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NSF Accused of Misuse of Funds In Giant Ecological Project
An anonymous reader writes: The National Science Foundation (NSF) and a contractor have been accused by both an audit and by Congress of a significant misuse of funds in a major ecological monitoring project costing almost a half a billion dollars. From the article: "With a construction budget of $433.7 million, NEON is planned to consist of 106 sites across the United States. Arrays of sensors at each site will monitor climate change and human impacts for 30 years, building an unprecedented continental-scale data set. Although some initially doubted its merits, the allure of big-data ecology eventually won over most scientists.
But a 2011 audit of the project's proposed construction budget stalled three times when, according to the independent Defense Contract Audit Agency, NEON's accounting proved so poor that the review could not be completed. Eventually, DCAA issued an adverse ruling, concluding that nearly 36% of NEON's budget proposal was questionable or undocumented.
When the NSF green-lit the project, the agency's inspector-general ordered the audit released on 24 November, which found unallowable expenses including a $25,000 winter holiday party, $11,000 to provide coffee for employees, $3,000 for board-of-directors dinners that included alcohol, $3,000 for t-shirts and other clothes, $83,000 for "business development" and $112,000 for lobbying."
But a 2011 audit of the project's proposed construction budget stalled three times when, according to the independent Defense Contract Audit Agency, NEON's accounting proved so poor that the review could not be completed. Eventually, DCAA issued an adverse ruling, concluding that nearly 36% of NEON's budget proposal was questionable or undocumented.
When the NSF green-lit the project, the agency's inspector-general ordered the audit released on 24 November, which found unallowable expenses including a $25,000 winter holiday party, $11,000 to provide coffee for employees, $3,000 for board-of-directors dinners that included alcohol, $3,000 for t-shirts and other clothes, $83,000 for "business development" and $112,000 for lobbying."
In a project worth half a billion, all the cited "unallowable" expenses are utterly and completely meaningless. Somebody has lost all perspective and all reason and is playing politics here.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
This is just the usual Republican FUD trying to kill something that might give us some actual numbers about climate change.
Among the bombshells:
- $11,000 for coffee for a $433 Million project... OMG!
- $3,000 for t-shirts... oh, the corruption! what is the world coming to???
Really... is this the best they can come up with???
After the hearing, DCAA director Bales said she was not impressed by the scale of the alleged misconduct. “In the contract world, we do a lot of reports that disallow this kind of thing. So, you know, people do it,” she said. “But then we identify it.”
Also significant was that the project managers were not invited to the hearing, thus insuring that this would be a true kangaroo court.
I don't read your sig. Why are you reading mine?
There is more at play here than just people afraid of actual scientific data ever being generated in regards to climate change. Remember that most of the GOP is strongly anti-science in virtually every aspect - and even more so when it is science funded by the federal government. The GOP will be spending untold millions the next couple years to try to uncover loose change like this to try to slow down science as much as possible. This first hearing alone likely cost the taxpayer more than the total sum of the wasteful spending.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
These are normal things a company would spend it's own money on. They shouldn't be charging it back to the government.
That said, I have to question why the /. editors think this is newsworthy. I suppose they want to keep stirring the Republican anti-science pot to generate page hits.
So, a Texas Republican who is a climate change and evolution skeptic that's been put in charge of the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology, has a problem with an ecological project by the NSF. I'm shocked.
You might want to look at this Science article for a little clarification.
http://news.sciencemag.org/pol...
Meanwhile, the defense budget...
You are welcome on my lawn.
Sensors can monitor only weather. They can monitor neither climate nor change. Both must be calculated from series of data points.
That's sort of like saying you can't measure the area of a room using a tape measure,. After all, you have to perform a calculation based on the measurements you collect; the tape measure doesn't have an "area" reading. By one sufficiently pedantic, narrow, arrogant, obnoxious measure, you could argue that you were correct--and you probably would get punched by a lot of tradespeople who recognized you were just being an insufferable prick instead of making a useful contribution.
The sensors - or the tape measure - are necessary tools for the process, even though they don't directly output the final processed result.
~Idarubicin