The NSC Alliance provided testimony to the House Appropriations Committee regarding fiscal year (FY) 2020 funding for certain programs that curate natural history collections within the Department of the Interior and Smithsonian Institution.
Scientific collections, and the collections professionals and scientists who make, care for, and study these resources, are a vital component of our nation’s research infrastructure. Whether held at a museum, government managed laboratory or archive, or in a university science department, these scientific resources consist of data (for example, genetic, tissue, organism, and environmental) that are a unique and irreplaceable foundation from which scientists are studying and explaining past and present life on earth. Research results improve human health, enhance food security, and provide monitoring for responses to environmental change and species conservation.
The testimony called for new investments within the Department of the Interior and the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of Natural History.
Read NSCA’s FY 2020 Interior testimony.