In the early 2000s, NASA started to reduce their contribution to the Arecibo Observatory, putting more pressure on NSF to continue to fund the facility. In 2006, NSF made its first possible suggestion of significantly reducing its funding towards Arecibo and potentially decommissioning the Observatory. Academics and politicians lobbied to increase funding bookmarked for Arecibo to stave off its closure, and NASA recommitted funding in 2011 for study of near-earth objects. However to further cut losses, in 2011 NSF delisted Arecibo as a FFRDC, removed Cornell as the site operator, and replaced them with a collaborative team led by SRI International, which allowed the Observatory to be able to offer its facilities to a wider range of projects.