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| Invitee Comments: D. Allan Bromley | ||
| (Return to Comment Selection) It is obvious that I have an intrinsic conflict of interest in writing about advice on science and technology for the President as well as about the role that OSTP can and should play within the Administration and with respect to the Congress. One of the first things that I did after being named as George H. W. Bush’s Assistant for Science and Technology was to arrange a meeting with Josh Lederberg and Bill Golden, co-chairmen of the Carnegie Commission, to obtain their input and advice on how best to establish my OSTP office. They were extremely helpful, and arranged for Bill Wells, then at George Washington University, to carry out a study on the advisability of establishing a captive think-tank organization supporting OSTP. As subsequent experiences with the Advanced Technology Institute and the Rand Corporation made clear, Wells was entirely correct in advising against such a think-tank. The Carnegie Commission played a crucial role in establishing the Carnegie Group of Science Advisers to the G7 and Russia heads of state that still meets twice a year for informal interactions. In an October 1988 talk to the Ohio Society of Broadcasters, Bush I had made two key commitments. One was to raise the position of his Science Adviser from that of a Special Assistant to an Assistant, something that the Bush II administration unfortunately has dropped. I found it was of enormous importance in strengthening my communication and interaction throughout the President’s entire Executive Office. Perhaps the Commission could help in restoring the former position of Assistant. The second was that for the first time in some 30 years, George H. W. Bush committed himself to appoint a council of senior private citizens reporting directly to him on matters of Science and Technology, rather than to the Science Advisor, as had been the case with the Reagan White House Science Council. President Bush met with PCAST for an hour or more at its monthly meetings whenever he was in Washington. PCAST was important in that it provided direct advice to the President, unfiltered by any staff, and on occasion advice that would never have reached the President otherwise. While we originally asked PCAST members to devote 1 week per month to its activities, we never actually tasked them adequately and so did not take full advantage of this unique resource. Some have commented on the fact that I greatly reduced the role of OSTP in national security matters. I did this for two reasons. First, I had observed firsthand, in WHSC, that my two predecessors, Keyworth and Graham, had been effectively co-opted by the National Security folk, leaving many S & T areas uncovered. Second, I anticipated that the National Security adviser – my good friend Brent Scowcroft – would be able to carry much more of the National Security load. After detailed discussions with Brent on several occasions, we tried to find candidates who could be appointed to senior positions in both the National Security Council and in OSTP, but unfortunately in no case were we able to find suitable candidates. I remain convinced that this would be a very important communication and action link, and one that should be considered in any Administration. With the right person this could be one of the most important appointments in the entire White House complex. Before I accepted the Science Adviser position, I asked President Bush three questions:
Although the legislation specifies that there be these four Associate Directors, it does not specify their areas of responsibility, and I chose to have mine take major responsibility for health and the life sciences, physical science and engineering, industrial technology, and international affairs and policy. This was the first such associate director for industrial technology, and I chose that title for two reasons. First, because I was convinced that it was time to emphasize the ‘T’ in OSTP, and second, because I wished to send a very clear message that the Bush I Administration was very much interested in a closer contact with the private sector. I was exceedingly fortunate in obtaining four extremely talented and complementary individuals, namely D.A. Henderson, Eugene Wong, William Phillips, and Tom Ratchford, to take on these responsibilities. There has been much discussion concerning the need to recreate the Office of Technology Assessment (OTA) and there are many compelling arguments to do so. However, it must be recognized that while the former OTA had a time-constant of some two years, while that of OSTP is much more frequently fifteen minutes, unless a new OTA can produce reports and answers to congressional inquiries before those making the request have either forgotten about it or have already made the related decisions and the train has long since left the station, it will not fulfill the need. This is a problem that all too frequently arises with respect to the Academy reports as well, in that advice obtained long after the decision had to be made is of little use. Despite the fact that it turned out many excellent studies, I would advise strongly against recreating anything closely resembling the old OTA. Because I was Senate-confirmed relatively late in the Bush I administration, I had several months to act as Assistant to the President without the formal responsibilities of the OSTP Directorship. I spent much of this time meeting with a broad cross-section of Representatives and Senators, as well as with their staff members, and these contacts established a level of trust and credibility that was later of enormous help. I should point out that several of my predecessors had made the mistake of deciding against contact with Congressional staff – the people who in a great many cases are in fact responsible for the real