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 deployment around the state, which Nancy Scola chronicled in her feature, “Broadband Done Right.” Creative public-private partnerships, as well as funds from the Virginia Tobacco Commission, fueled a variety of projects that wired rural areas from the mountains to the Chesapeake Bay.

In addition to creating opportunities for telework and more tech-based jobs, Chopra also focused on the importance of ubiquitious broadband for providing health care. From Scola’s article:

More critically, Chopra describes demanding medical- records software deployed at health centers serving Virginia’s neediest areas that can’t survive the dial-up link. “People are literally dying because they can’t get the broadband they need to run the software,” He explains. Cutting-edge software applications may demand enormous pipe, but today even successful surfing calls for 200Kbps.

For a thorough roundup of Chopra’s experience and qualifications (including an arguement why a former government official is a better choice here than a Silicon Valley veteran), see Tim O’Reilly’s post at O’Reilly Radar. His verdict: “Aneesh Chopra is a rock star.”

Although the President’s cabinet formally consists of 15 department heads, President Obama has the authority to elevate other executives to that level for the duration of his administration. The last time the director of OSTP was a cabinet-level official was in the Clinton White House. [Clarification: Under Clinton, the science adviser was not an official cabinet post, but did have access to cabinet meetings and information. -Asst. Ed.].  A myriad of organizations have called for this elevation.

Last year, for example, the American Association for the Advancement of Science published an open letter to then-Senator Obama calling for a reinvigorated, cabinet-level science adviser, with 178 scientific societies, associations, universities, companies, and R&D centers signing the letter. The Woodrow Wilson Center’s Foresight and Governance Project also published specific recommendations on how OSTP and the director’s role should be strengthened through the elevation of the OSTP director to a cabinet position.

These recommendations stem, in part, from the role the science adviser has played over the past eight years. OSTP under the Bush administration was widely seen as a weakened entity, allowing the implementation of policies that directly contradicted the views of the vast majority of the scientific community, which watched with dismay as important research and policy in areas such as climate change, embryonic stem cells, and renewable energy were stymied by the conservative policymakers. John Marburger, Bush’s director of OSTP, was complicit in these matters, backing up the White House positions with claims that he could only present advice to the President when all questions about the science have been resolved—yet he ignored overwhelming evidence by world-class scientists on these matters.

As a cabinet-level official, Holdren would have the ability to sit in on and comment at the weekly cabinet meetings, giving voice to science issues at the highest levels of government. The increased access should ease Holdren’s ability to coordinate science policy throughout the executive branch. Yet even with cabinet-level access, science’s role in the Obama White House will depend on three things.

First, Holdren must be savvy in understanding the unique power and processes of the White House in order to get his ideas moved forward and his advice heard. He will need to take a strong stance to advocate for science and be able to pull from his relationships in academia and the private sector as well as his relationships with those closest to the President to pull in the political support for his ideas.

Second, coordinating policy among all of the myriad science agencies in the Executive branch will be no easy task. He must quickly get the lay of the land, and balance OSTP’s leadership on interagency initiatives with regard for agency autonomy and pet projects.

Third, how Holdren structures OSTP will determine its success. Marburger, Holdren’s predecessor, greatly reduced the scope and staff of the office. Multiple science policy experts have called for the re-expansion of the office to four associate directors that sit in close proximity with other White House officials. In the Fall issue of Issues in Science and Technology Policy, one Clinton-era OSTP Assistant Director, Gerald Hane, called for an even bolder move in creating a position of deputy assistant to the president for science, technology, and global affairs.

Holdren’s success will give a strong voice for science in the White House, but he will have his work cut out for him defending governmental research and development funding and U.S. leadership in innovation. After the promising early nomination of Holdren for science adviser, the science community is waiting for further bold action on science, such as lifting the federal ban on embryonic stem cell research. The elevation of OSTP director to a cabinet level would go a long way toward realizing Obama’s inaugural declaration to “restore science to its rightful place.”

Amy Hoang-Wrona is a Senior Policy Analyst at Strategic Analysis, Inc.

Possible selections for the national CTO, among many others, are Vint Cerf, a “father” of the Internet who is now Google’s chief Internet evangelist; former FCC adviser Julius Genachowski, who helped write Obama’s technology agenda; and a dark horse, Washington, D.C., CTO Vivek Kundra, who is advising Obama’s transition.

Mitch Kapor, founder of the Lotus Development Corporation and co-founder of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, penned the chapter of recommendations for the CTO in Change for America: A Progressive Blueprint for the 44th President. Read a summary of his suggestions here.

(HT: SEforA)

You would be wrong.

“Junk science jihadist.” “Ecofascist.” These are some things right wing sites have to say about Harvard physicist John Holdren, who will head up a newly reinvigorated White House science office under Obama. Such noises from the ideological extremes, a kind of last hurrah for the conservative war on science, won’t have much influence. But when we move closer to the political center and read editorials in Investor’s Business Daily and the Rocky Mountain News also criticizing Holdren and his approach to science policy, it becomes apparent that there’s still a lot of denial out there about the reality of our massive climate/energy problem. Mountainous evidence aside, accepted scientific findings about the frightening sensitivity of our climate system remain difficult for many people to swallow.

