On Wednesday, May 21st, the Frontiers in Innovation, Research, Science and Technology Act of 2014 (H.R. 4186), or FIRST Act is scheduled to be voted on in the full Science Committee of the U.S. House of Representatives. The bill serves as reauthorization legislation for the National Science Foundation (NSF), which governs both continuing funding authority and operations. There are a number of problematic provisions within this bill. Of particular concern to the linguistics community is the proposal to cut NSF's Social, Behavioral and Economic (SBE) sciences directorate by nearly 42 percent. The NSF's Linguistics Program is housed within the SBE directorate.

The bill would also place a greater burden on NSF regarding its already-gold standard merit review process and require additional, potentially duplicative public disclosure of research grants. Further, the bill seeks to micromanage the grant application process and to limit the number of awards that can be made to principal investigators, undermining the merit review process that successfully determines the very best science worth taxpayer support. The bill has already been approved by the House Science, Space, and Technology Subcommittee on Research and Technology. If approved by the full Science committee, it will then be referred to the entire House for a vote later this summer, where it has support from the Republican majority.

If you share the LSA's concerns about this legislation, please write to your House members today and ask that they oppose the FIRST Act. Click here to take action now! You will be taken to the website of the Consortium of Social Science Associations (COSSA). The LSA is a founding member of COSSA, which serves as the LSA's primary advocate in advancing our policy agenda. Read more about bill.

Please share this information with any colleagues who may be interested.