How important is the White House science adviser?

Presidents have had science advisers in one form or another since Franklin D. Roosevelt. The position gained new importance in 1976 when Congress established the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP). The OSTP has a mandate to advise the President and others in the Executive Office of the President on the effects of science and technology on domestic and international affairs.

According to its website , the OSTP and science adviser, who until recently held the title “assistant to the president”, has had some success in the past in pushing programs such as the Human Genome Project and getting support for doubling the budget of the National Institutes of Health.

As previous science advisers told Physics Today when current science adviser John Marburger was nominated in 2001, access to the president is critical. Through direct contact, the science adviser not only can discuss policy with the president, but he gains status as a true “insider,” an invaluable asset when dealing with the federal bureaucracy.

Neal Lane, a former science adviser to the Clinton administration, told the New York Times for an article about the politicization of science , “Your influence depends on whether people around the president feel you have something to add.”

Whether Marburger has had the access he would like in the Bush administration, remains in question, D. James Baker, the former head of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration , has stated that “the administration has backed away from listening to the science adviser position .”

In that regard, despite the experience and long list of eminent scientists providing advice to the Clinton, Obama, Romney, and McCain candidacies, only John Edwards and Hillary Clinton have explicitly stated that they will return the science adviser position to its previous rank of “assistant to the president.”

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The Science Adviser , Seed magazine, 4 January 2008Presidential Candidates Dodge Tough Science Topics , FOX News, 4 January 2008Political Science , The New York Times, 4 September 2005Past Science Advisers Counsel Bush Nominee , Physics Today, 1 August 2001