The United States government is "insane" to be funding collaborative research with China according to a senior Republican member of the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Science, Space, and Technology.
Representative Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA), a 12-term lawmaker and frequent critic of China's human rights record, last night took to the floor of the House for nearly 30 minutes to read a list of dozens of federally funded projects "that go directly to supporting development and the economy of China." Many involved grants for research involving physics, climate science, and environmental studies—but a few covered topics that included "judicial education" and green manufacturing.
"Couldn't we have spent this money better in the United States?" Rohrabacher asked.
Among his targets were a $63,000 National Science Foundation grant to Siena College in Loudonville, New York, for neutrino physics at China's Daya Bay nuclear facility, a $300,000 Department of Energy grant for modeling regional climate change in China, and a $100,000 U.S. Department of Agriculture grant for "climate change adaptation." "Now isn't that great?" Rohrabacher said in one of many ironic asides. "We're paying for them to adapt to climate change."
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