Foster Leads Colleagues in Demanding Answers on NSF Firings
March 5, 2025
Washington, DC – Today, Congressman Bill Foster (D-IL) and Congressman Don Beyer (D-VA) announced that they led 37 Members of Congress in expressing their concern with the recent firing of 168 workers at the National Science Foundation (NSF).
In a letter to President Trump and NSF Director Sethuraman Panchanathan, the Members wrote:
“These rash decisions, alongside the Administration’s freeze on NSF grant funds and cancellation of all grant review panels, will not only cause our country to miss out on the scientific breakthroughs that cancelled research could lead to, but we could also lose a generation of scientists who cannot complete their NSF-supported graduate and postdoctoral training. A “brain drain” from the federal government, or from the STEM fields overall, would be catastrophic [...]
“If our country fails to continue to make these advancements, we fear that China and our other research-focused adversaries will fill the gap and get ahead. This poses a threat to our national security not only because of the potential improvements in defense-related technologies, but also because more and more of the free world will become dependent on their inventions and economy, giving China the upper hand in world affairs.”
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