64 



Mr. Schiff. Dr. Lane, I want to say a couple of things first, just 

 so there is no mistake between you and me; and I am sure there 

 would not be, but those watching us today: 



The first is, I believe the National Science Foundation is a very 

 well-run organization. I said that in my prepared remarks, and I 

 want to say it again. When you are on a committee with jurisdic- 

 tion over any agency, the dirty laundry starts to come over. You 

 know, people with some kind of complaint come in to see you to 

 say, "Well, what about this?" 



I can tell you that what I have seen — and by the way, there are 

 even complaints about how Congress is run sometimes; I know 

 none of you in the room believe that, but on occasion I have heard 

 it 



[Laughter.] 



Mr. Schiff. (continuing) the things I have heard about, and 

 some of which we have discussed. Things like how many direc- 

 torates there ought to be, and so forth. Although these are reason- 

 able questions, they do not amount to serious criticism of the agen- 

 cy, and I want you to know that. I want no mistake in any portion 

 of this hearing if I raise something to misconstrue what I feel 

 about your agency. 



Dr. Lane. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 



Mr. Schiff. The second is, I want to assure you that, speaking 

 for myself and Mr. Cramer and other members of the Subcommit- 

 tee, all of us are committed to the idea of funding basic research 

 to the absolute extent possible. 



I can assure you — I believe in both of our cases, and on behalf 

 of the other Subcommittee members — that in the budget process, 

 whether it is internal with the Congress or internal with the Ad- 

 ministration, or between the two as that comes up, that we will all 

 do our best for scientific research funding within the mutually 

 agreed goal of balancing the budget. 



However, I have to say that we cannot totally eliminate all ref- 

 erences to sides of the aisle, and Administration, and Congress, 

 and so forth because it is part of how the legislative process works. 



Way over there on your right, the Science Committee staff has 

 prepared a chart. I don't know if you have a copy of that — you do, 

 do you not? — and Congressman Cramer has a copy, but essentially 

 I don't know if the members can see it all the way on the other 

 side — they have copies also — but in essence it is the Science Com- 

 mittee's analysis of the proposals for nondefense discretionary 

 funding. 



The red line is their analysis of the President's proposals as 

 scored by the CBO, and the blue line is their analysis of presently 

 the Congress's proposal. 



Now of course proposals are "proposals." I mean, if and when we 

 reach an agreement between the Congress and the President — and 

 I hope we do — then there would presumably be a whole new set of 

 numbers there. 



But as you can see, as we analyzed the Administration's propos- 

 als, the proposal is for an increase in nondefense discretionary 

 spending for fiscal year 1997, which it just so happens we have to 

 vote on in 1996, which I think is a presidential election year — I 

 might have that wrong, but I am pretty sure I am right about 



