Presidential Contenders Sharpen Their Focus On Scientific Issues As Election Approach

Although Clinton and Bush disagree on the details, both candidates support increased efforts in R&D As the United States presidential campaign heads into its final stages, President George Bush and Democratic challenger Gov. Bill Clinton are maneuvering for the political high ground on the subject of high tech--particularly technology-driv-en approaches to bolstering the nation's economy and global competitiveness. Both candidates occasionally have addressed issues of federal support for basic science in speeches and position papers. But they have been devoting considerably more effort to articulating the economic and environmental benefits to be reaped from applied research, new technologies, and revitalized U.S. research and development facilities. Despite their enthusiasm for high tech, however, Bush and Clinton pointedly disagree about how the government should go about encouraging the growth of private-sector R&D investment and technology-based industries. Considerably less divergent than their positions concerning R&D and technology development have been the candidates' views on basic science. While neither has been particularly vocal on the subject, both have expressed support for sustaining U.S. strength in basic research. Clinton, for example, has stated in a position paper that "university research accounts for a large part of the federal basic research budget. Funding for basic university research should continue to be provided for a broad range of disciplines, since it is impossible to predict where the next breakthrough may come." Recently declared independent presidential candidate H. Ross Perot and his campaign organization have made public relatively little information on Perot's views regarding science and technology policy issues. At press time, a spokeswoman at Perot's campaign headquarters in the Dallas area said that no position papers or issue briefs on science and technology were available, and suggested that, instead, those interested in his views consult Perot's book, United We Stand (Westport, Conn., Hyperion Press, 1992). However, the 118-page paperback includes only a few brief comments on science and technology policy questions. In his book, the Texas billionaire endorses targeting growth industries and supports research and development tax credits. "We need to encourage our companies to put their money into new improvements, new products, and new lines of products," writes Perot, who made most of his fortune by founding and building EDS Corp., a major computer services company based in Dallas. Perot also argues that environmental protection can be good business for U.S. industry. "American companies should be at the forefront of emerging global markets for environmental technology," he writes. "In 1980, more than 60 percent of the pollution-control equipment used in the United States was domestically produced. In 1990, the figure was less than 35 percent." He adds that "we should invest in research. On too many environmental questions we don't even have agreement about the scientific facts." --B.R. The Bush administration, asserts White House science adviser D. Allan Bromley, has "done remarkably well" in pursuing a Reagan- era goal of doubling the National Science Foundation's budget over a five-year period. "This president is more sensitive to the importance of science and technology as an investment in our future than any president in memory," Bromley says. Both Bush and Clinton have endorsed science "mega-projects," including the superconducting supercollider (SSC) and the Human Genome Project, although Clinton has called for increased support for the SSC by Western European countries and Japan. At press time, the positions on science and technology issues of independent candidate H. Ross Perot, the Texas billionare who officially announced his candidacy on October 1, were not ascertainable (see story on page 7). Meanwhile, veteran science and technology policy analysts at universities and think tanks give the candidates mixed reviews on the handling of science and technology issues, and indicate they are hedging their bets about what will really be at stake in the election with regard to the future of U.S. science and technology policies and programs. "That's obviously hard to predict," says Erich Bloch, former director of the National Science Foundation and now a Distinguished Fellow with the privately financed Council on Competitiveness in Washington, D.C. "I think that in the science area, by itself, it doesn't really make that much of a difference because programs have been put in place," he says. "The policies are pretty uniformly agreed to across the spectrum of political parties." Bloch notes that "what has happened over the last few years is the greater demand for more action and focus on technology, as opposed to science. I think that's something that will probably become more of a focal point and the center of attention, by Congress and the administration--whatever the administration is. Who would move faster in this area? That's hard to tell." Crediting the Bush administration for significant efforts in biotechnology, advanced materials, and other areas, Bloch at the same time says he finds "very encouraging" some of the technology policy concepts advocated by Clinton and his running mate, Sen. Al Gore of Tennessee. Clinton's campaign generated headlines on September 15, when a group of 30 high-tech business executives--including CEOs John Sculley of Cupertino, Calif.