All Calm in Buffalo

In the Government Briefs section of the May16 issue of The Scientist (page 5), an article entitled "Finding Fault With Buffalo" made reference to "financial tremors" that are supposedly "running through" the NSF-funded National Center for Earthquake Engineering Research (NCEER) at the State University of New York, Buffalo. The piece went on to state that the center is "having trouble keeping its part of the agreement" and that "the $25 million, five-year federal grant called for an annual $5 million from the state [New York]."

Please allow me to set the record straight, as the article is far from accurate. First off, there are no financial tremors, and the center has absolutely no intention of not keeping its end of the agreement with the NSF. All NSF funding has been, and will continue to be, matched dollar for dollar. In fact, through its second year of operation, NCEER has not...