Commentary: A new member of the science adviser fraternity

The science policy establishment is welcoming the Senate’s 2 January confirmation of Kelvin Droegemeier as director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP). His appointment, which also carries the title of science adviser to the president, will end a two-year rudderless stretch for OSTP in which science has lacked a dedicated voice in the Oval Office.

A meteorologist and former vice president for research at the University of Oklahoma, Droegemeier is doubtless well qualified for the post. In addition to his academic credentials, he served for 12 years on the National Science Board, the NSF governing body that introduced three of his predecessors—including OSTP’s first director, Guyford Stever—to the intersection of science and politics. Droegemeier says he is awaiting resolution of the partial government shutdown before heading to Washington, DC, and granting interviews.

The origins of the science adviser can be traced to World War II and Vannevar Bush, the influential head of the Office of Scientific Research and Development, which oversaw the federal wartime R&D program, including the Manhattan Project. Bush saw a need for peacetime investment in basic research and pushed for the formation of what became NSF. President Harry Truman named the first official science adviser, Bell Labs engineer Oliver Buckley, in 1951.

Every president since that time has had at least one science adviser, though Richard Nixon, not a fan of science and unhappy with the advice he was getting, abolished the position after two successive advisers quit. (President Gerald Ford restored the post.) Each adviser’s training has been in the physical sciences or engineering. All have been men, though two women have served in an acting capacity.

I’ve interacted with four science advisers over the years, beginning with John “Jack” Gibbons, President Bill Clinton’s first OSTP director. The wisecracking, aw-shucks director of the now-defunct congressional Office of Technology Assessment had begun his career at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. Gibbons was lured to OSTP by a fellow Tennessean, Vice President Al Gore, who frequently brought in the scientific cognoscenti and press to White House events.

Neal Lane, the soft-spoken and courteous NSF director and Rice University provost, served the last three years of Clinton’s presidency. He led the inauguration of the National Nanotechnology Initiative and advised on missile defense and food safety. He battled R&D budget cuts proposed by Congress during a rare few years of budget surpluses. Lane also oversaw preparation of the first quadrennial national assessment of the impacts of climate change on the US. The most recent assessment was released last November; President Trump promptly dismissed its findings .

More than a half year into his administration, President George W. Bush chose Brookhaven National Laboratory director John “Jack” Marburger, a Democrat, to head OSTP. A former president of Stony Brook University, the usually easygoing Marburger (he always returned my calls) got a bit testy when defending the administration from accusations that it had suppressed scientific findings and muzzled government scientists on climate change.

Marburger oversaw both an increase in counterterrorism R&D that followed 9/11 and the anthrax attacks and the establishment of an R&D operation within the newly formed Department of Homeland Security. He also initiated an interagency “science of science policy” program to measure the impacts of the federal science and technology enterprise and to help guide the government in improving its management. Marburger’s rank in the White House pecking order fell one level from the “assistant to the president” title of his predecessors. Bush critics seized on the downgrade as evidence of a diminished influence of science in the Oval Office.

Harvard professor John Holdren, an arms control activist, environmentalist, and onetime fusion researcher, was appointed by President Barack Obama even before Obama assumed office. The president also bumped the science adviser post back up to its pre-Bush rank. Holdren’s input to White House science policy had begun during the Clinton years with his stint on the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST), an advisory committee that has been moribund under Trump. Holdren, like Marburger, served through both presidential terms.

A strong advocate of renewable energy, Holdren shaped Obama’s actions to address climate change and redirect NASA’s space program. But Holdren left office unhappy that science budgets hadn’t doubled as the president wanted and that US nuclear warhead retirements had slowed from the pace of the Bush years. He’s been outspoken in condemning Trump’s undoing of Obama’s policies to address climate change.

Holdren didn’t share the others’ amiability and accessibility to reporters. He rarely gave interviews, and at his infrequent public appearances he often would excuse himself after taking a few questions, ostensibly to scurry back for an urgent White House meeting. When I interviewed him in August 2016 , Holdren attributed his aloofness to an inability to be “in all places at all times and all things to all people.”

It’s impossible to know which of the advisers were the most influential. Citing confidentiality, none would discuss the content or even the frequency of conversations they had with the president. Measured by the size of OSTP, Holdren would top the list, with a staff that grew to 120, many of them detailees from other agencies. The Clinton-era staff was around 60. Only about 40 people work there now, but staffing at OSTP has grown from a small base in the past.

Arguably the most influential science policy adviser to the government never held the office. William Golden, a Wall Street tycoon and fan of science, is said to have convinced Truman of the need for a science adviser. Golden is also said to have been a major influence in the establishment of NSF in 1950. Over several decades he badgered Congress and the executive branch to create new federal science policy entities, including OSTP and PCAST. Golden personally paid for a National Research Council study that led to the establishment of an office of science adviser to the secretary of state in 2000, and he financed periodic gatherings of the science advisers of the G7 nations.

Golden, who died in 2007 at age 97, donated millions to the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), which named its headquarters building for him. Serving for 30 years as AAAS treasurer, he was the force behind the AAAS Science and Technology Policy Fellowships program, which has placed thousands of scientists in the White House, federal agencies, and congressional offices since its creation in 1973.

What use (if any) Droegemeier’s counsel will have to a president who has repeatedly rejected advice from other top White House staff and cabinet members remains to be seen. It’s pretty clear that Trump’s denial of climate change as an issue requiring urgent action won’t be altered, regardless of Droegemeier’s own views.