Investor’s Business Daily, for instance, calls Holdren (and NOAA administrator nominee Jane Lubchenco, also a distinguished scientist) a “global warming true believer.” Well, actually, he’s a renowned scientist who served, in 2006, as president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the leading member organization for this nation’s scientific community and the largest general scientific society in the world—not a post usually handed to “true believers” in anything other than the scientific method. Granted, Investor’s Business Daily thinks it’s actually cooling, not warming, globally. Perhaps it’s also telling readers to buy and hold coal and auto stocks for long term gains.

The Rocky Mountain News, meanwhile, suggests Holdren “lacks the temperament to be a fair arbiter when disputes arise about the economic and social trade-offs of environmental policies.” For instance, the paper charges that Holdren supports drastic reductions of greenhouse gas emissions by up to 80 percent of 1990 levels by 2050—precisely the position supported by the incoming president, though the paper doesn’t mention this, thereby making Holdren’s stance sound far more extreme than it actually is. The Rocky Mountain News further charges that while this would result in “big-time increases in energy costs,” Holdren “has never suggested that those higher costs should be offset by lowering taxes elsewhere.” Well, I don’t know if Holdren himself has suggested it or not, but I would fully expect to see provisions to protect average citizens from rising energy prices included in any cap-and-trade greenhouse gas regime supported by the Obama administration (such protections could come through tax cuts or direct checks from the government the so-called “cap-and-dividend” approach). And I sincerely doubt Holdren would have a problem with that.

Perhaps it is becoming apparent that there’s plenty of misinformation, and incomplete or just plain biased thinking, to be found in these attacks on Holdren, and on the policies that he and the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy will be tasked with implementing. Many of the circulating critiques seem inspired by blog sources, most prominently a a post written just after the announcement of Holdren’s appointment by New York Times science contrarian John Tierney, who made much hay of a ten-year bet Holdren made in 1980 (along with Paul Ehrlich) about natural resource scarcity with the libertarian economist Julian Simon, and lost; and an August post by University of Colorado political scientist Roger Pielke, Jr. (written before Holdren’s appointment), which critiqued a Holdren oped about human-caused global warming and those who continue to deny or reject its existence.

Because such critiques, once launched, tend to be repeated and circulate widely, I want to spend a bit more time answering some of them. But let me first disclose that I have met Holdren on several occasions, interviewed him, spoken with him, and always been very impressed by him. I also gave a talk in 2005 at the Woods Hole Research Center, where Holdren serves as director (a post he will presumably step down from to go to Washington).

An Ancient Bet. First, who cares what John Holdren and Paul Ehrlich bet about the price of chrome, copper, nickel, tin and tungsten in 1980, or whether they won? It’s 2008. I’ve never talked to Holdren about the bet, but I’m sure he learned something from it. Pick any scientist with a long, influential career and you’ll find something he or she has at one point or another been incorrect about. Or if you can’t find it, be worried.

Use of the Term “Denier.” Holdren’s aforementioned op-ed, published in the Boston Globe and the International Herald Tribune, is strongly worded about the problem of global warming “skepticism” or “denial”—and rightly so. It prompted a large volume of response, and Holdren has, in turn, answered his critics. It’s important to note that the op-ed wasn’t written when he was a representative of the president, and I would imagine that his language might not be as strong in the future. But in any event, I want to defend his, and anyone’s, right to use the term “denier” in a global warming context, something The Rocky Mountain News (among others) objects to. I am continually baffled by attempts to rule a perfectly good word out of bounds under the strange pretense that any use of it implies some type of connection with the phenomenon of Holocaust denial, which is the central complaint that global warming “skeptics” tend to make.

“Denier” is defined in the dictionary as meaning “one who denies.” You will note that there are no Holocaust references. The verb “deny” means (among other things) “to refuse to recognize or acknowledge; disown; disavow; repudiate.” It does not specifically refer to the Holocaust either. Perhaps that’s because the word is massively older: As Dictionary.com notes of the etymology (relying on the online etymology dictionary):

c.1300, from O.Fr. denier, from L. denegare, from de- “away” + negare “refuse, say ‘no,’ ” from Old L. nec “not,” from Italic base *nek-”not,” from PIE base *ne- “no, not” (see un-).

Why should we not properly use this time honored word? In particular, the idea that calling someone a “global warming denier” is an implicit comparison with Holocaust denial is absurd. When one uses words like “denier,” “denial,” and “deny,” there is no necessary reference to one particular species of the broader phenomenon, and thus no more invocation of Holocaust denial than of those who denied Christ or those who are in denial about their crumbling marriages. Global warming deniers do not have the power to redefine words that long preceded them, and that will long outlive them.

