Institute for Accountability of Universities

National Science Foundation curtailing the $386 million Ocean Observatories Initiative after only one year - a colossal waste of taxpayer funds

The sprawling Ocean Observatories Initiative (OOI) infrastructure located in the North Pacific Ocean, north Atlantic Ocean, and Southern Pacific Ocean cost $386 million to build over a 10 year period of time and became operational in June 2016. OOI was the largest oceanic infrastructure ever built by the US government. This system included over 900 sensors with an original estimated lifetime of 25 years for the project. In addition to the construction costs, the OOI project cost $55 million to operate in FY 2016.

According to the National Science Foundation's FY 18 budget document, the global arrays will be eliminated in the next year's budget and the prime contractor is leaving the project.

Our Institute has received responses from both President Trump's administration and Senator Merkley's office about our letter outlining the potential waste of taxpayer monies to build the three new RCRV vessels.

Institute asks President-elect Trump to withdraw proposed FY 2017 funding for expensive NSF / OSU research ships

The Institute for Accountability of Universities today released a letter transmitted to President-elect Donald Trump and respective chairs of the Senate and House Appropriations Committees to request removal of the initial $106 million from the National Science Foundation’s (NSF) FY 2017 budget to build two new very expensive regional class research vessels (RCRV).

The Institute’s letter stated that the total cost of $255 million for the next three years does not meet NSF’s own standard for a capital project to be “transformative in nature, with the potential to shift the paradigm in scientific understanding.”

The Senate passed funding to build three new RCRV ships while the House of Representatives voted to strip all funding for the research vessel construction program.

“Our institute is asking President-elect Donald Trump and the chairs of the Senate and House Appropriations Committees to save the taxpayer hundreds of millions of dollars by eliminating funding for these two new expensive and wasteful research ships,” says Martin Desmond, executive director for the Institute. The letter stated: “While our Institute supports an increase in ocean science funding, the issue in this particular case is that neither NSF or OSU have performed the necessary due diligence to justify the need to build new research ships when there are much less expensive alternatives to utilize existing research ships.” Desmond added, “There is nothing in the building of these new research ships that will ‘shift the paradigm in scientific understanding.’ ”

The letter to President-elect Trump can be accessed at http://ifaou.org/Trump_RCRV_funding.pdf.

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Institute asks both House and Senate Appropriations Committees to remove RCRV FY 17 funding


July 1, 2016 - The Institute released a letter addressed jointly to the Chairmen of both the House and Senate Appropriations Committees today asking that the committees agree to eliminate FY '17 funding for the regional class research vessels (RCRV) until other less costly alternatives are considered. The letter can be accessed at http://www.ifaou.org.

The Senate Committee on Appropriations voted to fund the building of three RCRV vessels on April 21, 2016 with an initial appropriation of $159 million although NSF has only asked for $106 million funding for two research vessels. In stark constrast, the House Committee onf Appropriations voted to withdraw FY '17 funding for construction of any RCRV ships.

The Institute agrees with the statement of Chairman John Culberson of the Subcommittee on Commerce, Justice and Science who stated, "I know there are a number of underutilized research ships around the country . . So I need to see evident from NSF that they are fully utilizing the existing fleet.

OSU and NSF spent lots of money to produce two promotional video about their expensive proposal to build new research vessels.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qz1NIwz_coQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cP3-G2Q9Dy0

I didn't have to spend any money to offer up my pithy comments about this financial boondoggle.

Regional Class Research Vessels - Modern Ships for Ocean Science Extended version: Designed for people. Designed for science. Visit http://ceoas.oregonstate.edu/ships/rcrv/ The RCRV project is supported by the U.S. NSF. Pr...

Oregon State University and National Science Foundation pursue building costly new research vessels

The Institute for Accountability of Universities released the Save the Oceanus and Save the Taxpayer report (http://www.ifaou.org/savetheoceanus.pdf) that analyzed the costs of building new regional class research vessels rather than upgrading and retrofitting existing research vessels such as the R/V Oceanus.

The report estimated that each new regional class research vessel (RCRV) would cost approximately $135 million to build. Depreciation costs would total $4.7 million annually. The report estimated that each new research vessel would cost approximately $95.7 million to operate over a ten year period. The estimated daily operating rate for each new research ship would be $46,888 starting in 2020.

In contrast, the report estimated that the existing R/V Oceanus, based in Newport, Oregon, could be retrofitted at a cost of $10 million. The report projected that the costs of operating the refurbished R/V Oceanus would be $55.6 million over a ten-year period. The estimated daily operating rate for the R/V Oceanus would be $25,733 in 2020. By retrofitting the R/V Oceanus, American taxpayers would save over over $40 million in a ten year period rather than building new expensive ships.

"The National Science Foundation and Oregon State University are proceeding with a flawed plan to build new research ships at a much greater cost than what the private and non-profit sectors pay for similar research vessels," says Martin Desmond, executive director at the Institute.

Desmond said that the non-profit Schmidt Ocean Institute refurbished the 1981 German R/V Falkor for $61 million into a state of the art ship that is admired around the oceanographic world. He noted that the National Science Foundation (NSF) recently poured $200 million into building the R/V Sikuliaq which has a similar length and science