News leaked Friday that Aneesh Chopra, Secretary of Technology for the Commonwealth of Virginia, has been appointed the first federal CTO. President Obama made the official announcement Saturday. While working in Virginia, Chopra lead a highly successful effort to ramp up broadband [...]
SCIENCE LEADERSHIP
The science community wants John Holdren’s expected confirmation to the Office of Science and Technology Policy to be followed by his elevation into Obama’s cabinet.
Government Technology indicates that two major media outlets, The New York Times and the BBC, are reporting that President-elect Obama will announce his pick for White House Chief Technology Officer this week. Among the speculative short listers is Science Progress adviser Vint Cerf.
SCIENCE, CULTURED
President-elect Obama’s pick for White House science adviser, John Holdren, has received numerous barbs from critics of progressive climate policy. Unfortunately, the attacks are a distraction from the real problems facing the planet.
SCIENCE POLICY
The seven science advisers Barack Obama has chosen are surely the most distinguished group of scientists at the highest levels of government in decades.
Eli Kintisch reports at Science Insider that the Kennedy School of Government professor flew to Chicago this morning to meet with members of the transition team.
Major news outlets have been reporting since yesterday afternoon that Steven Chu is President-elect Obama’s choice to head the Department of Energy. Chu currently directs the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, where he has led a drive to develop clean and renewable sources of energy to combat global climate change. If confirmed, he would be the first Nobel laureate in the cabinet to go into the job with a medal in hand.
In Washington, D.C. access is influence, and as we’ve argued several times here on Science Progress, in order to drive progressive science and tech policy across the entire federal government, the next science adviser to the president must be at the top level of the White House staff. And few would know better the importance of the science adviser holding cabinet-level rank than the last person to serve in the position at that status, Neal Lane.
Rick Weiss outlines a framework for a new federal policy that supports funding human embryonic stem cell research over on the CAP website. He writes that within the first week of taking office, President Obama “should call upon the Department of Health and Human Services and the National Institutes of Health to devise a plan for dismantling the current, overly restrictive Bush administration policy on the funding of human embryonic stem cell research.”
SCIENCE, CULTURED
It’s critical that we see the science adviser rollout given a degree of prominence similar to other top-level nominations. In our next government, science can’t just be an afterthought.
One out of every four dollars Americans spend goes toward products the safety of which rests in the hands of the Food and Drugs Administration. But as Virginia Cox points out in her chapter on the agency in the forthcoming book Change for America: A Progressive Blueprint for the 44th President, “Consumers today are understandably skeptical about the safety of their food and medical products, yet the [FDA] is struggling to keep pace with breakthroughs in science, an expanding global market, and years of underfunding.”
The Washington Post reported yesterday that the Obama transition team announced the leaders for its innovation and technology team—though that announcement did not include the appointment of the White House Chief Technology Officer.
White House CTO is a new job, but the forthcoming Change for America: A Progressive Blueprint for the 44th President, now in production and due in bookstores in January, devotes a chapter to recommendations for the post in the new administration. Mitchell Kapor, founder of the Lotus Development Corporation and co-founder of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, is the author.
Today, the Center for American Progress Action Fund posted a new slate of chapters from Change for America: A Progressive Blueprint for the 44th President online for free download, including Science Progress adviser Tom Kalil’s overview on science, technology, and innovation. Kalil looks back over the history of successful government-backed research and lays out principles for the future. Here are some of his recommendations.
WEISS’S NOTEBOOK
The Washington rumor mill is buzzing with names of possible science appointees—and there are dozens of major science-related positions to fill. The questions appointees will face are an opportunity for a clear break with past approaches.
The servers are obviously having a tough time handling the traffic load (I’ve gotten a few errors throughout the day), but President-elect Obama’s transition project has already hit the ground running with a box of web 2.0 tools to organize the next administration at change.gov.
Science Progress and American Progress's Doing What Works project teamed up to produce a set of policy proposals that the Obama administration and Congress can adopt to reinvest in the building blocks of American science, innovation, and economic competitiveness. Read the overview of the five reports.
Science Progress proceeds from the propositions that scientific inquiry is among the finest expressions of human excellence, that it is a crucial source of human flourishing, a critical engine of economic growth, and must be dedicated to the common good. Scientific inquiry entails global responsibilities. It should lead to a more equitable, safer, and healthier future for all of humankind.