The Difference Between Science and Policy. Many of the anti-Holdren commentators want you to think he’s just as bad a politicizer of science as the Bush administration has been. Here the critics rely strongly on Pielke, Jr., who in his post quotes Holdren stating the following—“the science of climate change is telling us that we need to get going”—and so proceeds to characterize Holdren as someone who thinks that information gleaned from science “compels political outcomes.” Or as Pielke puts it elsewhere in his post: “The notion that science tells us what to do leads Holdren to appeal to authority to suggest that not only are his scientific views correct, but because his scientific views are correct, then so too are his political views.”

I don’t know where this is coming from. But I do know that I interviewed Holdren for my book The Republican War on Science, and quoted him on this very question: Does the information gleaned from science—e.g., greenhouse gases are causing global warming—necessarily compel a particular political solution—e.g., a cap and trade bill? Here’s Holdren, from page 23 of my book: “I don’t think there are very many scientists naive enough to think that science should always determine outcomes, but you shouldn’t defend outcomes by distorting the science.” I like much of Roger Pielke, Jr.’s work, and relied on it heavily in my second book Storm World, but I just don’t get the above criticism. Obviously Holdren is not such a naif about the relationship between science and policy—how could he be? Obviously he knows, just as everyone does, that economic, political, and other considerations weigh very heavily on policymaking, which is rarely or never driven solely by scientific information (and nor should it be). Indeed, the quotation of Holdren above came from a part of our interview in which he was getting a very elementary distinction that we all recognize out of the way, so that our conversation could then proceed to discussing matters of actual interest.

I would very much like to have used this column to explain to you what John Holdren actually knows, and thinks, about climate, and about energy—two of the most massive intertwined issues of our time, and one upon which he’s a consummate expert. Alas, these various attacks prevent that; but I’m still glad to join the Center for American Progress Action Fund’s Joe Romm, Tim Lambert, and others in answering them.

The nature of politics in the United States may be changing for the better, but there are also a lot of old habits that die hard.

Chris Mooney is contributing editor to Science Progress and author of several books, including The Republican War on Science and the forthcoming Unscientific America: How Scientific Illiteracy Threatens Our Future, co-authored by Sheril Kirshenbaum. He and Kirshenbaum blog at “The Intersection.”

Taken together, the seven science advisers he has so far appointed are surely the most distinguished group of scientists at the highest levels of government in decades. They would make the founders of our republic—the most technology-oriented pantheon of revolutionaries in history—proud.

Steven Chu is the first Nobel laureate in science nominated for a cabinet position, Secretary of Energy. Chu has the ability to recognize good science and, just as important, sees our energy and environmental problems within a larger framework of the innovation economy. To coordinate energy and climate policy in the White House Obama has selected former Environmental Protection Agency head Carol Browner. Former New Jersey environmental commissioner Lisa Jackson will run EPA. And L.A. deputy mayor Nancy Sutley will direct the White House Council on Environmental Quality.

All these impressive credentials are a beginning, not an end. But at the very least they say to the American people that respect for evidence will once again have a central role in government science policy.

As the Passover ritual says, if this is all the president-elect had done for science and our country that would have been sufficient. But he is also expected to name the highly respected Harvard University physicist and climate expert John Holdren as his White House science adviser. Holdren, a former board chairman of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, is a vigorous supporter of efforts to put innovation back on our national agenda, as it is crucial to all aspects of our national security and prosperity.

Obama will apparently also name Oregon State University marine biologist Jane Lubchenco as head of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Lubchenco, also much admired in the scientific community, is a member of both the National Academy of Science and the British Royal Academy.

Again, all these impressive credentials are a beginning, not an end. But at the very least they say to the American people that respect for evidence will once again have a central role in government science policy. The role of regulatory agencies—to create a level playing field of safety and opportunity—will be restored to its proper place in government, in the context of a public policy that builds the cleaner, green economy that must be the foundation of the new American prosperity.

Especially striking is the turn away from the tiresome, divisive and dispiriting culture wars that so politicized science—a sorry trademark of the past eight years. Americans can now look forward with pleasure to further smart appointments, including new leadership for the Food and Drug Administration and the National Institutes of Health.

At Science Progress we are committed to the proposition that sound public policy requires taking evidence seriously. If democracy is to thrive, we must find new and better ways to integrate the spirit of open inquiry into our policy process. That’s why we cover the latest research and discussions shaping science policy and develop pragmatic proposals that promote science and innovation that ensures greater freedom, justice, and quality of life for all people. We celebrate the new appreciation for the contributions of science to policy and to shaping a better world.

Yet the outgoing Bush administration has left us with a parting shot: a midnight regulation that could clear the way for new coal-fired plants not restrained by greenhouse-gas rules. Just one week ago today I experienced the “sunniest” day of a stay in Beijing. That was a bright, noxious haze in which I could roughly make out the rim of the sun. The seven for science named so far can’t alone protect us from the future we can read in the Beijing sky, but they can help show us the way.

Jonathan D. Moreno, Ph.D., is the David and Lyn Silfen University Professor of Ethics and Professor of Medical Ethics and of the History and Sociology of Science at the University of Pennsylvania, and the Editor-in-Chief of Science Progress.

