President Bush signs NSF authorization bill

Well it's done. The President signed H.R.4664 into law this afternoon under the gaze of several scientific society presidents.

The NSF was last authorized by the 105th Congress in 1998 for years FY 98, 99, and 2000. The significance of H.R.4664 is the level of funding authorized and the fact that it passed unanimously in the House and Senate.

The passing of this bill is the culmination of several years of effort by many people and organizations. Thanks to all of you for your sustained effort. Now all we have to do is convince the appropriators to appropriate the levels of funding prescribed.

"This is landmark legislation," said House Science Committee Chairman Sherwood Boehlert, who championed the bill in the House. "From our nation's students, to our economy, and to our security, the fruits of this effort will be enjoyed for many years to come."

Senator Edward Kennedy, who sponsored the bill in the Senate, said, "I am pleased the president has signed the National Science Foundation Reauthorization Act of 2002. It is the product of extensive bipartisan and bicameral negotiations. Few people realize how influential the NSF has been on their daily lives."

Rep. Nick Smith, Chair of the House Science Subcommittee on Research, who authored the bill, said "I want to commend the Bush Administration and my colleagues in Congress for their efforts in helping us pass this important legislation .... I am extremely proud of the final product that the President signed today. We successfully included all of the major provisions that were in my original House-passed bill, and we came to a reasonable bipartisan compromise on all of our differences with the Senate. These efforts will pay off in the form of continued scientific breakthroughs that will improve our lives in ways that we can only imagine today."

President George Bush, Rep. Nick Smith

"This is truly an historic piece of legislation for science policy in the United States that will have profound and lasting effect on the future prosperity of our nation. I am proud that the bill contains three specific provisions I have championed during this Congress. Most significantly, this legislation begins the process of doubling NSF's budget, which was the goal of H.R. 1472, the NSF authorization bill I introduced in April of 2001. The conference report also improves math and science education and bolsters plant genome research. I look forward to working with my colleagues on both sides of the aisle and in the other body to ensure that NSF is fully funded under these new authorization levels," said Research Subcommittee Ranking Member Eddie Bernice Johnson.

“Passage of this bill is a great achievement,” said Rep. Vernon Ehlers. “Doubling the NSF budget has been a goal that I have worked on since coming to Congress. The research results, while not clear now, will reap huge benefits in the future - just as research on lasers and nuclear magnetic resonance led to advances in construction, medicine, and defense.” Ehlers added that Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan recently noted that science and technology, toward which NSF provided major funding, led much of the United States’ economic growth over the past decade.