D | The Scientist Magazine®

21st-Century R&D In March, the president released a fiscal year 1997 budget that in many ways presages the upcoming elections. At a time when most other domestic discretionary budgets face steep cuts, science and technology funding would increase-for the fourth consecutive year under President Clinton. The reasons why he asked again for increases in basic research, in key technology programs, and in science and technology linked with education, environment, and health speak eloquently about this administration's commitment to investing for a 21st-century America. The president believes that research is critical to our future. With this budget, he is saying again that he will not back down in the face of myopic congressional proposals to slash R&D. This administration will continue to advocate science and technology funding as long as Bill Clinton is president. Over the past year, we have arrived at a bipartisan commitment to balancing the federal budget. Where we differ is in how we achieve that balance, and how to protect investments that grow our economy and strengthen our national security even as we balance the budget. President Clinton would balance the budget the right way, by eliminating wasteful spending, streamlining programs, and ending unneeded subsidies; reforming health care and welfare; and investing in the programs that will carry us into the 21st century-science and technology foremost among them. The Republican majority in Congress would balance the budget the wrong way. To reach balance while simultaneously providing a huge tax break for the wealthy and boosting weapons spending even the Pentagon doesn't want, they would slash Medicare, Medicaid, and research and technology, among other key programs. This is at best an unwise-and unnecessary-mistake the Congress is poised to make. President Clinton has shown that we can both balance the budget in a timely fashion and protect key investments in research and learning, particularly university research and education. Cutting these investments as the Republicans propose not only runs counter to our national history, but also undermines the very purpose of balancing the budget in the first place: securing the nation's economic and national security. President Clinton understands that the underlying reason for balancing the budget is to permit expanded investment and to treat our children's future as though it matters. It makes no sense to hurt severely these very investments-research and education-while paying off the jumbo mortgage of the 1980s. It again places short-term tactics ahead of thoughtful strategic actions, and gravely threatens our role as world leader in science, technology, and education. That is why he has opposed cuts in science and technology at every step along the way. He does not believe that cutting science and technology as we head into the 21st century is in the best interests of our nation-he has personally kept science and technology on the table as one of the critical issues in this year's budget negotiations with Congress, along with education, health, and the environment. There is yet another imminent, less visible but-in the long run-potentially more damaging threat than any single package of R&D cuts. I'm referring here to a new philosophy that is guiding the Congress, a philosophy that says scientific knowledge is harmful and that what we don't know can't hurt us. This is, after all, the Congress that eliminated its only bipartisan resource for science and technology advice, the Office of Technology Assessment. It's a Congress bent on wiping out or crippling key programs that tell us about resources and our environment, including the National Biological Service and the United States Global Change Research Program. And it's a Congress that called the science of ozone depletion "liberal claptrap," and held a hearing to debunk the scientific basis of ozone depletion-just two days before the Nobel Prize was announced honoring the scientists who conducted the main research in this field. It is an attitude in Congress that I would describe as anti-knowledge-and you know as well as I that knowledge is the currency of the emerging information age. James Madison's admonition that "if we mean to be our own governors we must access the power that knowledge gives" holds ever more true for a society deeply immersed in a global knowledge economy. This anti-knowledge sentiment could do more to threaten the nation's scientific and educational enterprise than any single spending bill. vice president Al Gore characterizes it well. He says the Republican Congress talks like the Jetsons, but enacts policies for the Flintstones. In the foreseeable future, we cannot expect the kinds of increases in science and technology funding that were the norm during the halcyon days of expanding budgets and growing deficits. It's easy to make sure everybody at the table gets fed if the size of the pie keeps increasing. Now, however, as the Clinton administration enters its fourth year of cutting budget deficits, the pie continues to shrink. We'll eat better than most, but even in the sciences, not everyone can leave the table fully fed. What the president wants to ensure is that we have the strength to carry us into the next century. He has protected our core science and technology programs, and has asked the members of his administration to make certain that key programs retain steady funding or grow at the rate of inflation. After four years of hard work in setting priorities for science and technology spending, the proof of our work is in the pudding. For example, the FY 1997 budget increases total federal science and technology funding by more than $1 billion over 1996, to roughly $73 billion. This budget boosts funding for basic research. The budget proposes $14 billion for basic research, an increase of $278 million (2 percent) over the 1996 level. This includes, for example, a 4 percent increase for the National Science Foundation on the civilian side, and provisions for maintaining defense basic research. The president's budget also