSF-funded grants are in the national interest," Smith said in a statement to The Huffington Post. "President Harry Truman vetoed the first NSF-enabling legislation because he concluded it didn't protect taxpayers' right to know about how the agency would spend their money. It's unfortunate that the President's Science Advisor would rather provide NSF with a blank check than set basic standards of transparency. The NSF's cornerstone remains solid, but its boarded up windows are what need repair."

There is plenty of transparency in NSF-funded projects. Amounts, investigators, abstracts of the work to be done etc.-- all of that info is on their damn website already. Example search. Example project-- note "broader impacts," a significant component of every NSF proposal.

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though that model has worked well up to this point.  What bothers me most about this is that scientific research is .0001% of the budget . . . the pubs spend a lot of time pissing about on things that make very little difference fiscally.

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"We're borrowing 10% of GDP each year to get 1-2% growth. That isn't"
an improving economy. We're simply mortgaging the future.