Rep. Lamar Smith (R-TX), the Chairman of the House Science Committee on Science, Space and Technology has repeatedly denounced the National Science Foundation for squandering taxpayer money on frivolous research. Now he's gone a step further, demanding personal political scrutiny of peer-reviewed research grants.

Smith has used several hearings this year as an opportunity to publicly lambast the National Science Foundation (NSF)including a combative March 26 hearing where he lectured White House Science Advisor John Holdren on the "lack of transparency and accountability at the agency" by singling out grants such as a study of the ecological consequences of early human-set fires in New Zealand. (That research promises to yield insights into anthropogenic climate changenot a popular topic for Smith and fellow GOP representatives on the committee.)

And now, as Jeffrey Mervis at ScienceInsider reports:

Four times this past summer. two congressional staffers spent hours poring over material relating to 20 research projects that NSF has funded over the past decade. Each folder contained confidential information that included the initial application, reviewer comments on its merit, correspondence between program officers and principal investigators, and any other information that had helped NSF decide to fund the project.

The visits from the staffers, who work for the U.S. House of Representatives committee that oversees NSF, were an unprecedentedand some say bizarreintrusion into the much admired process that NSF has used for more than 60 years to award research grants.

The Republican aides were looking for anything that Representative Lamar Smith.could use to support his ongoing campaign to demonstrate how the $7 billion research agency is "wasting" taxpayer dollars on frivolous or low-priority projects, particularly in the social sciences.

There's no end in sight: The visits are expected to continue into the fall, because NSF has accededafter some resistanceto Smith's request to make available information on an additional 30 awards.

As Mervis notes, Smith's request created a serious dilemma for NSF Director France Crdova. While Congress has the authority to obtain information as part of its job to oversee federal agencies, the NSF promises researchers that the peer-review process of their proposals will remain confidential.

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The GOP Intensifies Its Attacks On The National Science Foundation