What does The Great Immensity, a play about Climate change have to do with the NSF and it stated mission? Not much apparently.

Guest essay by Dennis Kuzara

What does The Great Immensity, a play about Climate change have to do with the NSF and it stated mission? Not much apparently, and the self described “most transparent administration in history” isn’t as transparent as they would have you believe.

NSF AT A GLANCE The National Science Foundation (NSF) is an independent federal agency created by Congress in 1950 “to promote the progress of science; to advance the national health, prosperity, and welfare; to secure the national defense…” With an annual budget of $7.2 billion (FY 2014), we are the funding source for approximately 24 percent of all federally supported basic research conducted by America’s colleges and universities. —We fulfill our mission chiefly by issuing limited-term grants — to fund specific research proposals that have been judged the most promising by a rigorous and objective merit-review system.”

The connection between the play and the NSF will eventually become clear, but to set the stage, let me present the back and forth emails between the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology and the NSF over the course of 17 months – 524 days. This snapshot of correspondence was released to the public by the Democratic minority on the committee, so one can assume it would be seen as detrimental to the Republicans and favorable to the NSF. To make things more difficult, all the documents are scanned images – no searching or copying here.

I have paraphrased all of the correspondence, reducing what was being said to a manageable size as well as changing the politically correct jargon into plainspeak, thus making for more enjoyable reading. If instead, you prefer being bored, read the actual documents in the links at the end. The Dialogue runs from day 1 to day 524 with each day noted in the header, and the number in ( ) being the interval between letters. Also note that there are huge time gaps between some of the letters.

Cast of characters (in order of appearance):

Lamar S. Smith, Chairman, Committee on Science, Space and Technology

Dr. Cora B. Marrett, Acting Director National Science Foundation

Eddie Bernice Johnson, Ranking Member, Committee on Science, Space and Technology

Dr. Dan E. Arvisu, Chairman, National Science Board

Larry Bucshon, Chairman, Subcommittee on Research and Technology

Dr. France Cordova, Director National Science Foundation

Fox News

The Civilians

Thegreatimmensity.org

Day 1

April 25, 2013

From: Lamar Smith

To: Dr Cora Marrett

In reviewing the President’s budget for FY 2014, I have concerns regarding some grants approved by the NSF and how closely they adhere to the” intellectual Merit” guideline, so I would like to understand how the NSF makes decisions to approve and fund grants. Please provide me with access to the scientific/technical reviews and the Program Officer’s Review Analysis for the following 5 grants within 2 weeks:

1. Picturing Animals in National Geographic ($227,437)

2. Comparative Histories of Scientific Conservation ($195,761)

3. The International Criminal Court and the Pursuit of Justice ($260,001)

4. Comparative network Analysis: Mapping Global Social Interactions ($435,000)

5. Regulating Accountability and transparency in China’s Dairy Industry ($152,464)

Day 2 (1)

April 26, 2013

From: Eddie Johnson

To: Lamar Smith

I think the peer review process is the gold standard and I am appalled that you would have the audacity to question it. By making this request you are sending a chilling message to the entire scientific community. You are not a scientist and therefore you have no right to question whatever it is they do or how they do it. i realize that the taxpayers are footing the bill to the tune of $7.6 billion, but you shouldn’t intrude politically into how they spend the taxpayer’s money. I demand you withdraw your letter to Dr. Marrett.

Day 13 (11)

May 7, 2013

From Dr. Dan Arvisu

To: Dr Cora Marrett

Thanks for sharing Chairman Smith’s letter which requested that information be sent to him 2 days from now. Could you stall him for 3 days until the board has a chance to discuss this important topic?

Day 15 (2)

May 9, 2013

From Dr. Cora Marrett

To: Lamar Smith

The NSB has asked to review this request, so we will get back to you by May 16th.

Day 21 (6)

May 15, 2013

From Dr. Cora Marrett

To: Lamar Smith

The NSF policies on merit review dictate that decisions to recommend funding for each award are outsourced to several experts on the subject matter and sometimes by internal experts. Once that is done a Program Officer generates their summary and analysis of the proposal with recommendations. At this point it is kicked upstairs to the division Directors for final determination. But here is the kicker: we can’t tell you who the reviewers are because it is all secret and if we were let you see it there will be irreparable harm done to our reviewer community and to the merit review process. Surely there must be some other way to do this, For example, I will gladly sit down with you and tell you how robust our review process is. In closing, the NSF has the world’s most successful merit-based model for funding research and expanding the frontiers of knowledge.

