"Most people think of innovation as requiring shiny new equipment, which it often does, but it also comes with the far more mundane requirement of clean, functional buildings to house it," according to this Politico article. "Years of federal belt-tightening have starved laboratories of funding for routine maintenance, and the deterioration has reached the point that some researchers say the nation's ability to conduct cutting-edge science is being damaged.
"The problem of deferred maintenance in the nation’s innovation labs has reached a critical stage even as President Donald Trump is proposing to further trim federal research spending," the article continues. "The National Institutes of Health, National Science Foundation, Agriculture and Energy departments, EPA, and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention were targeted for billions of dollars in cuts under the White House budget, causing pushback from public health advocates and lawmakers."
Read the full article at Politico.com.