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发帖数: 10208 | 1 Senior Obama Administration leaders last week told the US Senate that the
budget cuts caused by the enactment of the sequestration, if an agreement is
not reached to avoid the plan, would cut thousands of research grants and
lead to the loss of thousands of jobs.
In her written testimony, Department of Health and Human Services Secretary
Kathleen Sebelius told the Senate Appropriations Committee that the across-
the-board budget cut of around 5.1 percent would "delay progress" on
treatments for chronic diseases and would lead to fewer new grants and
smaller budgets for some existing programs.
As it is currently constructed, the sequester would cut the entire federal
budget by around 5.1 percent, which would amount to around $1.6 billion less
for NIH.
"We expect that some existing research projects could be difficult to pursue
at reduced levels and some new research could be postponed as NIH would
make hundreds fewer awards," Sebelius, who did not attend the hearing,
stated in her prepared remarks.
"Actual funding reductions will depend on the final mix of projects chosen
to be supported by each institute and center within available resources.
With each research award supporting up to seven research positions, several
thousand research positions across the nation could be eliminated," Sebelius
continued.
National Science Foundation Director Subra Shuresh in his testimony told the
committee that his agency would see a reduction of around 1,000 research
grants, impacting nearly 12,000 people who are supported by NSF.
Shuresh said that NSF's funding for major equipment purchases and facility
construction would drop by around $35 million, "leading to layoffs of dozens
of science and technical staff, with larger impacts at supplier companies."
In his State of the Union Address last week, Obama said that the sequester
cuts would be "harsh, arbitrary," and would "devastate priorities like
education, energy, and medical research."
The president specifically pointed to genomics as an industry that has been
paying taxpayers back for their federal investments.
"Every dollar we invested to map the human genome returned $140 to our
economy — every dollar. Today, our scientists are mapping the human brain
to unlock the answers to Alzheimer’s. They’re developing drugs to
regenerate damaged organs; devising new material to make batteries 10 times
more powerful. Now is not the time to gut these job-creating investments in
science and innovation. Now is the time to reach a level of research and
development not seen since the height of the Space Race. We need to make
those investments." |
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