Holdren had been planning to attend a staff meeting this morning with colleagues at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, where he heads the technology and science program. But instead, he flew today to Chicago to meet with the transition team and prepare for the announcement; initial plans are to release the official news of the appointment on a weekly radio program that Obama records and will be broadcast on Saturday. The transition office declined to comment.

Holdren is well known for his work on energy, climate change, and nuclear proliferation. Trained in fluid dynamics and plasma physics, Holdren branched out into policy early in his career. He has led the Woods Hole Research Center for the past 3 years and served as president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (which publishes ScienceInsider) in 2006.

The science adviser usually also serves as the director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy. Science Progress adviser Neal Lane held both of those positions for three years under the Clinton administration and authored the chapter on OSTP in the forthcoming Change for America.

UPDATE: Chris Mooney grabbed Holdren’s interview video endorsing the ScienceDebate2008 initiative:

Chu’s appointment—along with news that Carol Browner will get the nod to head the new National Energy Council and Lisa Jaskson will be nominated for administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency—sends a clear signal about Obama’s commitment to progressive energy and climate policy. But it’s also a clear return to a policymaking approach based on attention to scientific evidence, something readers hardly need to be reminded was far from what the Bush administration has been up to for the past eight years. (The Philadelphia Inquirer has a bruising indictment of Stephen Johnson’s tenure at the EPA. Johnson originally drew accolades as the first scientist to head the agency.) The potential of having a Nobel-winning scientist high in the executive branch is nothing short of energizing for the research community. Here’s some of the reaction in published reports:

“Steve Chu is a world-class intellectual…When I heard that name (for energy secretary), I smiled.”
—Steve Schneider, Stanford University environmental scientist

“When he was first here, he started giving talks about energy and production of energy… He didn’t just present a problem. He told us what we could do. It was an energizing thing to see. He’s not a manager, he’s a leader.”
—Bob Jacobsen, senior scientist at the Lawrence Berkeley lab and UC Berkeley physics professor

“He has been relentless about addressing the technical challenges of renewable energy in a deep way.”
—Robert J. Birgeneau, chancellor of the University of California, Berkeley

“[President-elect Obama] certainly needs somebody who can focus on the science and energy policies and I can’t think of a better guy than Steve.”
—Mike Lubell, physics professor at the City College of New York

“It’s a great sign to see a scientist named as head of this very important department, because it sends a signal that the issues of climate change and energy go well beyond ideology.”
—Keya Chatterjee, World Wildlife Fund

“After the anti-science Bush administration, this is like going to a Mensa meeting after eight years of being trapped in the Flat Earth Society.”
—Daniel J. Weiss, senior fellow at the Center for American Progress

Here’s to Dr. Chu and the rest of the next administration’s energy team bringing science back.

Lane, an adviser to SP, worked under President Clinton during the last three years of the former administration and is the author of the chapter on OSTP in the forthcoming book Change for America: A Progressive Blueprint for the 44th President. The book is a joint project between CAP’s sister organization, the Center for American Progress Action Fund, and the New Democracy Project, and offers recommendations for the next president and administration on priorities for a broad swath of executive branch departments and offices.

His first recommendations are for making sure that the nomination for science adviser comes fast on the heels of the inauguration and that the appointee also sits on the National Security Council, the National Economic Council, and the newly-suggested National Energy Council. Other key advice from Lane includes:

Move OSTP Back Into the White House Fold

This is both terms of representation in the policymaking process—fill out all four of the associate director positions, as two have been vacant during the Bush administration—and physical proximity. The Office “should be returned to the Eisenhower Old Executive Office Building so [staffers] can interact in real time with other senior White House policy officials and integrate informed, science-based decision making into White House policy.”

Executive Orders: Coordination and Restoration of Scientific Integrity

Lane recommends two key moves here. First, reinstitute the National Science and Technology Council, which during the Clinton administration included heads or deputies from all departments in the executive branch involved with science and tech policy and coordinated science policy among them.

Second, to reverse some of the damage done by conservatives through political interference with science-based policy, he suggests an order detailing that: “all federal policy and information provided to the public by the federal government will be based on the best scientific evidence; membership on federal scientific advisory committees will be based on scientific qualifications; and scientists within the federal government or funded by federal agencies will be free to publish and speak openly about their results, unless restricted due to national security concerns.”

Advocate for the Repeal of the Data Quality Act

This is an obscure provision wedged into a 2001 appropriations bill providing industries that threaten public and environmental health (e.g. polluters and cigarette manufacturers) with the legal tools to launch underhanded challenges on regulatory science before the government can use it to implement official protections. (For lucid and harrowing info on how its used, see David Michaels’s book, Doubt Is Their Product.)

Ten Percent

Lane echoes other science policymakers in writing that OSTP should press for key R&D agencies to get a 10 percent annual bump in their budgets. His list: NSF, NIH, the DOE Office of Science, NIST, DOD research programs (including DARPA), and NASA, NOAA, and USGS science programs.

