McCain, Coburn criticize stimulus spending on science

Senators Tom Coburn (R., Okla.) and John McCain (R., Ariz.) are leading the latest charge against federal spending by targeting a slew of different research programs, claiming that many of them have failed to create jobs, something the stimulus plan was supposed to focus on.

The Senators criticized The National Institute of Health, which received $10 billion in stimulus funding that has been mostly used to research diseases like cancer, heart disease and substance abuse.

While cancer research and heart disease remain virtually unchallenged by critics of the funding, substance abuse research programs have been noticeably more controversial.

The NIH has been called out by several critics for its use of stimulus funds to create studies on the effects of methamphetamines on the sexual behavior of female rats, among other substance-abuse-related programs.

The NIH argues in return that there is no other way for them to study substance abuse.

"I don't know if the critics want us to experiment with humans, or just give up on the problem of drug addiction, but we aren't going to do either," said Director Francis Collins to The Wallstreet Journal,

Coburn and McCain also took aim this month on a $1.9 million federally-funded project to study ant populations in eastern Africa.

San Fancisco's California Academy of Sciences defended their study by claiming that the ants serve a crucial role in the global ecosystem.

"Without ants, many ecosystems would literally fall apart," academy officials said in a public statement.

The senators are not the only ones trying to block various scientific programs. Many programs have faced criticism and have even lost funding as a result.

On August 23, U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth temporarily blocked funding for embryonic stem cell research.

The move came as a response to protests against last year's new guidelines issued by the NIH that permits federal funding for research on stem cell lines that have already been created.

Among the protesters was a nonprofit group named Nightlight Christian Adoptions, who claimed that permitting that type of stem cell research would reduce the number of embryos available for adoption.

Other researchers claimed that the new guidelines would create too much competition for funding that is already spread too thin.

For NASA, funding issues can mean either creating or losing thousands of jobs.

NASA received $19 billion, a budget bill that was approved in early August.

Historically, NASA has had trouble obtaining enough funding to achieve their goals, and this new budget is no exception.

However, the money will help along projects that the organization has already planned in addition to saving an estimated 8,000 jobs.

Unfortunately, NASA still lacks the funds to actually create jobs.

In order to create 2,000 more jobs, the space agency would have to pursue construction of a "heavy-lift launch vessel," a rocket large and powerful enough to facilitate human exploration beyond the orbit of the earth. Any trip to Mars or beyond the moon would require such a vehicle.

Out of $275 billion allocated for grants, contracts and loans, only $137 billion has been paid out to date. Scientific research programs would fall into this category

The website does not specify how much of that allocated stimulus money would go to scientific research programs.

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act currently carries a price tag of $787 billion and has created 749,597 jobs as of June 30, according to the government's official website, recovery.gov.

The government website does not specify how many of those jobs are in scientific research fields.