President Clinton won't be able to reinvent the entire government, but he and his science adviser, John H. Gibbons, have already laid the groundwork for a "Big Bang"-type revision of the government's $76 billion science budget. Almost unnoticed, the pair have put reorientation of federal research and development on a fast track that may forever change the R&D work.
Past science advisers have tried but failed to manage the direction of government science and technology. Interagency turf battles and opposition from the Office of Management and Budget - which resists yielding any budget-setting authority - rendered the work of most science advisers largely meaningless. The difference now is that OMB Director Leon Panetta has already privately agreed to a friendly takeover of R&D budget planning by Gibbons and a newly formed National Science and Technology Council.Sources describe it as the National Security Council of Science. It is so important to Clinton that he is expected to chair it personally - cutting down on the kind of budgetary bickering that would occur if Gibbons were chairman.
The council's blueprint - affecting more than 700 national laboratories - is an Aug. 17 internal memo to all Cabinet secretaries and was obtained by our associate, Dale Van Atta. One of its rare aspects is that it is co-signed by Gibbons and Panetta, giving it unusual clout.
The memo confirms Clinton's intent to cancel many programs, shifting billions from less-presidentially favored programs like military R&D to more favored ones like environmental science.
Our own review of the memo with sources intimate with the science reorientation project underscores its most important thrusts:
- Military R&D, which currently makes up about 60 percent of all federal research dollars, will be cut back to 50 percent or less of the science budget.
- The science budget will favor applied science over basic science - meaning that the government's hand would tip toward cost-effective science projects with applications for American consumers rather than curiosity-driven basic science projects like the superconducting super collider.
- The Clinton administration intends to spawn a new era of cooperation between private corporate research and government research.
The Clinton science initiative will send tremors through the whole government, not just science. Some of the most defining technological developments this century - such as aircraft, satellites, microchips and computers - were first developed as defense projects.