-based Apple Computer Inc. and John Young of Hewlett-Packard Co., based in Palo Alto, Calif., both lifelong Republicans--endorsed the Arkansas governor at a news con- ference in San Jose, Calif. Sculley declared that he was "tired of sitting on the sidelines and watching America lose its competitiveness," and said he believes that Clinton "understands the systematic connection between education, technology, and the new knowledge-based economy." Clinton's Plans Clinton has detailed his overall technology strategy in two position papers: "Manufacturing for the 21st Century: Turning Ideas into Jobs"; and "Technology: the Engine of Economic Growth." Roland W. Schmitt doesn't need to be persuaded about the importance of industrial R&D to America's economic strength. Before becoming president of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, N.Y., Schmitt served for eight years as director of the General Electric Research and Development Center in nearby Schenectady, one of the world's largest and most diversified industrial laboratories. Schmitt asserts that "industrial R&D is a key issue [in this year's presidential election]. The fact is that in the U.S. today, there are ominous signs of the erosion of our capability in industrial R&D." Schmitt, a member of the National Science Board, the policy- making body of the National Science Foundation, says one step in the right direction would be making the industrial R&D tax credit permanent: "The full effect of that on industrial R&D can't really be felt until it's been made permanent. To be quite honest, both of the candidates support that. I just don't know which one would be best at bringing it off." Another significant issue, Schmitt says, is trying to encourage conversion of unneeded defense R&D capabilities to civilian work. "The U.S. can't really afford to let those technical resources that are presently being supported by defense dollars go down the tubes," he says. "None of the programs put forward yet by the candidates, in my opinion, have really addressed the full magnitude of that issue." With regard to basic research, the Rensselaer president says that "there are a lot of stresses and strains in our research universities today." Schmitt says: "Quite honestly, I am apprehensive that the one place where the U.S. has in fact been very strong, pioneering discoveries and inventions that create entirely new lines of products ... that the places that have generated this pioneering research are weakening." But he observes that in the context of a political campaign, it's difficult to get the candidates to focus on science and technology. "Someone once said the problem is that in politics, support for science and technology is a mile wide and an inch deep," Schmitt says. "So to the extent that we can get more debate over these issues, the better off we're going to be." --B.R. Clinton's technology policy includes the following elements: * Building a "21st- century technology infrastructure" through increased government support for development of an advanced national communications network to meet the information needs of scientists, engineers, doctors, educators, home-based workers, and others. * Directing more of the $76 billion federal R&D budget toward nondefense work, and substantially increasing resources devoted to critical technologies such as advanced materials, high- performance computing, and new manufacturing processes. In a related item, Clinton proposes establishing a civilian version of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), which has done pioneering research in sophisticated microelectronics, materials, and other technology areas. * Pushing for greater output of commercially useful technologies from America's 726 federal laboratories, which have combined budgets of about $23 billion. "Federal labs which can make a significant contribution to U.S. competitiveness should have 10 to 20 percent of their existing budgets assigned to establish joint ventures with industry," Clinton says. * Moving to "significantly strengthen" both the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) and the Federal Coordinating Council for Science, Engineering and Technology (FCCSET), an interagency group. * Making the industrial R&D tax credit permanent and undertaking other tax and regulatory changes. During a recent visit to Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque, N. Mex., Clinton said that with the Cold War now over he wants federal labs that have mainly handled weapons work to focus instead on "finding ways to convert defense spending to domestic economic opportunity, promoting not only conversion, but dual-use technologies." He noted that one of the main reasons he selected Gore as his running mate is that the Tennessee senator "has spent a lot of time immersing himself in issues of technology policy." If the Democrats win the White House, Gore is slated to have overall responsibility for coordinating the new administration's approach to technology issues, according to Clinton's position papers. In addition to serving as chairman of a Senate subcommittee on science, technology, and space, Gore has drawn greater attention to key problems of technology and the global environment with his recent book, Earth in the Balance (New York, Houghton Mifflin, 1992). Gore's Republican counterpart, Vice President Dan Quayle, has been involved with technology policy as chairman of both the 13- member National Space Council and the U.S. Council on Competitiveness (not associated with Bloch's privately funded organization). Bush Responds Bush voiced a detailed rebuttal to Clinton's technology policy in a speech on September 25 at the University of Chicago. He spoke at a conference arranged as part of his administration's National Technology Initiative, an interagency effort launched last February to promote government-industry cooperation on R&D and commercialization of new technologies. The president contended that Clinton "puts his faith in the ability of the government to pick the right investments-- industrial policy, we call it--to control the resources, to determine which particular product and process will be favored by the bureaucrats in Washington." Bush said at the gathering that "while the governor talks high tech, his allies in Congress walk away from it.... In each of the past four years, my R&D budget has been cut by Bill Clinton's allies in the other party on the Hill." He added: "Gov. Clinton's own plan, for all the talk about research, would gut the foundation of American science and technology enterprise by cutting university reim- bursements for R&D by $3 billion, almost one-third." Also, the president said, Clinton "proposes to finance his many promises with a massive tax increase that will smother the very growth on which our success depends." Defending his record, Bush said his latest budget would increase civilian R&D by 44 percent over 1989 levels, with non-defense basic research up 36 percent and applied civilian R&D up 49 