Day 29 (8)

May 23, 2013

From Dr. Cora Marrett

To: Lamar Smith

Thanks for taking my call yesterday and we can talk more when I get back from Europe.

Day 162 (133)

October 3, 2013

From Dr Cora Marrett

To: Lamar Smith

To: Eddie Johnson

Thanks for you and Larry Bucshon taking the time to meet with me and Dr. Arvizu so that we could share our plan for enhancing transparency and accountability at NSF, which we are now implementing. We are confident that this plan will “ensure that our research investments represent wise stewardship of the public trust”.

Day 167 (5)

October 8, 2013

From: Lamar Smith

To: Dr. Cora Marrett

Thanks for the follow up letter. your plan for enhancing transparency and accountability at NSF is a good first step, but we want to see what it is, since we wish to implement it with authorizing legislation. Lets keep in touch.

Day 282 (115)

February 4, 2014

From: Lamar Smith

To: Dr. Dan Arvisu

Since the NSB is meeting at the end of the month, I though it would be useful to review last November and my growing concerns about the slow pace and backsliding by the NSB. The plan submitted at the September meeting claimed that the NSF Program Officers and their supervisors would be responsible for explaining, in writing, how each approved grant was intellectually and scientifically meritorious and how each would further the national interest. So far this is not happening. At the January meeting my staff heard two things: (1) The NSF staff will deliberate slowly – maybe getting something out in 6 months, and (2) the NSF is opposed to any increase in transparency and accountability. This isn’t what we discussed last September. We need to get back on track.

Day 319 (37)

March 9, 2014

To: Lamar Smith

From: Dr. Dan Arvisu

Thanks for the letter of Feb 4th. We strongly agree with you that Blah, Blah Blah and we are doing all kinds of wonderful things here at the NSF. We appreciate your interest and support for the NSF mission.

Day 337 (18)

March 27, 2014

From Dr. Cora Marrett

To: Lamar Smith

I heard that your committee’s opening statement earlier this week claimed that “NSF refused to provide a response” to the request you made last year. I was surprised to hear this because I told you it was secret, plus, since you did not bring it again, I though we were off the hook. If you really want this information maybe we can mutually agree on some way to retain reviewer confidentiality. We can resolve this issue and I can continue to show you just what a great organization the NSF is.

Dr. France Cordova, was sworn in as director of the National Science Foundation on March 31, 2014.

Day 341 (4)

April 7, 2014

To: Dr. France Cordova

From: Lamar Smith

Congress’ authority to obtain information from federal agencies is broad. (Cites chapter and verse.) I am requesting paper copies of the following public records or documents of any kind that pertain to the NSF’s consideration and approval (i.e. pretty much everything) of the following 20 grants:

3/4/2013 The Great Immensity ($697,177)

8/25/2010 Picturing Animals in National Geographic ($227,437)

11/22/14 culture, change and Chronic Stress in Lowland Bolivia ($19,684)

8/16/2009 Investigating Social Transformation in Late Bronze Age Cyprus. (($107.570)

10/1/2010 Does Community-Based Rangeland Ecosystem Management Increase the Resilience of Coupled Systems to Climate Change in Mongolia? ($1,499,718)

3/15/2011 The reciprocal Dynamics of Family Transformation Through International Marriage Migration ($147,460)

6/21/2011 The Prehistory of Chiapas Mexico ($276,586)

9/21/2012 Ecological Consequences of Human-Set Fires in New Zealand ($339,958)

7/10/2013 Analysis of Disturbance Interactions and Ecosystem resilience in the Northern Forests of New England ($235,494)

8/13/2013 Transnational Adoptees and Migrants: from Peru to Spain ($246,454)

7/21/2009 Human Control of Bicycle dynamics with Experimental Validation and Implications for Bike Handling and Design ($300,000)

8/7/2007 The Veil-Fashion Industry: Transnational Geographies of Islamism, Capitalism, and Identity ($199,088)

7/28/2006 After the JD iii: The Trajectories of Legal Careers ($735,228)

9/26/2010 Metallurgical Practice, Technology and Social Organization during the Middle to Late Bronze Age in the Southern Urals, Russia ($134,354)

5/30/2012 Rags to Riches: An Archaeological Study of Textiles and Gender in Iceland ($487,049)

8/21/2013 Weaving Islands of Cloth: Gender, Textiles and trade Across the North Atlantic from the Viking Age to the Early Modern Period ($217,957)

11/16/2011 The Study of Social Impacts of Tourism in Finnmark, Norway ($275,135)

4/23/2008 Automated Support for Novice Authoring of Interactive Drama ($516,000)

9/16/2005 Constructal Theory of Social Dynamics ($79,988)

5/6/2010 Izapa Regional Settlement Project ($280,588)

Please get this information to me as soon as possible.