You can hear more about Lane’s vision for progressive science policy under the new administration in the keynote speech he offered at the Science Progress event earlier this year.

For full listing of chapters in the book, including several that are available for download now, in advance of the January 5 release, visit the CAPAF project page.

University of Wisconsin-Madison

A colony of undifferentiated embryonic stem cells.

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.”

Within 90 days, he argues, NIH and HHS should have regulations in place for federal support of research involving ethically derived hESCs with these restrictions:

• The cells must have been derived from embryos produced for reproductive purposes.
• Those embryos must have been deemed in excess of medical need, were no longer being considered for transfer to a womb, and were slated for destruction.
• The embryos were freely donated by both of the adults who contributed genetic material to create them, as evidenced by proper written informed consent.
• No financial inducements were offered to donors, and the donors expressed through an informed consent process their understanding that any resulting cell lines will be used for research and not for the development of therapeutic benefits for the donors.
• All federally funded research on human embryonic stem cells must be conducted under the review of a Stem Cell Research Oversight committee that adheres to the standards put forth in the guidelines of either the National Academies or the International Society for Stem Cell Research.

Read the full outline for the policy recommendation here.

On October 23, 2001, Senate confirmation finally came for physicist John Marburger, former director of Brookhaven National Laboratory. It was a full ten months into the new administration, and the president had already set in stone his stances on the two most dominant science policy issues: embryonic stem cell research and climate change. Marburger did not bear the “assistant to the president” title; compared with his predecessors Gibbons and physicist Neal Lane, Clinton’s second science adviser, he had been demoted.

The difference here is between forethought and afterthought, between priority and inferiority. And now, hopefully very soon, we will get a third data point, allowing us to determine where Barack Obama falls on the spectrum.

Top science organizations have already asked the incoming president to name his science adviser prior to the inauguration, and at the same time, to restore the First Scientist’s rank and standing. Obama himself has pledged to move “quickly” on the appointment, but without making a specific promise as to timing. And so now we wait. But in the meantime, I’d like to indulge a bit and imagine how the rollout ought to occur.

The First Scientist ought to be part of this top tier of unfolding administration rollouts.

Thus far, President-elect Obama has mostly announced the members of his cabinet in thematic groups. First came the economic appointees and advisers, then came the foreign policy and national security team. At this point, we’re still waiting to learn about the heads of the energy and environmental agencies—EPA administrator, Interior secretary, Energy secretary—and related positions such as White House Council on Environmental Quality chair. We’re also waiting for the filling of prominent health posts: Health and Human Services secretary (though it seems clear Tom Daschle will take that job), the heads of the NIH, CDC, FDA, and so on. There are other important roles, too, that are yet to be filled. The question is where the science adviser fits into the picture.

First, let me state unequivocally my view, which is also presumably that of the nation’s science organizations: The First Scientist ought to be part of this top tier of unfolding administration rollouts. If this is a cabinet level adviser, then we’re talking about someone technically similar in stature to the national security adviser, who has already been named.

It’s true, and unfortunate, that the media and most observers don’t accord the science adviser such a status in their minds. The position has declined in visibility since its inception in the late 1950s. But it ought to have this measure of importance awarded to it, and let’s hope the Obama transition team agrees.

So then where does the science adviser best fit? Here it gets tricky. There’s a serious argument that the science adviser ought to be thought of as part of the economic team. We know that scientific research and innovation, funded by government, fuels economic growth; one need look no farther than the Internet to see this. But then, the First Scientist should also play a key role in national security and international affairs: The day after Obama named his team, a panel of experts warned that we need to worry about a bioterror attack by the year 2013.

Moving on to environment and health, once again we can easily see the relevance of the science adviser’s expertise. It would be perfectly appropriate to name him or her when announcing the EPA and Interior heads, or when filling the top administration health jobs. No one grouping is obviously superior to any other.

What this exercise has clearly shown, however, is that science informs a vast array of issues that the government must manage. The trouble is that this fact is rarely acknowledged; science policy instead gets treated as a somewhat isolated issue area, centrally concerned with the setting of research budget priorities and little else. Just to break us out of this mould, I rather wish the First Scientist had been named as a part of the national security team; that would have been a delightful reframing of the role of science in policymaking on all levels.

But whatever happens, it’s critical that we see the science adviser rollout given a level of prominence on par with all these other nominations. Precisely how the Obama transition team accomplishes as much is up to them, but in our next government, science can’t just be an afterthought.

Chris Mooney is contributing editor to Science Progress and author of several books, including The Republican War on Science and the forthcoming Unscientific America: How Scientific Illiteracy Threatens Our Future, co-authored by Sheril Kirshenbaum. He and Kirshenbaum blog at “The Intersection.”

