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June 14, 2016

House Passes NSF Facilities Legislation

(Washington, DC) - Today, the House of Representatives passed H.R. 5049 – the NSF Major Research Facility Reform Act of 2016 – (Passed by a vote of 412 to 9  under suspension of the rules). The bill establishes certain cost management procedures for NSF’s major facilities projects.

Ranking Member Eddie Bernice Johnson said, “The intent of this bill is a good one. It is to ensure proper oversight and accountability for the National Science Foundation’s investments in major research facilities.

“The National Science Foundation manages about 15 research facilities across its diverse science and engineering portfolio. In any given year, three or four new major facilities are under construction. H.R. 5049 largely addresses the design and construction phase of these facilities, which is the highest-risk phase.

“Republican and Democratic Members and staff of the Science Committee worked together over many weeks to develop and move through the Committee a bill that addresses the need for strong oversight and accountability while taking into consideration the legitimate concerns of the agency and stakeholder groups about unintended consequences…

“However, the devil is always in the details, and I hope that discussion will continue on some of the details if this legislation continues to move forward. The fact is, every other federal agency is held to government-wide standards and policies for contracting. In this bill, we are creating a different set of rules with less flexibility for the National Science Foundation, even though the Foundation’s record overall has been a very good one, and even though the Foundation has taken many aggressive steps already to rectify deficiencies where they did exist.

“As such, I hope that we tread carefully. Given that the impetus for this bill was one project that went awry because of an inexperienced project management team, the last thing we want to do is enact a law that discourages the most experienced project management professionals from doing business with NSF, thereby increasing the risk to the taxpayer.

“In closing, I want to thank Mr. Loudermilk and Chairman Smith for working with us to improve this legislation, and I hope that we can continue to work with the agency, the National Science Board, and the expert stakeholders to ensure we achieve our shared goals of both safeguarding taxpayer dollars and promoting the progress of science.”