Day 371 (30)

May 1, 2014

To: Lamar Smith

From: Dr. France Cordova

We will provide two of the requests, redacted or course, which took 26 hours to compile and edit. Based on that, it will take 18 weeks for the other 18 grants. Before we go any further, see if these two meet your needs. We cannot send you these important documents, but we could let your staff come here and look at them, since we really do not trust you.

In regards to transparency and accountability, we just implemented the recommendations that the working group started on last December. I have appointed Dr Arzberger, co-leader of the Transparency and Accountability Working Group as the permanent leader for this activity.

Day 377 (6)

May 6, 2014

To: Dr. France Cordova

From: Lamar Smith

Thanks for your effort, but it isn’t sufficient. I basically asked for everything related to the grant awards and decisions by the Supreme Court say you must comply. You allude to “pre-decisional” information that you are withholding from us, ostensibly because you do not trust that we will keep it confidential. The Federal Courts have held that releasing information to us is not considered disclosure to the general public and the Courts have said that they presume the committees of Congress will exercise their powers responsibly. I want immediate confirmation that you will fully comply with our request.

Day 390 (13)

May 19, 2014

To: Lamar Smith

From: Dr. France Cordova

We are dedicated to Blah Blah Blah. You have asked for documents that reflect internal pre-decisional and deliberative communications including personally identifiable information, including reviewer’s names. i take back what i said about not trusting you, but nonetheless it will harm the very foundation of merit review and chill the candid advice offered by the reviewers. For over a year and prior to my appointment, we have offered to negotiate this issue. As Dr. Marrett said in April 2013 “”hope there is some other way to to help the committee understand how NSF makes decisions … short of the approach outlined in your letter.” Since we had ongoing conversations, we figured you did not want the information on the original 5 grants. However in our first meeting as the new Director of the NSF, you doubled down and now want information on 20 grants. Oddly, despite our stonewalling, you still really want this information. Sorry, but we can’t do that because we have confidentiality agreements with the reviewers. Perhaps we can find some other mutually beneficial way to accomplish this.

Day 401 (11)

May 30, 2014

To: Dr. France Cordova

From: Lamar Smith

This is a follow up on recent discussions between our staffs, which seem to be productive. You will provide all the information we need, but you can redact the reviewer’s personal information. We will go to your office next week for a preliminary review of the information.

Day 404 (3)

June 2, 2014

To: Lamar Smith

From: Dr. France Cordova

We will make the material you requested available to your staff. I hope this will stand as a strong basis for reinstating the robust, productive relationship we once had.

Day 428 (24)

June 26, 2014

To: Lamar Smith

From: Dr. France Cordova

I appreciate you accommodating our redaction of sensitive peer reviewer material and since I haven’t heard from you lately, I presume that this is the end of this matter.

Day 428

June 26, 2014

To: Dr. France Cordova

From: Lamar Smith

Please send me the material I requested on April 7, 2014. you have had ample time to compile this information. You will recall I agreed for you to remove external reviewer’s identities and I agreed to a preliminary review of the material to exclude superfluous items. On June 5th we spent about 15 minutes per file and my staff indicated which form letters were not necessary. A confirming email from your staff said we would be sent all the materials covered by my April 7th request within 2 weeks.

Day 443 (15)

July 11, 2014

To: Lamar Smith

From: Dr. France Cordova

I have decided that we will not send the documents you requested as our grant proposals contain highly sensitive and sometimes personal information and as such, letting you have it might have a detrimental effect on their lives and careers. Not only that, but the reviewers themselves are up in arms about the possibility of congress being able to see what they said. (Not sure how the reviewers found out about congress wanting this information, though.) If you did not have enough time during the preliminary review, by all means come back over here and take whatever time you need to look at the documents. You know, we share your intense commitment “to ensuring the precious American tax dollars are managed with care.”

