Comment on FR Doc # 2026-12725 from Bill Barry
AnonymousOpposeIndividual
Summary: The commenter opposes the National Science Foundation's decision to update its Proposal & Award Policies and Procedures Guide to align with a proposed OMB Regulation. They argue that the proposed regulation is "wrong-headed," will harm US scientific competitiveness, and lacks the necessary unbiased vetting system.
The decision by the National Science Foundation to update its Proposal & Award Policies and Procedures Guide to implement the wrong-headed and highly controversial proposed OMB Regulation for Federal Financial Assistance before it has even been implemented is highly irregular and must be reversed. Any such change by NSF should take into account the overwhelmingly negative public response to OMBs proposal. Instead, it appears that NSF is attempting to bypass the checks and balances of our system of government to implement a policy that will make the OMB director happy, but eviscerate US scientific competitiveness.
As someone who has studied the Soviet Union and Russia for many years, the examples there are chilling. I wrote my doctoral dissertation on the Soviet space program and it is clear that one of the prime reasons that the USSR lost the race to the Moon was mercurial decisions by Soviet Premier Khrushchev. With no unbiased system for vetting proposals for their space program, he made numerous bad decisions that frittered away key resources. While that was good news for the US, it would be very bad news if we were to adopt the same approach.