SCIENC I Rl SI \R( H AND TECHNOLOGY, 1970-79 527 



Foundation. The committee bill in 1976 totaled $811 million for \>l 

 $1 million below the budget request: 



In presenting the 1976 program to the House, Teague stated: 



The proposed * * * program strengthens basic research in all major fields of 

 science. Additionally, the program gives emphasis to areas where research results 

 are closely coupled to improvements in technology and economic productivity; it 

 continues research in the polar regions and at five major research centers sponsored 

 by the NSF; it strengthens major international cooperative research efforts in oceanog- 

 raphy and the atmospheric and Earth sciences; it provides support capabilities in 

 sc ience policy and analysis 



Svmington pointed out that the increase in NSF's 1976 budget was 

 due to the transfer of several basic research projects from other agencies 

 to NSF, as had been developing ever since the early 1970's — such as the 

 Air Force's old solar physics laboratory at Sacramento Peak, N. Mex. 

 In addition, the decision of President Ford to withdraw Navy logistics 

 support from U.S. operations in the Antarctic, and to give full respon- 

 sibility to NSF to become the "U.S. Manager in the Antarctic" in 

 order to "civilianize" that operation, served to increase the cost of 

 NSF expenditures. The committee, despite a stormy year of contro- 

 versy, voted a $9 million increase in science education. 



To bolster subcommittee staff support and to probe some of (Ion- 

 ian's charges, James Ratzenberger was detailed from the General 

 Accounting Office. He assisted in following up investigations started 

 in the GAO, indicating that misrepresentations by the NSF had 

 turned up in the peer review of the ISIS program. Fuqua confirmed the 

 fact that thorough investigation had given the ISIS grant recipient, 

 Florida State University, a clean bill of health, and he added: 



Maybe (XSF) grew too fast, and maybe it was our fault that we did not insist 

 that certain management changes be made in their internal operations, which appears 

 to have resulted in this problem in the Curriculum Development. I think that Dr. 

 Stever has certainly done a good )ob in trying to correct this, and I hope that we will 

 not have any more of these types of situations develop in the future. 



"SILLY-SOUNDING" NSF PROJECTS 



Fuqua also responded to a spate of criticisms of "silly-sounding 

 NSF projects" by pointing out how easy it was to ridicule scientific 

 experiments, such as the work of Joshua Lederberg, whose research 

 "formed part of the bedrock on which our growing understanding of 

 genetics is based"; Lederberg started out examining the sexual re- 

 combination of bacteria, which could be ridiculed as a study of "the 

 sex life of germs." Fuqua asked: 



And how about Charles Townes? He won the Nobel Prize for " molecular stim- 

 ulation by electromagnetic waves in a resonator with positive feedback." ll we 