Basic Books

Change for America: A Progressive Blueprint for the 44th President

Change for America is a joint project between CAP’s sister organization, the Center for American Progress Action Fund, and the New Democracy Project, and offers recommendations for the next president and administration on priorities for a broad swath of executive branch departments and offices. Cox spent nearly a decade at FDA and the Department of Health and Human Services, and is now senior vice president at the Consumer Healthcare Products Association. Her recommendations focus on restoring the reputation of this embattled office, which has lost more than 1,000 scientists over the past few years in the face of insufficient funding and a mushrooming workload. Here’s a look at some of the key guidance she offers:

Increase Funding and Recruit and Retain a Workforce That Can Keep Pace With New Technological Demands

“Less than 4 percent of [the FDA's] workforce is under 30 years of age, and 44 percent are over 50,” she explains. “Almost 50 percent of its managers and supervisors are eligible for retirement in the next five years.”

Protect the Food Supply

The agency released a comprehensive Food Protection Plan in November 2007, but in the intervening year, the Bush administration declined to request funding for implementation. Cox recommends that the president-elect and his transition team work with Congress to appropriate the necessary funding and give FDA the necessary authority to implement the plan. Moreover, FDA should implement science-based controls for food safety monitoring and require that manufacturers can regularly assure the FDA that they are producing safe products. Food safety is important to avert contamination like the salmonella outbreak of this year, and the potential for a bioterrorism attack on the food supply is all the more reason to act.

Improve Drug Safety

The new administration must, within its first year in office, make sure that the FDA implements plans to conduct more thorough postmarket monitoring to ensure that drugs are still safe after they’ve gone on sale to the public.

Reduce Risk From Abroad

“A recent GAO report showed that 80 percent of all drugs sold in the United States are made, in whole or in part, overseas,” Cox writes, and FDA needs to make sure that those pharmaceuticals and other products are safe before they enter the United States. “The new administration will need to develop and implement a comprehensive risk-based approach to overseeing foreign inspections.”

Long-Term

Beyond the first year in office, Cox argues that FDA must set up protocols to ensure the safety of products made from cloned or genetically engineered animals (an issue Rick Weiss has covered here and here). As well, the agency must adapt to assure the safe and environmentally-friendly use of nanotechnology (see Weiss’s coverage here and here) and monitor the judicious application of genomic research for personalized medicine (Weiss, again).

Finally, FDA has an important role to play in addressing the deceleration of drug development through its Critical Path Initiative, which is designed “to help modernize the drug-development system by creating a process to identify new critical therapies, to prioritize innovation, to work with the nongovernmental scientific community, and to streamline processes,” but requires administration support to move forward with a more detailed plan.

For full listing of chapters in the book, including several that are available for download now, in advance of the January 5 release, visit the CAPAF project page.

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. Science Progress adviser Tom Kalil will serve on the group, which will implement the president-elect’s “Innovation Agenda”—a phrase familiar to readers of Kalil and John Irons’s report from CAP’s Progressive Growth series of last year.

For a full list of the working group members, see the “Technology, Innovation & Government Reform” group under the list of policy working groups on change.gov.

Basic Books

Change for America: A Progressive Blueprint for the 44th President

One of the first questions from the audience at this morning’s Google D.C. Talk concerned a topic of interest to the techies everywhere: who should President-elect Obama appoint as the Chief Technology Office for the government? The panelists didn’t make any concrete recommendations, aside from mentioning names that have been bandied about in the media and blogosphere, but while the transition team continues working on appointments, the other pressing question is what should be the policy priorities of the executive branch CTO?

No one has ever held the job before, 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.

Mitchell Kapor, founder of the Lotus Development Corporation and co-founder of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, is the author of the chapter and argues that technology is a tool for all aspects of effective governance:

Rather than being thought of as alien territory or an implementation detail, the next president can use information and communications technology, or ICT, to proactively drive both the vision and the strategy for a progressive agenda that emphasizes democratic renewal, opportunity creation, and a broader vision of security.

He outlines three roles for the CTO: advise the president on open government programs, work with the Office of Science and Technology Policy on policy areas where ICT is important, and help expand communications technology capabilities across the country.

Some of his recommendations:

Move fast. Kapor writes that the president-elect should appoint a CTO immediately, and make it someone who “deeply understands information and communications technology policy issues, has concrete experience implementing and managing actual technology systems, and is a skilled and collegial advocate for technology issues.”

Expand Transparency. “The CTO should be a champion of principles of open government.”

Listen to Public Concerns. The CTO should play a visible inside and outside government role, advocating for “the president’s information and communications technology priorities with Congress, the media, the private sector, and civil society,” and unify technology efforts across executive branch agencies.

The Center for American Progress Action Fund, sister organization to CAP, last week released Change for America in conjunction with the New Democracy Project. The book draws on the expertise of 67 leading policymakers who describe how the presidential transition should operate and what policies it should prioritize across a wide swath of executive branch departments and agencies—many of which play critical roles in the determination of the county’s science policy.

What do readers think should be the priorities for the first White House CTO?

