Government Executive - Authors - Barton Reppert

Think Tiny, Think Big

Barton Reppert — Sat, 01 Feb 2003 00:00:00 -0500

magine shrinking all the information at the Library of Congress into a device the size of a sugar cube or detecting cancerous tumors as tiny as a few cells. That was President Clinton's vision when he announced the National Nanotechnology Initiative in 2000.

Federal scientists, together with researchers at universities and in industry, have been working to harness the vast world of microscopic materials and structures to develop breakthrough technologies that include computers as small as the head of a pin. The $700 million program to support cutting-edge research in nanotechnology is moving ahead surprisingly well, considering the difficulties in management and coordination among 16 agencies.

Despite the ultra-small working scale, government officials and researchers expect the nanotechnology initiative to produce macro-sized payoffs. The multi-agency effort is designed to pave the way for revolutionary breakthroughs in advanced materials and manufacturing, computers and electronics, aerospace technology, medicine and health care, environment, energy, biotechnology, agriculture and national security. Research goals include developing materials with 10 times the strength of steel, but only a fraction of the weight, and tiny "quantum dots"-crystals that emit different wavelengths of light, depending on their size. Such dots offer applications for advanced lasers and computers, as well as for possible biological markers of cellular activity.

In the emerging world of nanotechnology, scientists and engineers are manipulating matter atom by atom, molecule by molecule. Dimensions are measured in billionths of a meter-or approximately 1/100,000th the diameter of a human hair.

Funded by 10 agencies, the nanotechnology initiative was launched in fiscal 2001 with a budget of $464 million. Funding jumped to $604 million for fiscal 2002, and $710 million has been requested for fiscal 2003. Some researchers say federal support should be ramped up even more rapidly to take advantage of new developments in the field and keep pace with nanotechnology efforts in Europe and Japan.

The Bush administration is enthusiastic about providing continued support and funding for the nanotechnology initiative. John Marburger, the president's science adviser and chief of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, has made nanotechnology one of six research priorities.

The nanotechnology initiative "holds great promise across many scientific fields and most sectors of the economy," Marburger and Office of Management and Budget Director Mitch Daniels said in a May 30 memo to department and agency heads involved in the program. "Of particular importance are nanostructures that more effectively collect and deliver samples to sophisticated sensors (chemical, biological, radiological, electromagnetic, photonic, acoustic, or magnetic)," they noted. The enhanced sensors are being developed for such applications as rapid detection of chemical and biological weap- ons on the battlefield as well as in terrorist attacks.

Physicist Neal Lane, who was President Clinton's science adviser and a leader in the nanotechnology initiative, is pleased with the government's progress.

"The excitement that we noted in the research community for work in nanoscale science and engineering has simply continued to grow. And, of course, that's very important, because a lot of these questions still remain-very fundamental research questions. So you've got to have the best people in fields like chemistry, physics, materials, biology working on these problems," says Lane, now a professor at Rice University in Houston.

Major players in the nanotechnology initiative include the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, the National Science Foundation, the Defense Department, the Energy Department, NASA, the National Institute of Standards and Technology and the National Institutes of Health. Also funding some research are the Environmental Protection Agency and the Agriculture, Justice and Transportation departments. Other agencies with input are the Food and Drug Administration,the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, and the State and Treasury departments.

At the White House, the nanotechnology initiative is managed by the National Science and Technology Council's Subcommittee on Nanoscale Science, Engineering and Technology (NSET). The subcommittee's 41 members include representatives of the White House and the 16 agencies involved. The council's National Nanotechnology Coordination Office handles technical and administrative support.

The National Academy of Sciences praised the initiative's progress in a June 2002 report. "The leadership and investment strategy established by NSET has set a positive tone for the NNI [National Nanotechnology Initiative]," the report said. "The initial success of the NNI can also be measured by the number of foreign governments that have established similar . . . programs in response."

But Samuel Stupp, chairman of the academy's review committee, sees room for management improvements. "I wouldn't say that there have been serious shortcomings. That's maybe a bit too strong. I would say that they have been doing a fair job, but they could do better." Stupp is director of the Institute for Bioengineering and Nanoscience in Advanced Medicine at Northwestern University in Evanston, Ill.

The review panel pointed to problems with both interagency coordination and the development of interagency partnerships.