Day 460 (17)

July 28, 2014

To: Dr. France Cordova

From: Lamar Smith

I regret you do not acknowledge the committee’s authority to receive information from the NSF. NSF spends over $7 billion a year and unimpeded access to NSF information is critical to our oversight function, but this is impossible if an agency like you unilaterally determines to limit access to information and permits review of official documents only at its offices. This is legally unsupportable and you should reconsider your decision. In any case, we are pressing forward.

In the brief time staff had to review the grant proposals, a few initial impressions were made:

1. the amount and detail of the project jackets varied widely. A few of them contained fairly detailed information, while others had almost no information on the peer review that resulted in funding the grant proposal

2. The reviewers comments varied significantly, from detailed and substantive to no insight whatsoever into the scientific merit of the proposals. There were no minutes or notes from the NSF staff.

3. In one case, the applicant was notified that their low competitive standing would not allow funding of the proposal, however the project was funded anyway and yet there was no additional information as to how or why this happened.

Committee staff will be contacting your staff and we will need (A) grant applications that competed with the 20 requested (B) the written evaluations of these competing grants and (C) competitive rankings of all these grant applications.

Day 462 (2)

July 30, 2014

To: Lamar Smith

From: Dr. France Cordova

OK, but that would be 2400 proposals and 12,000 reviewer evaluations totaling 100,000 pages. Let me know what you want to do.

Day 490 (28)

August 27, 2014

To: Dr. France Cordova

From: Lamar Smith

[The first several pages were a rehash everything that happened over the previous 16 months, plus a page of legal precedents.]

You have continued to disobey the law and continue to withhold the requested materials. What you are doing is in keeping with the Obama Administration’s aggressive withholding of information from Congress, the media and taxpayers. You and the Administration “have decided that scientific research is political, that information about the Administration’s politicized science policies are to be kept secret at all costs, and that the NSF and NSB are not bound by the constitution to be accountable to congress or taxpayers.

My staff has noted numerous inconsistencies in the files and have been informed it is not available or will need to be researched, all while by appointment, under supervision and with NSF redactions.

Due to your stalling and intransigence, we are only 5% complete so far. We have the law on our side and we intend to use it, so I urge you to reconsider your decision to withhold these documents from us.

Day 503 (13)

September 9, 2014

To: Lamar Smith

From: Dr. France Cordova

I have repeatedly told you we recognize your authority and we have given you lots of documents – just not the ones you want. Contrary to what you stated, we have bent over backwards by letting your staff come here and look at the records and have not hidden anything, except of course the reviewer’s personal information. As far as transparency goes, we implemented a new process that makes sure the titles and abstracts more clearly convey the potential societal impact to the public. Your staff can still come over anytime to look at our records.

Day 505 (2)

September 11, 2014

To: Dr. France Cordova

From: Lamar Smith

I am requesting paper copies of everything related to the approval of 30 grants. [List provided: 1 from the first grant request list, 5 from the second grant request list and 24 new ones.] Please make these available by September 22, 2014.

Day 509 (4)

September 15, 2014

To: Lamar Smith

From: Dr. France Cordova

I will have the first files for your review at our place by September 22.

Day 514

September 20, 2014

FoxNews.com

“The Great Immensity,”

The curtain has come down on Climate Change: The Musical and reviews of the taxpayer-funded play about global warming are downright icy.

The play, which is actually entitled “The Great Immensity,” and was produced by Brooklyn-based theater company The Civilians, Inc. with a $700,000 grant from the National Science Foundation, ended its run early amid a storm of criticism from reviewers and lawmakers alike. It opened a year late, reached just five percent of its anticipated audience and likely fell short of its ambitious goal of informing a new generation about the perceived dangers of man-caused climate change.

Plus, it apparently wasn’t very good.

Rep. Lamar Smith, R-Texas, chairman of the House Science, Space, and Technology Committee, said the dramatic debacle was a waste of public money.

“There is no doubt that the Great Immensity was a great mistake,” Smith told FoxNews.com. “The NSF used taxpayer dollars to underwrite political advocacy dressed up as a musical. And the project clearly failed to achieve any of its objectives.”

In a statement to FoxNews.com, the NSF said it is too soon to tell if the grant funds were wasted.

“This particular project just concluded in August and the final report has not yet been submitted to NSF,” the statement said. “Final reports are due to NSF within 90 days following expiration of the grant. The final report will contain information about project outcomes, impacts and other data.”