Basic Books

Change for America: A Progressive Blueprint for the 44th President

The Center for American Progress Action Fund, sister organization to CAP, last week released in conjunction with the New Democracy Project “Change for America: A Progressive Blueprint for the 44th President.” The book draws on the expertise of 67 leading policymakers who describe how the presidential transition should operate and what policies it should prioritize across a wide swath of executive branch departments and agencies—many of which play critical roles in the determination of the county’s science policy.

Today, CAPAF posted a new slate of chapters from the book online for free download, including Science Progress adviser Tom Kalil’s overview on science, technology, and innovation. Kalil, a veteran of the Clinton administration’s science policy team, looks back over the history of successful government-backed research and lays out principles for the future, which include these primary steps:

Increase funding for research and development, improve the math and science skills of America’s workforce, reform our nation’s immigration laws to attract the “best and brightest,” strengthen incentives for private sector investment in R&D, and expand the role that science, technology, and innovation can play in meeting some of our most important national and global challenges.

Innovation is for everyone, Kalil argues, and can help us solve a wide array of challenges that face all citizens. He points out the “market failures” of the innovation process but also preempts conservative criticism of federal investment in R&D by acknowledging that there is a risk for “government failures” such as “pork-barrel politics, rent-seeking by interest groups, and regulatory capture by the industries that agencies are supposed to police.” Sound policy must chart a course around these problems and direct market forces to cultivate solutions when appropriate rather than simply dictate command-and-control policies.

Kalil’s specific recommendations, some of which he has presented previously on SP, include:

Double R&D Funding:

“Over the next 10 years, the federal government should provide 7 percent to 10 percent annual increases in the budgets of the key science agencies, such as the National Science Foundation, the National Institutes of Health, the Department of Defense, the Department of Energy, and the National Institute of Standards and Technology.

Focus on Clean Energy Technology:

“New efforts should be launched in areas such as clean energy technologies, which will accelerate the transition to a low-carbon economy, including nanotechnology- based solar cells as cheap as paint, or intelligent grids that support distributed energy resources.”

Support High-Risk, High-Return Research:

“Due to the shortcomings of today’s science policies, the new administration should expand support for high-risk, high-return research, particularly at agencies such as DARPA, and fill the void left by the demise of research labs such as Bell Labs with new university-industry partnerships, such as the Nanoelectronics Research Initiative. These new research efforts should encourage multidisciplinary research and education.”

Kalil also lays out a slate of policies to grow a national workforce with better skills in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. These recommendations include college scholarships for students pursuing undergrad degrees in STEM fields along with a teaching certification, more partnerships between industry and community colleges to create useful programs in technical fields, and ramping up National Science Foundation support of graduate research fellowships. He also explains how immigration reform that expands the H1-B visa program for highly-skilled workers is another important component to a competitive workforce.

On the tax front, his main recommendation is simple: make the R&D tax credit permanent.

You can download a pdf of the entire chapter here.

UPDATE: The link to the .pdf went down, but has been fixed.

Weiss’s Notebook

CAP Senior Fellow Rick Weiss covered science and medicine for The Washington Post for 15 years, and now he brings his investigative eye to science policy. From cloning and stem cells to agricultural biotechnology and nanotechnology, Weiss examines the issues at the intersection of cutting edge research and public policy.

The presidential transition, begun quietly before the party conventions, now barrels ahead at full speed. And as soon as the transition team has completed its immediate work on the two most pressing issues of the day—national security and the economy—there is good reason to believe that the nation’s science agencies and offices will get fast and close attention.

It is a truism by now that the solutions to many of the major problems facing the United States—climate change, energy, the environment, health care, and food security, among others—have major scientific or technological components. It is also widely recognized that the Bush administration’s almost allergic rejection of scientific evidence and government oversight has badly stalled the development of new approaches to these problems, as well as others in the life sciences and public health. Transition officials clearly plan to act quickly to select new heads for the agencies responsible for these interlinked issues, with an eye toward enabling coordinated efforts.

Already, the Washington rumor mill is buzzing with names of possible science appointees. I have no inside information, but to satisfy the innate human urge to give and receive gossip, I’m happy to highlight some of what I’ve heard from others. For secretary of Health and Human Services, there is talk of former Majority Leader (and CAP senior fellow) Tom Daschle (D-S.D.), who released a book in February on the nation’s healthcare crisis; Nobel laureate and former National Institutes of Health Director Harold Varmus, currently president of Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center; Howard Dean, the Democratic National Committee chairman and a family physician; and Kathleen Sebelius (D), the governor of Kansas, who made a name for herself when she successfully fought a major battle against BlueCross-BlueShield’s plan to become a for-profit company.

For FDA Commissioner, some have floated the names of Mike Taylor, a former deputy FDA commissioner with particular expertise in food safety; Mary Pendergast, who had a top post in the FDA under President Clinton and has also consulted for the pharmaceutical industry; and even Steven Nissen, the Cleveland Clinic maverick M.D. who has become a chronic thorn in the side of big pharma by repeatedly challenging the data that drug companies have used to back up their claims of safety and efficacy.

It’s been easy for scientists to gripe about their mistreatment during the past eight years. But now is not the time to demand payback.

