Science group aims to advance policy in ‘tough’ moment
By: Ben Brody
A group of science and policy luminaries wants Congress to strengthen tax credits for research and development and buff up the educational and immigration pipelines for science and tech talent.
Some of what the group wants goes against the grain, however, at a time when President Donald Trump’s administration has sought to cut funding at the National Institutes of Health and staffing at the National Science Foundation and the National Institute of Standards and Technology.
“It is certainly a tough moment for the scientific enterprise,” said the task force chair, Sudip Parikh, a former aide to the Senate Appropriations Committee who’s now CEO of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. “I don’t think there’s any way to sugarcoat that.”
But Parikh told Punchbowl News exclusively that the group, known as the Vision for American Science and Technology, wants to find a way to channel the bipartisan desire for U.S. leadership.
“You have to go to defend the enterprise, the parts of it that need to be defended right now,” he said. “You also have to have an aspiration and a vision for what should come next.”
The group was animated by a desire to carry the United States into the future, said former Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, another one of the 70 or so VAST members.
“What got us here in this leadership role over these many decades and even generations won’t get us to where we need to go,” Daschle, founder of The Daschle Group, told us.
Other recommendations include guaranteed purchase of critical-needs products (as previously happened with low-earth-orbit transport and vaccines) and streamlining regulations and administrative requirements on scientists, which Republicans will like.
The GOP has largely tended to want the private sector to take care of investment, even for basic R&D, although many also got behind plans to invest in semiconductor manufacturing and R&D as a way to beat China.
VAST’s report will be formally unveiled Tuesday. Its recommendations lay out tasks for Congress, educational institutions, the industry and local governments, often working together on initiatives like regional science hubs.
There is low-hanging fruit, Parikh and Daschle insisted.
“Look, there’s a big, beautiful bill being written,” said Parikh, referring to Republicans’ tax plans as a potential home for the tax recommendations. He also said that it’s crucial Congress use a government funding resolution in the coming weeks to lock in funding for NSF and NIH.
VAST members include university presidents, current and former lawmakers from both parties and a long, long line of PhDs. Darío Gil, a former IBM official, was part of VAST before Trump nominated him to serve as an undersecretary in the Energy Department.
As VAST developed its recommendations, it coordinated with the then-Trump transition team and Congress “to ensure the policy recommendations laid out in the Vision are practicable, impactful, and strategically crafted for meaningful implementation.”