quality:corruption
Funding reductions

In 2002, after several years of discussion, the US Congress passed a bill to double the NSF budget, and instructed the NSF to begin new projects. As a result, the NSF began committing to major projects. However, the funding increase never arrived and the NSF was left with the new commitments. In 2005 the Astronomical Sciences division commissioned a "Senior Review" of its facilities to deal with its increasingly constrained budget. The Senior Review report released in November 2006 "regretfully" recommended substantially decreased astronomy funding for the Arecibo Observatory, beginning with a cut to US$10.5 million in 2007 and continuing to decrease to US$4.0 million in 2011. The report further stated that if other sources of funding could not be found, closure of the Observatory was recommended.