No ‘fat’ at NIST, says National Research Council representative
From: FierceGovernment
Congress should fund the National Institute of Standards and Technology at the fullest level possible, recommends the National Research Council.
Year after year, NRC has come away from its review of NIST impressed with the quality of work underway at the labs, said Ross Corotis, a member of NRC’s laboratory assessments board.
“There is not what we would call fat. There is not excess there,” said Corotis during a March 20 hearing before the House Science, Space and Technology subcommittee on technology.
If Congress does not fully-fund NIST, he would recommend the agency avoid an across-the-board cut to all programs as that approach would impact quality. Rather, NIST should prioritize what areas it wants to focus on, said Corotis.
“They should cut out some things rather than trying to continue doing all they’re doing. Because, the quality is very high but there is not excess of capabilities in there for what they’re doing,” said Corotis.
Corotis was unable to recommend a single program that should be eliminated at NIST.
“Our reports have shown that there’s just not extra there that they could cut and still continue to do the same breadth of programs,” he said, adding that NRC has never looked at a NIST lab program that it hasn’t been impressed with or found to be short of funding.
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