decisions and actions. Similarly, I spent time with each of the cabinet secretaries and the heads of the independent agencies and with their staffs. George Brown organized monthly informal breakfasts to which I and a number of his colleagues in both the House and Senate were invited. This forum was extremely useful in clarifying many misunderstandings and differences between the White House and the Congress before they became issues. Having said all this, I will focus on what I consider to be the three areas of greatest current importance in public policy. They are the following: 1) Homeland Security We are still almost totally unprepared to respond adequately to a bioterrorism attack that intrinsically will be much more serious than one of chemical or nuclear nature, horrible as these will be. A much higher level of communication, cooperation and understanding among federal, state and local governments and a more realistic view of the facilities that will be required following any such attack are all essential. Science and technology can play vital roles here, if adequately integrated into the central management of the homeland security central structure, however that may ultimately be organized. Not only must there be strong science and technology activity within that structure, but also close cooperation with OSTP. 2) The Economy Although somewhat pushed into the current political background, we need dramatic new approaches and stimulants for our economy, or we run the very real risk of losing our hard-won world leadership in terms of national security, international economic competitiveness, and quality of life. I am certainly not qualified to make specific suggestions in this area, but it is clear that more effective integration of our science and generic technology into the fabric of our society must be an essential component. Although there have been numerous attempts to make this happen, we are far from any adequate situation regarding effective roles for our S & T strengths. The Advanced Technology Program (ATP) that was first suggested by Senator Hollings in the closing days of the Reagan administration and implemented in Bush I was designed to foster cooperation between the federal government and small and mid-sized corporations. The program was channeled through NIST to take advantage of its long years of experience in dealing with the private sector. In its early years it was judged to be a very real success, and in their campaign Clinton and Gore not only supported it, but also indicated that they would greatly increase its funding. Unfortunately, in the process there was a change in the structure of the ATP, in that attention was focused on large corporations such as the Big Three automotive companies in the program for a new generation vehicle (PNGV), instead of on the small and mid-sized companies. A Republican Congress immediately pounced on this new program as “corporate welfare” and support for the ATP declined throughout most of the Clinton/Gore Administration, and in the early days of Bush II was eliminated altogether. I remain convinced that it is a program that merits renewed examination. 3) Education Many find it difficult to understand how we can be so bad in elementary and secondary (K-12) education while leading the entire world in higher education. In part of course, this simply reflects the fact that we are prepared to sacrifice a large fraction of our youth along the way. While our children are competitive in international comparison tests with most of the rest of the world at grade four, and are in the middle of the pack at grade eight, they are second from the bottom in mathematics and dead last in physics at grade twelve. Bluntly put, we are wasting two to three years of the lives of our children and grandchildren at a time when they are most open to education – a wastage that must be made up at the college level. Too often, teachers are less than competent, teaching on a lowest common denominator basis and boring the most able children into inattention and falling interest. Obviously the lack of parent participation also plays a central role in this sorry situation. I believe that although we already spend more per student than does any other country in the world, we will need to spend much more if we are to have any hope of reclaiming excellence in our K-12 education. I believe that we must pay even our current, often-incompetent teachers on a twelve-month basis and at much higher than current levels, if we are to attract a new generation of better-trained teachers to what will again be viewed as a respected profession. It is not surprising that students do not respect teachers whom they encounter doing menial and undemanding jobs in summer, rather than improving their professional qualifications. It also bears emphasis that our support of the two-year colleges that train a majority of the technologists who actually keep our technologically sophisticated society going is far below what it should be. When I last saw the numbers, the two-year colleges received only some 2.8% of our entire educational budget, far below what is standard in the rest of the developed world. At higher levels in our educational system, we have come to depend on foreign students who remain in the U.S. to fill the positions essential to our economy. But we cannot continue to depend on such students, because their home countries are increasingly recognizing that the ‘brain drain’ costs them dearly, and are developing local infrastructures and opportunities that will attract their citizens home after their U.S. education. There are simply too few Americans in the science and technology pipeline at present. There are many more problems and opportunities that I hope we will focus in our Palo Alto meeting, and I look forward to it. (Return to Top) Posted 10.16.02 |
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