"NSET forms a solid foundation on which to build an NNI that adds up to more than the sum of its parts. However, more is needed to achieve meaningful interagency coordination and collaboration," the report said. The panel recommended formation of a nanoscience and nanotechnology advisory board "capable of identifying research opportunities that do not fit within any single agency's mission.

"NSET member agencies have done a much better job of encouraging federal partnerships with industry, universities and local government than they have of encouraging meaningful interagency partnerships," the report said. "While the NNI implementation plan lists major interagency collaborations, the committee has no sense that there is much common strategic planning in those areas, any significant interagency communication between researchers working in those areas, or any significant sharing of results before they are published in the open literature."

Managing the nanotechnology initiative can be "like herding cats," says James Murday, executive secretary of the nanoscale science subcommittee and director of the coordination office. "You've got 16 different groups. They have very diverse interests, very diverse ways of doing things," Murday says.

In developing effective interagency partnerships, Murday says, part of the challenge is dealing with different agency cultures and operating methods. For example, he says, the NSF disperses university research grants through peer review panels, while the Defense Department leaves the decisions to its program managers.

Another challenge is the rapidly expanding workload. Murday, superintendent of the chemistry division at the Naval Research Laboratory, says his job as director of the coordination office was supposed to be half time, but he puts in 70-hour workweeks. The coordination office, based in Arlington, Va., plans to replace Murday with a full-time director and bring aboard a third contract staffer.

Researchers are upbeat about the potential benefits of nanotechnology, but there is also an undercurrent of concern about the risks inherent in such research. One of the most outspoken critics of the technology is Bill Joy, co-founder of Sun Microsystems.

"I think it is no exaggeration to say we are on the cusp of the further perfection of extreme evil," Joy wrote in the April 2000 issue of Wired magazine. "Unfortunately, as with nuclear technology, it is far easier to create destructive uses for nanotechnology than constructive ones. Nanotechnology has clear military and terrorist uses." He proposed that the government and scientific community set stringent limits on how far nanotechnology research will be pursued.

Richard Russell, associate director for technology at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, acknowledges that there are dangers with any scientific endeavor.

But with nanotechnology, Russell says, "the kind of research that we're talking about is in areas that are directly helpful to both our economy and things like human health. So we don't view research in these areas to be something that we should be afraid of. It's research that is going to be beneficial to the human race."

**FUNDING RESEARCH**
Here are the fiscal 2003 budget requests for nanotechnology at the major agencies involved in the nanotechnology initiative:
$221	million	National Science Foundation
$201	million	Defense
$139.3	million	Energy
$51	million	NASA
$43.8	million	National Institute of Standards and Technology
$43.2	million	National Institutes of Health

Barton Reppert is a freelance journalist who previously worked with The Associated Press for 18 years in Washington, New York and Moscow. His e-mail address is barton.reppert@verizon.net.

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Technology Turmoil

Barton Reppert — Sat, 01 Jun 2002 00:00:00 -0400

Since then, the directorate has undergone reassessment and reorganization, but it survived. An October 2000 realignment combined duplicative activities, revitalized research and development, re-emphasized customer service and better integrated information technology and workforce planning into the directorate's activities. In April 2001, the directorate was further bolstered at the behest of CIA Executive Director A.B. Krongard, who sought to pull all directorates more in line with the agency's mission. Nevertheless, the DS&T may face an uncertain future.

The directorate has become increasingly less able to harness the fast pace and vast increase of communications created by the explosion in information technology over the past 20 years. According to Joanne Isham, who served as deputy director for science and technology for 19 months, until August 2000, DS&T faces a significant challenge in recruiting and maintaining a workforce skilled in the technologies required to address critical intelligence issues.

Ruth David, deputy director from September 1995 to September 1998, placed a major emphasis on exploiting advanced information technology, pioneering the concept of "agile intelligence" and, with Isham, initiating the search for a new way for the CIA to harness emerging technologies. "The need for agility comes in several dimensions," says David, now president and chief executive officer of Anser, a nonprofit research institute in Arlington, Va. "Priorities shift very, very rapidly, and there's a need for the intelligence apparatus to be able to shift very, very rapidly as well. Information technology that has driven changes . . . in terms of behavior of adversaries, also works as an enabler in allowing the business [of intelligence] to be done differently."

