Clinton Plans for Technology Aimed at Jobs
WASHINGTON — President-elect Bill Clinton, edging toward an activist federal role in promoting new technologies that create jobs, is considering turning an obscure Commerce Department unit into a high-powered agency to unify and boost advanced research and technology, knowledgeable sources said Wednesday.
The goal is to spur economic recovery and long-term growth by translating basic research discoveries into technologies, devices or consumer goods that create private-sector jobs--an active government role and one Washington has traditionally avoided as meddling in the private marketplace.
Among those that would benefit are Silicon Valley’s computer industry, many leaders of which endorsed Clinton.
Under the proposal, the Commerce Department’s 3-year-old Technology Administration would be expanded and given the mission of refocusing federal research and development programs on “critical technologies.” Those include aeronautics, high-performance computing, alternative energy, new materials, surface transportation and environmental cleanup, sources close to the transition team said.
The task of overseeing technology policy is now scattered among 15 to 20 government departments and agencies.
The Technology Administration, with a relatively meager budget of $230 million, was created in 1989 by Congress--over President Bush’s opposition--to coordinate technology policy and foster improved competitiveness in U.S. industry. A top Administration official conceded that the agency has fallen woefully short of expectations, resulting in “a lot of decentralization” of efforts to promote technological development.
Because the reorganization would require some congressional approvals, it could run afoul of turf-conscious members of Congress accustomed to seizing the initiative on science and technology issues after 12 years of a laissez faire approach by the Ronald Reagan and Bush administrations.
The House in September passed legislation to enlarge the Technology Administration, as well as to provide a permanent tax credit for research and development--a proposal that Clinton also supports. But the Senate adjourned before acting on it.
Transition sources emphasized Wednesday that no final decisions have been made--in part because Clinton and Vice President-elect Al Gore have not yet settled on the precise duties Gore will assume Jan. 20. In a campaign speech at the Sandia National Laboratory in Albuquerque Sept. 18, Clinton said he would assign Gore to “take on the task of organizing all facets” of a new technology policy.
One pending issue is whether Gore--an acknowledged congressional authority on science and technology--will in effect become White House science adviser. If so, that could diminish the role of the 45-member White House Office of Science and Technology, helping Clinton toward his highly touted goal of reducing the White House staff by 25%.
But that scenario is unlikely, sources said, because Gore is not a professionally trained scientist and the move could lead scientists to believe science and technology are being downgraded--the opposite of what Clinton intends.
As part of the bid to reduce the White House staff, Clinton’s transition staff in Little Rock, Ark., also is debating proposals to abolish the Competitiveness Council and the National Space Council, two controversial bodies headed by Vice President Dan Quayle.
The Competitiveness Council often served as an ally to big businesses that sought exceptions to Clean Air Act requirements. The Space Council promoted certain pet projects for NASA--such as space station Freedom and Mission to Mars--that others in the scientific community thought should compete for funds like any other program rather than have a special champion in the White House.
Clinton emphasized the importance of the Commerce Department in his Administration last week during his first post-election press conference. Without elaborating, he said the department’s performance would directly “affect the success or failure of this Administration’s economic efforts.”
During the campaign, Clinton often disparaged “the diffused nature” of the government’s technology programs. He pledged to centralize them and create a forum for industry input into government deliberations on technology policy and competitiveness.
Sources said Wednesday that an expanded Technology Administration would likely oversee a shift in federal spending for military and civilian research. The civilian sector would eventually receive 60% of the $76 billion spent annually on such research, currently split 50-50 between the two.
One major policy paper circulating among transition team members in Little Rock reads: “The twin problems at present are . . . the absence of leadership committed to understanding and promoting non-defense science and technology as a major factor in national economic health, and . . . the absence of ‘tools,’ or bureaucratic mechanisms and incentives, for promoting policy coherence, coordination and priority-setting.”
To those advocating such efforts, the importance of a well-coordinated government effort to encourage technology development was underscored this week when the General Accounting Office reported that all but one of 11 key high-tech industries lost ground to foreign competition in the 1980s.
Clinton also has said he intends to create 170 manufacturing extension centers, styled after national agricultural extension centers, to spread knowledge and know-how.
Reacting to potential upgrading of the Technology Administration, some business and academic experts said they endorsed any moves to better coordinate technology policy.
“Any greater coordination of the nation’s various technology policies is the right goal,” said Michael Borrus, co-director of the Berkeley Roundtable on the International Economy at UC Berkeley.
But he added that “the issue is a question of strategy and where you lodge the authority for coordinating it. If you could accomplish the coordination without going to Congress for authority it might be a better solution. It isn’t clear whether centralizing authority in the Commerce Department would be as good as giving authority to the vice president.”
Times staff writer Mary Guthrie contributed to this story.