The parlor game could go on, and it will. But what is more interesting, really, is just how many high-level science openings there are to fill. There are the cabinet-level positions overseeing such science-heavy departments as Agriculture, Energy, and Commerce. There is the surgeon general, the directors of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the National Institutes of Health, and the National Institute of Standards and Technology; the administrators of NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration; and the head of the United States Geological Survey, the all-important research arm of the Interior department.

Within the executive office of the president alone there is the director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy and science advisor to the president (a position that many in science hope will be elevated to a cabinet level “assistant to the president” post); four associate directors of the Office of Science and Technology Policy; a gaggle of presidentially appointed members of the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology; the chairman of the Council on Environmental Quality; the director and three associate directors of the Office of Management and Budget; and the administrator of OMB’s Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, which has in recent years become an increasingly important venue for scientific review and regulation.

Now feel free to skip this paragraph—and to seek help if in fact you make it to the end—but I would be remiss not to mention as well that within the Agriculture Department alone the president needs to appoint three science-based under secretaries—for research, education, and economics; food safety; and food, nutrition, and consumer services. In Commerce he must choose an under secretary for oceans and atmosphere. In Defense he must find a director of defense research and engineering; an under secretary for acquisition, technology and logistics; a director for the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency; an assistant secretary for health affairs; an assistant secretary for networks and information integration; a chief information officer; and an assistant to the secretary for nuclear and chemical and biological defense programs. In Education he must pick a director of that department’s Institute of Education Sciences. In Energy there are slots that must be filled for an under secretary of science; an under secretary for energy and environment; an assistant secretary for energy efficiency and renewable energy; an assistant secretary for environmental management; an assistant secretary for fossil energy; an assistant secretary of nuclear energy; and an under secretary for nuclear security.

And remember, we’re just talking about the most science-y presidential appointments here. We’ll ignore the nearly 500 others for now (but see below for a more exhaustive list).

Of these myriad positions, the most important will be the director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. This is a position that has traditionally been held by a physicist, a holdover from the days when the most important thing to think about in science was the risk of a nuclear attack. Today, as the nation faces a far broader array of scientific threats, including climate change and biological warfare, it will be interesting to see if the new president breaks with tradition and appoints an earth scientist or biologist to that central scientific coordinating position.

The fruits of all these transitional decisions will take time to ripen, but here are a few questions worth asking today:

Will HHS lead a quick and effective charge to focus more on prevention, reduce the cost of healthcare and insurance, and expand coverage to the un- and underinsured?

Will FDA work together with Agriculture to revamp the nation’s food safety system? Will it demand more of pharmaceutical companies, and will it regulate tobacco?

Will EPA get back to the job of using science to calculate honestly the effects of pesticides and other chemicals on the environment and human health? Will it lead the way to dealing with climate change and stand up for endangered species?

Will DOE jump-start the transition to a low-carbon economy by aggressively funding work on alternative energy sources and promulgating strict energy efficiency standards for homes and office buildings? Will it tackle the problem of nuclear waste?

And will Interior manage, in an integrated way, the nation’s precious fresh water resources and protect public lands for we the taxpayers who together own them?

To answer these questions in the affirmative will require a government commitment to data instead of ideology, which alone would constitute a real break from the Bush legacy. But it will also require a huge corps of scientists willing to speak up, and to provide and interpret those much-needed data for the good of the country.

The National Academies put it well in their 2008 report, “Science and Technology For America’s Progress: Ensuring the Best Presidential Appointments in the New Administration”:

The nature of our current national challenges, whether domestic or abroad, demands the best of science, engineering and technology to solve. “More of the same” will not work in the 21st century. Innovative thinking will be needed to a degree unprecedented in American history. Fortunately, large numbers of scientists, engineers, and health professionals have experienced positive change throughout their careers and have been enormously successful as a result. They have much to give back. Government service is an excellent means by which to repay that debt.

It’s been easy for scientists to gripe about their mistreatment during the past eight years. But now is not the time to demand payback. Now is the time for science to put its best foot forward and show the country what it’s been missing.

Rick Weiss is a Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress and Science Progress.

Key Science and Technology Positions

Adapted from the NAS report, “Science and Technology for America’s Progress: Ensuring the Best Presidential Appointments in the New Administration”

PAS = presidential appointment with Senate confirmation

PA = presidential appointment (without Senate confirmation)

NA = noncareer appointment

FT = fixed term appointment, with length of appointment indicated

Examples of Scientific and Technical Federal Advisory Commitees, by Origin and Purpose

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 tools to organize the next administration at change.gov.

In his article on the many uses for social software in the transition (“The Oval Office Facebook Group“), Mark Drapeau wrote that the team “can expect…about 40,000 applications in the first few weeks and eventually…70,000 interested persons,” hence the job application form.

But today is also the day that Obama and his national security staff began their daily intelligence briefings, and as Drapeau pointed out, the intelligence community already wields some powerful IT tools for collaborating and sharing information. Making the most of that technology to get the new government up to speed will be a critical component of this massive project.