The next chief of DS&T, Gary L. Smith, retired director of the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, served only from April 1999 to January 2000. According to intelligence expert Jeffrey T. Richelson's The Wizards of Langley (Westview, 2001), rumor had it that "Smith was never welcomed into the agency's inner circle."

Isham, who took charge of the DS&T in January 2000, did not have science or engineering academic credentials, but she had been a career CIA employee since 1977, serving in a number of jobs, including director of congressional relations. Under Isham, the directorate formed an office of advanced information technology. Recently, the CIA's chief information officer took over most of that office's responsibilities.

The latest change in directorate leadership came in August 2001, when Donald M. Kerr, assistant director for the FBI's Laboratory Division, was named to the post. Kerr, a physicist, previously had served as director of the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico. In addition to heading Los Alamos, Kerr had served as a deputy assistant secretary of Energy and had been an acting assistant secretary for Defense programs as well as for energy technology.

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Force Without Fatalities

Barton Reppert — Tue, 01 May 2001 00:00:00 -0400

The U.S. military is trying to develop an arsenal of non-lethal weapons. ince the advent of modern warfare, the inventors of bullets, artillery shells, bombs, missiles and other devices have rated the effectiveness of their new weapons by their "probability of kill"-in terms of blast, penetration, fragmentation and other measures of lethality.

But that may be changing, at least to a limited extent. Today, some U.S. military officers, civilian officials and contractors are focused on developing a new arsenal of weapons designed to avoid fatalities or permanent injuries. In an era of increased U.S. peacekeeping operations, they are striving to provide innovative technologies that will help mission commanders exert control but minimize casualties and collateral damage.

The Joint Non-Lethal Weapons Directorate, a small but ambitious multi-service unit under Marine Corps leadership, is leading the effort. Steven Metz, a strategist at the Army War College, says non-lethality could play a key role in the Defense Department's "revolution in military affairs," which has focused largely on applying modern computerized technology to warfighting. Metz and other observers say the directorate is competently managed but has stalled for lack of strong, senior-level policy support at the Pentagon and in Congress. In addition, a task force sponsored by the Council on Foreign Relations says the effort to produce non-lethal weapons is seriously underfunded, with a budget averaging only about $25 million a year.

A 1999 report by the task force concluded, "While the military services and parts of the Pentagon have been examining non-lethal possibilities for years, weapons development and thinking about usage has been very slow. Non-lethal warfare has received low priority in the Department of Defense, as evidenced by insufficient research and development funding, inadequate attention to the implications for military doctrine, barriers to information transfer among the military services and between DoD and the relevant civilian agencies, and DoD resistance to complying with legislative direction. Bureaucratic inertia and the lack of civilian leadership, despite some efforts from the National Security Council, have compounded the problem."

Non-lethal weapons run the gamut from rubber bullets and beanbag shotgun rounds to high-tech nets designed to ensnare people, pepper spray, slippery foams, olfactory agents, stun guns and lasers. The Pentagon is exploring more exotic technologies, as well, such as high-power microwave weapons. Recently the Marine Corps and Air Force unveiled plans for a vehicle-mounted directed energy weapon specifically designed for dispersing hostile crowds, using an intense microwave beam that causes sharp burning sensations on the skin.

Protecting Lives

Marine Col. George P. Fenton, director of the Joint Non-Lethal Weapons Directorate, explains in stark terms the need for such non-lethal capabilities on U.S. peacekeeping missions, to deal with situations involving civilians. "You can look at the Somalias, the Haitis, the Bosnia-Herzegovinas, the East Timors, the Kosovos-the list goes on. What do you see there? And how are these operations typically characterized? Masses of human beings. And here's the sad part of it-they're being used for shields.

"So how do you deal with that?" Fenton asks. "This is where you get into these other [non-lethal] capabilities. One is being able to have weapons that might influence the motivational behavior of a crowd. How do you keep a crowd from turning into a mob? Is there a way to disband it without killing people? . . . We're looking at ways cleverly to be able to do this."

According to Fenton-a blunt-spoken infantry officer whose military career has included involvement with operations in Somalia, northern Iraq and Southwest Asia-the Marine Corps now has 30 "capability sets," each consisting of enough non-lethal weapons to outfit a 200-man rifle company. In the next six years, the Army will acquire enough non-lethal equipment to outfit 30 units.

