Following a Boulder Reporting Lab article on new policies limiting work with foreign nationals at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), two members of the House Committee on Science sent a letter to NIST Acting Director Craig Burkhardt asking him to brief committee staff on the policies by Feb. 25.
That deadline passed this week without a response from NIST.
NIST staff also did not respond to earlier questions the representatives — Reps. Zoe Lofgren of California and April McClain Delaney of Maryland — sent on Jan. 28, with a Feb. 13 deadline.
“We have received the letter and will respond through the appropriate channels,” said Rich Press, a spokesperson for NIST.
As the minority party, House Democrats do not have the power to compel testimony or issue subpoenas to NIST staff. But Science Committee Democrats say they will continue to follow up and press for answers.
Boulder’s representative, Joe Neguse, who has advocated in Congress for Boulder’s federal labs, including NOAA and NCAR, did not respond to requests from Boulder Reporting Lab for comment about the changes at NIST.
House Democrats had been seeking information from staff for about two weeks before Boulder Reporting Lab published a report corroborating many of the rumors they had been hearing. Most notably, the report found that international researchers are being limited to three years at the lab and that their contracts are being reviewed this year by Acting Director Burkhardt, in part based on a risk level assigned to their country of origin.
A week after BRL’s article was published, the representatives made their questions public in a letter to Burkhardt.
The end of March could bring the end of lab access for the first round of international researchers. March 31 is the first deadline for those researchers to have their contracts reviewed. Some international researchers were told weeks ago to begin looking for other labs, according to internal sources.