But Smith and others in Congress said the foundation owes an explanation to lawmakers – and taxpayers.

“The NSF has offered no comment, neither a defense of the project nor an acknowledgement that funding was a waste of money,” Smith said. “The NSF must be held accountable for how they choose to spend taxpayer dollars.”

Day 524 (15)

September 30, 2014

To: Lamar Smith

From: Eddie Bernice Johnson

Why have you been hounding the NSF for the last 18 months? I think it is because you are on a witch hunt. Like I said before, you are no expert and just because you think some of the titles are strange or weird gives you no right to question their value. Just because Diane Feinstein created the banned “assault weapons” list from pictures of how evil they looked (they eventually dropped the BB gun once that was pointed out) it is not a precedent for you to adopt the same selection criteria based on how weird the titles are. (Editor’s Note: MS Johnson did not actually say that last part about the gun ban, but it seemed apropos.)

When my staff reviewed the 20 files, we did not see anything wrong, so what is your point? The NSF kept saying they did not trust you and guess what, they were right. The worst possible outcome of your witch hunt has happened: somebody leaked very secret and proprietary NSF grant information to Fox News. How else would they have found out that the ” Great Immensity” opened a year late, closed early – after a 4 week run, only reached 5% of its target audience, or wasted $700,000 of taxpayer’s money?

Since it wasn’t Me or the Democratic staff – and most certainly not the NSF – that leaked this highly classified information, by default it had to be you or your staff. Do you realize what a chilling effect this will have on future grants? Besides the fact that the Civilians Theater Group is about as non political as they come, how could you allow politics to intrude into a non political musical about climate change and how we are all going to die if we don’t all wake up?

————————————————————————–

Is it any wonder why congress seems to take so much time to accomplish so little?

To continue, about The Great Immensity:

About The Civilians: it “is a company that creates new theater from creative investigations into the most vital questions of the present.” The company’s recent work, The Great Immensity received its world premiere production at Kansas City Rep in February 2012 and its New York premiere at the Public Theatre in April 2014. http://thegreatimmensity.org/

Thegreatimmensity.org website was last updated a year ago. From their home page: COMING TOGETHER TO COMBAT CLIMATE CHANGE – With the climate crisis worsening every day, people everywhere are stepping up to take action.

And here are their links:

Climate Central

350.org

Sierra Club

Climate Reality Project

Green Peace

Climate Action Programme

Natural Resources Defense Council

Citizens Climate Lobby

Campaign Against Climate Change

Environmental Defense Fund

Earth Justice

Judging from their links, (they left out Watts Up With That for some reason), it is obvious that they are completely nonpolitical. I can’t imagine why they haven’t updated their webpage in over a year and for the last 10 months all news about The Great Immensity has gone dark. There isn’t even a video for this play available on YouTube. (The Civilians have 6 private videos under the heading of The Great Immensity, so it might exist.)

I wanted to get a copy of the final report from the NSF on the grant that funded the play, so I sent an email to them and got back this reply:

We cannot provide copies of reports; however, this information is available through the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA)

So, I asked for the final report via the FOIA from the NSF. it only took 5 weeks but I did get a scanned copy of the final report, so I am again stuck with images. No searching or cut and paste available. Apparently it must be policy to use scanned documents to make it as hard as possible to use. First they had to print it as evidenced to the file location (https://www.ejacket.nsf.gov/ej/showprojectreportprint.do?reportID=10200709), then scan the 14 pages and then email it to me. It would have been easier to just send me the PDF file.

Within the report were (obviously) nonworking links to files, so I requested a PDF with working links, but instead was sent links to just three PDF files that expire in 30 days. The person I dealt with at the NSF was very courteous, helpful and accommodating, which I do appreciate.

There isn’t anything noteworthy in the final report, except that one gets the impression that the entire exercise was a resounding success and as it states: “We hope to continue touring The Great immensity in the years to come and are currently speaking with potential university and theater partners ..”

If their dream was to be a world tour in the lead-up to COP21 – its not going to happen. This is surely the last we will ever see of The Great Immensity and the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology will probably never find out if the taxpayer’s 697,177 dollars were spent wisely or not.

Links:

http://tinyurl.com/psuxmnu

http://tinyurl.com/qjg4sxy

http://www.nsf.gov/about/

http://thegreatimmensity.org/

http://www.thecivilians.org/

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