{"id":1472,"date":"2021-08-11T09:48:17","date_gmt":"2021-08-11T13:48:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.ams.org\/capitalcurrents\/?p=1472"},"modified":"2021-08-12T11:27:22","modified_gmt":"2021-08-12T15:27:22","slug":"math-and-congress-what-you-missed-over-the-summer-so-far-part-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.ams.org\/capitalcurrents\/2021\/08\/11\/math-and-congress-what-you-missed-over-the-summer-so-far-part-1\/","title":{"rendered":"Math and Congress: What you missed over the summer, so far\u2014Part 1"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Depending on how you define \u201csummer,\u201d you may have missed the fact that President Biden now has a mathematician serving as his top science advisor<\/a>. On May 28, Eric Lander was confirmed by the Senate as Director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. Additionally, current American Statistical Association President Robert Santos was nominated by President Biden to serve as the Director of the U.S. Census Bureau<\/a>; he awaits confirmation by the Senate.<\/p>\n

The rest of this post covers some summer news about AMS activities on the Hill, congressional appropriations, and other legislation moving through Congress. I am planning a Part 2 to this post, with education policy news and updates on the Trump era immigration policies that affect students and mathematicians.<\/p>\n

AMS activities on the Hill <\/strong><\/p>\n

Over the summer, I have made many \u201cHill visits.\u201d As of today, I have had 31 zoom meetings with congressional staff since June 1. These include meetings with not only staff but also three members of Congress\u2014Senator Jack Reed (RI), Congressmen Ed Case (HI 1) and Jerry McNerney (CA 9). Some of these meetings have been by myself, some with my counterparts from other scientific societies, and several with mathematicians<\/a> you may know! Many of these meetings were to give members of Congress examples of NSF funded mathematics projects in their district or state and use these personal stories about how federal funding helps their own constituents to persuade Congressional members to appropriate sufficient funds to the NSF next year (see next section on Congressional Appropriations).<\/p>\n

The AMS is a member of the Task Force on American Innovation<\/a> and we held a July 22 briefing for Congressional staff titled \u201cFuture Forward: Frontiers in Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning Research and Innovation.\u201d<\/a> I was really pleased that math was represented well in the discussion\u2014Clark Atlanta University’s Talitha Washington<\/a> was on our panel.<\/p>\n

Congressional Appropriations<\/strong><\/p>\n

Each year, an important part of the AMS advocacy work is in working with Congress urging them to fund the NSF (and other agencies important for mathematics) at increased and sustained levels. While the NSF is a small agency (in terms of our national investment in it), in 2018 it funded 68% of all fundamental research in mathematics done at colleges and universities. As the chart below shows, the recent years have resulted in only very moderate growth for the NSF budget. That said, our advocating has helped Congress reject past Presidents\u2019 proposed cuts to the NSF budget. For fiscal year 2022 (FY22), the President proposes a big increase for the NSF.<\/p>\n

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Government funding runs out on September 30 of each year. FY22 will begin on October 1. Congress must pass 12 funding bills to continue to fund government programs. Each year the President and each of the House and Senate put out their \u201cmarks\u201d for how much the NSF will have in the next fiscal year. After the House and Senate agree on these amounts, 12 bills (or combined into \u201cminibus\u201d or \u201comnibus\u201d bills) are sent back to the President for his (her, please, some day soon!) signature into law.<\/p>\n

The annual appropriations timeline is supposed to go like this:<\/p>\n

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In my post on June 16, I wrote about details of the President\u2019s budget proposal and what it means for mathematics<\/a>. The President has proposed \\$10.2 billion and the House \\$9.6 billion. The Senate has yet to indicate its mark for the NSF.<\/p>\n

You can continue to track NSF appropriations at the budget dashboard maintained by the American Association for the Advancement of Science<\/a>. The American Institute of Physics keeps a similar page<\/a>, which also includes STEM education funding.<\/p>\n

Legislation Watch<\/strong><\/p>\n

It has been an active period since Senators Schumer and Young introduced their Endless Frontier Act<\/em><\/a> in April, and Representatives Johnson and Lucas the NSF for the Future Act<\/em><\/a>.<\/em> Both of these are \u201cauthorizing\u201d bills<\/a> for the NSF and both have passed in their respective chamber. Authorizing laws establish, continue, or modify federal programs, and they normally precede the decision by Congress to appropriate funds to the program. The NSF is one such \u201cprogram\u201d\u2014NSF appropriations occur annually, while NSF authorizations happen less frequently.<\/p>\n

Since its introduction, the Endless Frontier Act <\/em>has grown and transformed (with 616 amendments!), and the bill that passed in the Senate on June 8, with a vote of 68-32, is now called the United States Innovation and Competitiveness Act<\/em>. The NSF for the Future Act<\/em> passed in the House on June 28, with a vote of 345-67. The differences in these House and Senate versions need to be worked out before President Biden will consider signing into law. The most significant change appearing in both authorization proposals is the move to establish a new directorate at the NSF. <\/a>The last time the NSF added a new directorate was in 1991 when the Directorate of Social, Behavioral, and Economic Sciences was launched.<\/p>\n

As the new bill name suggests, many additions (but not all of them) to the original Senate bill focus on keeping the U.S. competitive, especially with China. Some lawmakers view universities as the weak link in protecting against intellectual espionage. I am in favor of a global math community and hope to keep our international collaborations vibrant, and with few barriers. It is not just mathematics research that must be kept a global collaboration. So many of the challenges we face\u2014from public health and pandemics to food security and climate challenges\u2014are global problems that will require global solutions and international agreements to implement. Cornell\u2019s Wendy Wolford wrote a nice piece about this need for international science recently in The Hill<\/em><\/a>. I regularly get asked how mathematics\u2014as a field\u2014is affected by Chinese efforts in particular. Here are some data points that show the role China is now playing in mathematics:<\/p>\n