Science Policy Watchers Hail New President's Early Moves

Clinton's choice of Gibbons as science adviser and Gore's anticipated activist role bode well for consideration of research issues, they contend Leading researchers as well as science policy specialists and association officials are hopeful, of course, that President Bill Clinton's administration will pursue an energetic, activist approach in tackling major science and technology issues. And, these observers generally agree, the Clinton years in this regard are off to a good start. In interviews with The Scientist, several science and technology policy-watchers have, for example, praised Clinton's early `appointment of John H. Gibbons to be White House science and technology adviser, as well as director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP). Gibbons, who since 1979 has been director of the congressional Office of Technology Assessment, is known around Washington as a soft-spoken but effective and politically savvy "facilitator," well accustomed to navigating Washington's turbulent policy cross-currents (see accompanying story). "We're very enthusiastic about [Gibbons], because he knows Congress, he knows Washington, he knows the issues," says John Holmfeld, executive director of the Council of Scientific Society Presidents (CSSP), an umbrella group of the top officials from 58 scientific societies with a combined membership of 1.5 million. "Also, he can work well with [Vice President Al] Gore. All of those things add up to a big plus." At the same time, the council does have some reservations. At a CSSP meeting about two weeks before Gibbons's appointment was announced, several scientific society officials voiced concern about whether applied research and technology may take precedence over science in the new administration. According to one participant in the December 8 session in Washington, D.C., Richard E. Bradshaw--who had served as a science and technology issues coordinator for the Clinton campaign, and gave a presentation to the CSSP group--"made a statement to the effect that technology might well supersede science policy in certain cases." In response, CSSP sent to Bradshaw--to be conveyed to the Clinton transition team--a letter stressing that "basic scientific research is fundamental to technology development and long-term economic success.... Long-range research, by its nature, is unpredictable. We do not know which or how many of the basic research projects conducted will lead to the major innovation that can create entire new industries. But, we know that some will." The CSSP letter sets forth a number of recommendations, including: emphasizing investigator-initiated research, fostering multidisciplinary and international science, providing incentives for industry to conduct more long-range research and to strengthen links to universities, evaluating and redefining the missions and operations of the federal laboratories, and convening a "White House Conference on Science and Technology Policy" early in the new administration. More optimistic observers point to Clinton's announced intention to delegate to Gore--who gained substantial experience with research-related issues as a senator and, before that, as a representative--broad responsibility for shaping and overseeing federal science and technology policies and programs. "I think certainly Gore himself is very, very comfortable with the world of science," says Jerold L. Roschwalb, director of `federal relations for the Washington-based National Association of State Universities and Land Grant Colleges. "He's very knowledgeable. He's not an authority, but, compared to most people in the world of politics, he's rare." Another Washington-based science and technology policy watcher, Daniel F. Burton Jr., executive vice president of the Council on Competitiveness, says of the new administration that currently "there are a couple of things that we know--and a lot of things that we don't know. "What we know is that Al Gore is going to play a major role. We know that Clinton has stated that he wants to move hard on technology infrastructure for the 21st century, set up a manufacturing extension service, rebalance defense and nondefense R&D, and create an investment climate which is much more conducive to investment in technology and R&D." But, Burton adds: "The issue is how he's going to move forward with those--how he's going to implement them." The competitiveness council--a privately funded organization separate from the White House Council on Competitiveness, which in the Bush administration was chaired by former Vice President Dan Quayle--during last year's presidential campaign provided recommendations that were worked into Clinton/Gore position papers. The new administration is also expected to benefit from the advice of dozens of the nation's most prominent researchers-- constituting a 67-member National Council of Scientists and Engineers for Clinton/Gore that was formed in October, during the election campaign. The panel includes 12 Nobel Prize winners; two former presidential science advisers; and 49 members of the National Academy of Sciences, National Academy of Engineering, or Institute of Medicine. The council's chairman, Marvin L. Goldberger--former president of the California Institute of Technology and director of the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, N.J.--says that after the election the panel became an advisory group to the transition. "We have been talking--variously ... on behalf of the council and some of us as individuals--in connection with appointments" to science and technology positions within the administration, says Goldberger, now a physics professor at the University of California, Los Angeles. But he declines to provide any details on such discussions regarding prospective can- didates and particular appointments. A member of the council, Cornell University physicist Kurt Gottfried, says of the Clinton science team: "They are clearly a vigorous and impressive bunch of people. I have seen Gore in action, and he is extremely knowledgeable and impressive.... I `think they're going to bring in a lot of very able young people." Another member of the Clinton/Gore scientists and engineers council, Arno A. Penzias, vice president of research at AT&T Bell Laboratories, Murray Hill, N.J., says that "everybody wants to give the new administration advice, I'm sure. Who knows what they're going to listen to? Basically, I think by and large they are very much open to new inputs and new approaches." Noting that he has known Gore for a number of years, Penzias says the new administration is "clearly identified with the technology issues and willing--in fact, eager--to grapple with the new realities, scientific as well as technological." Science policy specialists disagree about the effect Gore's responsibilities as the White House's science and technology czar will have on the role of Gibbons as White House science adviser, as well as on the operations of OSTP. William G. Wells Jr., an associate professor of management science at George Washington University's School of Business and Public Management, notes that "it's a very delicate relationship that needs