by Gary Jones
FLC Washington, DC Representative
Greetings from D.C. As we in DC await the influx of possibly up to 4 million temporary inhabitants to the region during the inauguration (I'm writing this column in mid-December), two questions are on the minds of many in the local community: how much can I charge to rent out that spare room in the basement for the week, and what will the new administration's science and technology policy look like?
The answer to the first, of course, is "it depends" (e.g., on supply — limited, and demand — huge). The answer to the second is a little more direct, but at this stage of the game is still in the process of moving from campaign rhetoric to formal administration policy. Here are some highlights of what we know at the moment, with links to the full documents where you can find more details.
In their campaign platform on technology and innovation, candidates Obama and Biden presented their Plan for Science and Innovation, in which they highlighted five major thematic areas of interest with numerous underlying programmatic details. The five thematic plan headings are provided (verbatim) below.
- Restoring integrity to U.S. science policy to ensure that decisions that can be informed by science are made on the basis of the strongest possible evidence.
- Doubling over a 10-year period the federal investment in basic research by key science agencies, with a special emphasis on supporting young researchers at the beginning of their careers, and backing high-risk, high-return research.
- Making a national commitment to science education and training by recruiting some of America's best minds to teach K-12 math and science and by tripling the number of the National Science Foundation's Graduate Research Fellowships.
- Encouraging American innovation to flourish by making the R&D tax credit permanent, streamlining our patent system, eliminating the capital gains tax on start-ups and small businesses, and promoting the deployment of next-generation broadband networks.
- Addressing the "grand challenges" of the 21st century through accelerating the transition to a low carbon, oil-free economy, enabling all Americans to live longer and healthier lives, and protecting our country from emerging threats to our national security.
While there is nothing too surprising in here, there are a few noteworthy items. For example, under the desire to double basic research funding, their plan identified not only those agencies currently slated under the American Competitiveness Initiative to have their funding double (National Institute of Standards and Technology, Department of Energy's Office of Science and National Science Foundation), but also included the National Institutes of Health. They also proposed, under the general rubric of restoring U.S. manufacturing leadership, to create an Advanced Manufacturing Fund for investing in advanced manufacturing strategies, as well as doubling funding for the Manufacturing Extension Partnership, a program whose budget was constantly under attack from the prior administration. The document contains numerous other specific program items under the five headings (too many to highlight here).
Since the election, the new administration has begun building its overarching agenda across all policy topic areas, including technology, now posted on their transition web site. The post-election Technology Agenda has in some ways broadened (retaining the general nature of the campaign document while including a few more areas of focus), but no longer has the "programmatic" specificity outlined in the more detailed campaign platform. Between the two, however, we can get an emerging picture of where technology and innovation policy may be headed over the next few years. We'll keep an eye out and report on developments as the policy and legislative agenda progresses under the new administration. Of course the new Congress will also have something to say on the matter, so stay tuned for that as well.
The Obama-Biden Technology and Innovation Plan (pre-election) can be found at http://www.barackobama.com/pdf/issues/FactSheetScience.pdf; see the post-election Technology Agenda at http://change.gov/agenda/technology_agenda/.
Gary can be reached at gkjones@federallabs.org.
