Bad Grades for White House Science Office

Source: "ScienceScope," Science magazine, Volume 320, Number 5883, Issue of 20 June 2008.

"The White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) needs a 'critical upgrade' to more effectively tackle important science issues, says a report released this week by the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. In a 17 June briefing, the report's authors and other experts said that the current office, headed by John Marburger with a staff of 50 and a $5.2 million budget, is often ignored by the president and does a mediocre job of coordinating science policy among federal agencies. In that way, said consultant and co-author Mark Schaefer, it resembles science offices in previous Administrations. The report itself was more circumspect, calling for four assistants (up from two) who are confirmed by the Senate, offices in the Old Executive Office Building adjacent to the West Wing (OSTP currently sits in another building slightly farther away), and more face time with the next president.

"'If you're not able to forge the relationships in the inner sanctuary, … you can't get stuff done,' said Deborah Wince-Smith, president of the Council on Competitiveness and a former OSTP staffer. But Marburger calls the additional top staff 'management overkill' and says the report's recommendation to give his office more clout by making it a Cabinet-level agency 'in my experience would not be necessary.'"

Comment: Are the Republicans worse in the use of science advice than the Democrats? While the White House post of Science Advisor was established by President Eisenhower, it was abolished in the Nixon administration. The Congressional Office of Technology Assessment was created by the Democratic Congress in 1972, but abolished by the Republican Congress in 1995. The Bush administration has been at war with the scientific community in areas such as evolutionary theory, reproductive biology related research, climate change, and environmental regulations, and thus unlikely to have used scientific advice well where it most needed it. JAD