to be worked out." A congressional aide tracking science policy developments, who asks not to be identified, says he believes that "Gore will be the de facto science adviser. ... It's going to be the same joke as during the [former White House chief of staff and former New Hampshire Gov. John] Sununu years. `Does the president have a science adviser?' `Well, yes--he has an office in the West Wing, not in the Old Executive Office Building, and they call him governor.' " Irwin Pikus, director of the science and technology program at the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies, says: "I don't think OSTP will go away. I think it will no longer pretend to be in a leadership role. The vice president is going to be in the leadership role on technology ... and OSTP will be an institution that functions at the behest of the vice president." Pointing to high-performance computing and other science and technology initiatives involving several departments and agencies, Pikus says he believes that "interagency coordination is going to be the watchword for the future." Pikus explains: "Is the vice president able to run that kind of coordination better than a science adviser to the president? In the case of Gore and Clinton, I think the answer is probably yes. Gore has the capacity, the intellectual capability, the interest, and the position to make that kind of thing happen more effectively than a presidential science adviser, who in the past has always been sort of an outsider to the circle--an adjunct to the White House staff." `However, Burton of the Countil of Competitiveness contends that Gore's clout on science and technology issues may lead to strengthening of the science adviser's position. "For the first time, the science adviser is going to have a pretty powerful ally in the White House," Burton says. "I think that that, in fact, could set the stage for a much stronger performance in policy issues on science and technology." Wells agrees: "Some people have suggested that means a very subordinate, junior position [for the science adviser]. I don't necessarily see it that way.... I think it's kind of elevating science and technology to have a vice president with that charter.... We'll have to see how it happens in practice--but that would be my hope, anyway, and expectation," he says. Bradshaw, the Clinton campaign science and technology issues coordinator, is senior vice president of North Atlantic Research, a Washington consulting firm, and an adjunct professor of international science and technology at George Mason University in Fairfax, Va. He joined with Wells in preparing a report offering science and technology recommendations to the transition team. The Wells-Bradshaw report, issued in November, notes that "a strong focus on science and technology-related issues will be central to the success of the Clinton/Gore economic recovery plan. This policy focus should be reflected in presidential statements, in the activities of the transition process, and, subsequently, in the administration." It says that a "critical component" of the new administration's approach will be "an activist, catalytic federal role in encouraging industrially relevant research, cooperative industry- government technology development, and new technology integration in the manufacturing and service sectors." In position papers released last September, Clinton indicated that he is interested in pursuing policy initiatives including: developing an advanced computer and telecommunications network; establishing a civilian version of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA); shifting allocation of the $76 billion federal R&D budget to an approximately 50-50 balance between defense and civilian activities; achieving greater output of commercially useful technologies from the U.S.'s 726 federal laboratories; doubling the budget of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST); and making the industrial R&D tax credit permanent (Barton Reppert, The Scientist, Oct. 26, 1992, page 1). When Clinton decides to move ahead with such initiatives, he is likely to develop a substantially cooperative relationship with the Democratic-controlled Congress--in contrast to the "gridlock" `affecting relations between Capitol Hill and the Bush administration. Wells observes that Rep. George E. Brown Jr. (D- Calif.), chairman of the House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology, "has publicly and privately said that he wants to work in every cooperative way that he can. And I think we're going to see a lot more willingness to accommodate and to adjust and to reach compromises." According to Wells, the new administration also is expected to be able to work quite closely on science and technology issues with other key lawmakers, including Sen. Ernest F. Hollings (D-S.C.), chairman of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, and Sen. Jeff Bingaman (D-N.Mex.), chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee Subcommittee on Defense Industry and Technology. While Gore generally gets high marks in the scientific community for his grasp of major science and technology issues, he also has come under some criticism, particularly on global warming and other worldwide ecology problems, the focus of his bestselling book, Earth in the Balance: Ecology and the Human Spirit (New York, Houghton Mifflin, 1992). Fred Smith, president of the Competitive Enterprise Institute, a free-market policy group in Washington, argues that "Gore seems to believe that climate change is an organizing principle for the new world order--and anyone who dissents is an enemy of the people. And that is extremely dangerous politically. It is horrendous scientifically." Smith, a former Environmental Protection Agency official, says this could result in a disturbing trend toward "Lysenkoism" in U.S. science: "If Gore becomes an environmental and science czar, then America enters an era of politically correct science, where science becomes increasingly the tool of the political powers and science is called in to provide rationales for politically predetermined activities." In addition to developing new programs, Clinton's administration is likely to set a new tone regarding ethical issues in research, according to Marcel C. La-Follette, a science policy analyst with the Center for International Science and Technology Policy at George Washington University. She forecasts that this ethical tone will be substantially different from the Bush administration's, in which on fetal tissue research and other questions "the discussion of ethical issues was more often governed by ideological knee-jerkedness" under pressure from conservatives and the religious right. "I think we're going to certainly see the [Clinton] administration saying that for science, as for other things in American life, a sense of integrity is important; a sense of generosity and altruism, which may mean sacrifice on the part of proponents of some pet projects; and a sense of prudent `spending," LaFollette says. Barton Reppert is a freelance writer based in Gaithersburg, Md.

Science Policy Watchers Hail New President's Early Moves

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