invests in technologies to create new jobs and new industries. We've boosted investments in critical technology initiatives like the Advanced Technology Program at the Department of Commerce, which gets a 15 percent increase over last year's figure, as well as in the Commerce Department's Manufacturing Extension Program, which-in partnership with state governments-helps small businesses take advantage of new technologies to make them more profitable and more competitive against their global competitors. The FY 1997 proposal strengthens university-based research that is key to America's future; it provides new knowledge and new technology, while at the same time training the next generation of scientists and engineers. We are proposing to increase university-based research to $13 billion in FY 1997. We also invest in 21st-century education. Information technology has revolutionized America's businesses but has largely bypassed its classrooms. In too many areas of the nation, we are entering the 21st century with educational technologies designed for the schoolrooms of the 1800s. The administration's support for educational technology research goes up by 9 percent. The president's FY 1997 budget provides increased support for health and safety research. The budget for the National Institutes of Health contains a 4 percent increase, primarily going to investigator-initiated, peer-reviewed research grants. The budget also includes increases for research on HIV/AIDS-related illnesses, breast cancer and other women's health issues, minority health initiatives, gene therapy, and advanced communications technology to improve health-care delivery. The FY 1997 budget funds a new NIH clinical research center, a state-of-the-art research facility that will help bring new medical technologies from the laboratory bench to the patient's bedside. Human safety also is the hallmark of programs at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to modernize outmoded weather service and satellite systems, saving lives by providing earlier and better warnings of severe weather and natural disasters. New transportation technologies supported by the president's FY 1997 budget to increase safety and effectiveness could save countless lives each year with safer cars, better airplane navigation, and improved train safety, among others. For FY 1997, the president proposes increased funding for environmental research. Science and technology investments are critical for enhancing environmental quality, and this budget funds vital research needed to provide clean air, pure water, and safe food. The FY 1997 budget allocates $5.4 billion (a 5 percent increase over the FY 1996 level) for a broad environmental research agenda, including $1.9 billion for understanding and predicting global climate change and its consequences for human health, food production, and ecological systems. This budget supports research into new environmental technologies to provide better environmental protection at lower cost, while generating jobs and exports. The FY 1997 budget continues the president's strong support for the space program. The budget includes level funding for the international space station at $2.1 billion; a continuing commitment to Mission to Planet Earth at $1.4 billion; a $549 million investment in smaller, faster, more capable spacecraft for space science; and funding for a reusable launch vehicle program at $266 million. The president's budget supports research and technology needed to maintain our national security. The budget continues investments in defense research that ensure our future military capabilities, including $250 million for a dual-use applications program that meshes military needs with commercial-sector innovation and economies of production. However, in a post-Cold-War world, fully protecting our national security requires more than simply maintaining military superiority. For example, the FY 1997 budget allocates $327 million to help the former Soviet Union dismantle and destroy Cold-War-era nuclear and chemical weapons, and to secure fissile materials that could be used to develop bombs and terrorist devices. Moreover, the budget provides an increase of 5 percent (to $1.6 billion) for the Department of Energy's programs to better understand the science and technology of nuclear weapons construction and use. The Science-Based Stockpile Stewardship Program underpins this administration's commitment to negotiate and sign a comprehensive test ban treaty this year by helping us maintain a safe and reliable nuclear deterrent without resorting to nuclear testing or building new nuclear weapons. These new ways of assessing national security will mean a better chance for peace and security for ourselves, our children, and our grandchildren. These are the president's priorities for FY 1997-they leverage our federal spending with cost-shared partnerships among industry, government, and academia; they engage our colleagues abroad in effective international science programs; and they continue support for federal research facilities that underpin our world-class research activities. They are also the president's priorities for the next four years. We will continue to invest in science and technology for economic growth, national security, environmental protection, health and safety, and education, as well as for the unique human endeavor of advancing knowledge. The way we've gone about carefully balancing the budget while protecting key investments like research has added 8 million jobs to the U.S. economy since President Clinton took office. It has kept interest rates and inflation low, and cut the size of the federal government by more than 200,000 positions-the smallest federal work force since President Truman. Science and technology have been critical components of the president's vision of the future, and will continue to receive his vigorous support. John H. Gibbons is Assistant to the President for Science and Technology and director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy.

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