percent. Bush specifically pointed to administration programs involving high-performance computing and communications, development of advanced materials, and biotechnology research. He also said seven regional manufacturing technology centers already have been established. In addition, he suggested that a Clinton plan for creating a network of 170 "market-driven extension centers"-- business assistance centers, at least 25 of which are to be "regional technology alliances" devoted to regions hit hard by defense cutbacks--would result in a "massive bureaucracy." Science adviser Bromley, who accompanied Bush to the conference in Chicago, notes that over the past several years, more than 1,500 Cooperative Research and Development Agreements (CRADAs) have been signed between federal laboratories and private companies. "All of the federal labs have really taken this as a major challenge and are moving it forward very effectively," he says. In response to questions about Clinton's call for strengthening both OSTP and FCCSET, Bromley replies: "I would obviously be the wrong person to ask whether we need to be completely restructured. I think we've been reasonably successful. And I've been very pleased at the way the FCCSET process has worked. It has been a forum in which we can have unprecedented cooperation among the agencies." Bromley criticizes Clinton's proposal for a civilian DARPA, saying that it is unlikely to be able to duplicate the success of the military research organization, which has had "a very clearly defined customer" in the Pentagon. The White House science adviser says he doesn't believe the Bush administration got all the credit it was due for the so-called Scope Document, a report published early this year by OSTP--which Bromley heads--paving the way for subsequent steps to lift regulations on biotechnology-produced foods. "It doesn't matter whether something is produced by recombinant DNA techniques or by genetic engineering or what have you," Bromley says. "It's the product that counts. And the other countries around the world are accepting this kind of approach with real enthusiasm." Congressional Voices Rep. George E. Brown Jr. (D-Calif.), chairman of the House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology, acknowledges that "in many areas of science and technology the Bush administration has been very good. They've supported good budgets for NASA, for the National Science Foundation, for the National Institutes of Health." He also notes that in recent years there has been an undesirable trend in Congress toward legislative "earmarking" of money for specific institutions, due to a severe shortage of other funds to build new university research facilities. According to Brown, his committee has found considerable evidence that "our basic research plant is deteriorating substantially, and that these institutions ... are grabbing at everything they can to get a little money, lacking any program to really help them rebuild that research infrastructure." He adds that he would like to see both Bush and Clinton commit themselves to remedying the situation. In the area of technology policy, Brown observes that "the outcome of the election will be rather significant, because Bush has not demonstrated a very strong commitment to closer cooperation between government and industry, although he's moving in that direction. Clinton, on the other hand, has articulated a philosophy of considerably more cooperation, including systematic programs for technology transfer." However, Rep. Robert S. Walker (R-Pa.), the ranking Republican of the House science committee, says he is concerned that Clinton appears to be leaning toward a "planned industrial economy.... I think that will have a detrimental impact on science, because I think it will mean that a lot of the newer areas will get ignored in favor of status-quo industries that would seek to preserve themselves through R&D." According to Walker: "What you will have is a lot of so-called manufacturing centers that will be no more than an attempt to prop up the present industrial structure." Policy Analysts Critical Clinton's call for selected federal labs to do more R&D work useful to industry dovetails with one of the key recommendations emerging from a recent Council on Competitiveness study headed by Bloch. The Bloch report recommends that 10 percent of the budgets of Department of Energy and NASA labs be assigned to "joint civilian technology programs with industry," and that this share should be increased to 20 percent more over the next few years. Among policy analysts expressing mixed sentiments about the Clinton-Gore technology plan is Irwin Pikus, director of the science and technology program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington, D.C. He calls the policy "a step in the right direction," but adds: "It needs a lot more fleshing out. And there are a couple of areas where they may want to rethink what they've said." In particular, Pikus criticizes the proposed 10 percent to 20 percent budget set-aside at federal labs as "not the best way to make the labs relevant to national needs." Also, he questions the advisability of trying to create a civilian DARPA. Cynthia A. Beltz, a research associate with the American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research, also based in Washington, says she believes that if Clinton wins the election there will be "a bigger debate, in pretty short order" over the federal government's handling of civilian R&D, particularly "on this idea of creating new institutions or reforming existing institutions." On the question of increasing cooperation with industry by the federal labs, she says the 10 percent to 20 percent budget set- aside idea amounts to "wishful thinking." As for Clinton's plan to give Gore responsibility for overseeing technology policy, Beltz says: "I think that if he [Gore] doesn't try to micromanage, then it will be a good idea. He has the background, he has the knowledge, and he tries to have understanding. I think he's sincere in that. And that's good." Barton Reppert is a freelance science writer based in Gaithersburg, Md.

Presidential Contenders Sharpen Their Focus On Scientific Issues As Election Approach

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