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04.09

Obama Watchers Strongly Laud Key Administration Appointees to Deal With Major Science and Technology Issues

By Barton C. Reppert

President Barack Obama’s appointees to key science and technology positions, along with his issuance of an official memorandum directing that the integrity of federal S&T activities be carefully safeguarded, have been drawing strong praise from the policy community, including leaders of IEEE-USA.

The senior appointees include Harvard physicist and leading energy expert John Holdren, named to serve as presidential science adviser and director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP); Harold Varmus, president of Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York City, and Eric Lander, director of the Broad Institute in Cambridge, Mass., to serve as outside co-chairs of the President’s Council of Advisers on Science and Technology (PCAST); and Vivek Kundra, chief technology officer for the District of Columbia government, as White House chief information officer.

Gordon Day, current president of IEEE-USA and former congressional fellow, commented that “on 9 March, President Obama issued a memorandum discussing integrity in science and explaining exactly what he expects from his science and technology appointees. The principles he stated are sound and I believe that the distinguished individuals he has appointed to S&T posts will live up to those standards.”

But Day added that “many positions remain to be filled, including the promised Chief Technology Officer and many agency directors. With the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act and the 2009 Omnibus Appropriations Bill now signed into law, the agencies that must implement these laws need to have leaders in place as soon as possible.”

Russell J. Lefevre, 2008 president of IEEE-USA, observed that “in general, IEEE-USA is very pleased with the appointments. These people are very highly qualified and we are looking forward to a major increase in priority on high tech in the new Administration. I would especially point out that the new Secretary of Energy, Steven Chu, has announced an agenda that corresponds almost entirely to the recent IEEE-USA policy position statement ‘National Energy Policy Recommendations.’”

Lefevre added: “We believe the Obama Administration has proposed major strides in improving our competitiveness in the international marketplace through its emphasis on high technology. We look forward to working with the Administration and the Congress to make their proposals reality.”

After Holdren’s nomination was confirmed by the Senate on 20 March, the American Physical Society issued a statement saying that it was “elated.” APS President Cherry A. Murray asserted that “the confirmation of John Holdren as science adviser and director of OSTP . . . sends a powerful message to the nation that science will play an integral role in the Administration’s energy, environment and economic policies.”

Eugene B. Skolnikoff, emeritus professor of political science at MIT, commented: “I know Holdren very well, and I think very highly of him. He’s a workaholic, to put it mildly. He understands what is and isn’t evidence. He also has very strong views about particular policy issues.” He added that “I think he will understand that his job as adviser to the president is not simply to press his own views, but also to present the alternatives.”

During his confirmation hearing on 12 February before the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation, Holdren said he was proud to work with President Obama and the Congress “to sustain and strengthen our world-leading science and engineering enterprises, and to ensure the science and technology our policy-makers need is always the best it can be.”

Holdren added that “while our country clearly faces immense challenges in the economic, environmental, health and security domains, among others, it is equally clear that science and technology can be key ingredients in turning those challenges into opportunities. It is likewise true that in science itself we are on the threshold of remarkable new discoveries about the universe, about how our own planet and its living systems work, and about how we learn, think and remember. And we are on the verge of huge advances in computing and other information systems, in biotech, in nanotech, in greentech, and in the intersection of these domains.”

Professor Lester B. Lave, with the Department of Engineering and Public Policy, Carnegie Mellon University, said that of Obama’s appointments “the two people I know best are Holdren and Chu. They are absolutely first-rate, in terms of their grasp of science and in terms of their ability to run things and advocate for science.”

Lave added: “I think what Obama has done is to concentrate a lot of power in the White House, by having his various czars for this and that, with lesser reliance on the Cabinet officers. That’s his style of governing. . . . Whether this is going to be a good thing or a bad thing I don’t know. But it certainly means that Obama is personally responsible for a whole set of decisions which in the past would have been made by lower-level people, and insofar as there were mistakes, they could have been blamed on the lower-level people. My worry is that Obama has gotten himself so much in the spotlight that whenever something goes wrong he’s going to be the person blamed for it.”

President Obama’s memorandum on scientific integrity, as issued by the White House on 9 March, said in part: “The public must be able to trust the science and scientific process informing public policy decisions. Political officials should not suppress or alter scientific or technological findings and conclusions. . . . The selection of scientists and technology professionals for positions in the executive branch should be based on their scientific and technological knowledge, credential, experience and integrity.”

In the memo, Obama assigned to the director of OSTP responsibility for “ensuring the highest level of integrity in all aspects of the executive branch’s involvement with scientific and technological processes.”

Melody C. Barnes, director of the White House Domestic Policy Council, was quoted by The Washington Post as telling reporters during a telephone briefing that “the president believes that it’s particularly important to sign this memorandum so that we can put science and technology back at the heart of pursuing a broad range of national goals.”

Obama’s intention to appoint a Chief Technology Officer was set forth in his election campaign’s technology platform, which stated that “the CTO will ensure the safety of our networks and will lead an interagency effort, working with chief technology and chief information officers of each of the federal agencies, to ensure that they use best-in-class technologies and share best practices.”

In addition, the platform stipulated, “the CTO will have a specific focus on transparency, by ensuring that each arm of the federal government makes its records open and accessible as the E-Government Act requires. The CTO will also focus on using new technologies to solicit and receive information back from citizens to improve the functioning of democratic government.”

As of 25 March, no individual had yet been nominated for the CTO position.

However, Dan Chenok, senior vice president of Pragmatics, an information technology firm, who served as a member of Obama’s Technology, Innovation and Government Reform Transition Team, said about the CTO: “I think they’re still intending to appoint one. I’m not on the inside, but my understanding is that they’re still looking for that.”

A report by the Congressional Research Service said many details related to the job are not yet clear — for example, whether the post will be established by executive order, or whether Obama will seek legislation to create it.

The CRS report observed that “perhaps one of the most difficult and enduring challenges a CTO may face would be ‘turf wars’ associated with overlapping responsibilities with other executive agencies and their principals on issues such as technology and innovation policy, computer and network security, and intellectual property enforcement.”

Russell Lefevre commented that “a CTO looks to me like a potential appointment wandering around looking for something to do. However, if a CTO is confirmed, one very important issue is the widespread deployment of broadband access. A high-level person could make a significant impact on this. Broadband deployment is a very high priority for IEEE-USA. Another potential role is to take a lead on cybersecurity. When and if the United States deploys a smart grid, it will be inevitably vulnerable to cyber attacks unless those designing the grid address the vulnerability.”

Barton Reppert is a freelance science and technology writer specializing in S&T policy coverage. He previously worked for 18 years as a reporter and editor with The Associated Press in Washington, New York and Moscow.

Comments on this article may be submitted to todaysengineer@ieee.org.