The military views non-lethal weapons as a way to augment, rather than replace, lethal force. "We'll never use non-lethals by themselves," Fenton says. "Would you want your son or daughter in harm's way and all we gave them is a rubber bullet? I think that's baloney. So do our commanders in the field."

The non-lethal weapons program dates back to March 1991, when then-Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney established a Non-Lethal Warfare Study under Defense Undersecretary Paul D. Wolfowitz. This group, chaired by Zalmay Khalilzad, assistant deputy undersecretary of Defense for policy planning, became convinced of the revolutionary potential of non-lethality and advocated a non-lethal defense program modeled after the Strategic Defense Initiative. Donald Yockey, undersecretary of Defense for acquisition, opposed the new initiative and argued that the Pentagon's existing programs could handle non-lethal weapons. Interest in non-lethality was revived by U.S. interventions in Bosnia, Haiti and Somalia. There, a Marine Corps force was dispatched in 1995 under Operation United Shield to safely withdraw a United Nations peacekeeping force. At the request of their commander, Lt. Gen. Anthony Zinni, some of the Marines were specially trained and equipped with non-lethal weapons. Zinni became an outspoken advocate of the approach, saying, "Our experience in Somalia with non-lethal weapons offered ample testimony to the tremendous flexibility they offer to warriors on the field of battle."

Coordinating the Effort

In July 1996, the Defense Department called for a joint service non-lethal weapons program to be led by the commandant of the Marine Corps. Non-lethal weapons were defined as those "explicitly designed and primarily employed so as to incapacitate personnel or materiel, while minimizing fatalities, permanent injury to personnel and undesired damage to property and the environment." The Joint Non-Lethal Weapons Directorate at Quantico, Va., established in January 1997, has a staff of two Marine officers, one Air Force officer, a Marine lance corporal and 12 civilians. Its motto is "Pax Custimus, Vita Custimus" ("Safeguarding Peace, Safeguarding Life").

The Defense Department program is coordinated with non-lethal weapons development efforts at other agencies, including the Less-Than-Lethal Technologies Program at the Justice Department's National Institute of Justice. David G. Boyd, director of the institute's Office of Science and Technology, says Justice has been working on non-lethal devices since 1987. The overall aim, he says, is "to allow us to subdue uncooperative subjects without injury to the subject, any innocent bystander, or any law enforcement officer."

Military experts agree it's important to develop non-lethal weapons, but they give the Defense joint services program mixed reviews. Metz, a research professor of national security affairs at the U.S. Army War College's Strategic Studies Institute, writes in a new book, Non-Lethal Weapons: Technological and Operational Prospects (Jane's Information Group, 2000), that while non-lethal weapons have existed since the beginning of armed conflict, "the past 10 years have seen an explosion of interest in them."

"Future war will be an act of theater as much as physical combat," Metz says. "In order to sustain public support for the use of force, governments will be forced to go to great lengths to limit its destructiveness as much as possible." The current "revolution in military affairs," he says, emphasizes the use of precision-guided munitions and other advances in computerized technology. The United States and other countries should begin pursuit of a second, parallel movement, Metz says, "where non-lethality is a central, defining characteristic." Metz says the management of the non-lethal weapons directorate has been competent, but that the program lacks senior-level support. The Marine Corps has "put a series of effective, hard-charging colonels in charge of it," he says. "They've done a lot of work in terms of consciousness-raising. . . . A lot of their focus is at the programmatic level rather than at the policy and strategy levels. . . . But I think that to really get anywhere, you also need somebody at the undersecretary level . . . who is exploring integrating these into the wider strategy."

The Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Special Operations and Low-Intensity Conflict, which shapes policy for non-lethal weapons, "has always been kind of a forced stepchild," Metz says. "Basically, DoD didn't want it. Congress made them form it back in the 1980s." He adds: "I've argued all along that for non-lethals to really mature as a part of the military arsenal, there has to be somebody really senior and some people in Congress to really seed the idea, to really become the patrons for it. Right now there's a lot of interest at the colonel level." Metz says the program had a fairly senior patron when Zinni was commander of the U.S. Central Command. Zinni retired last summer. Metz says the program has the potential to make substantial strides. But, he says, "we're sort of at a fork in the road, where if the people who believe in these things are able to find high-level patrons and put together a constituency inside the military and outside, that we might take that track in the road," Metz says. "But I think it's at least equally possible that non-lethal weapons could remain completely peripheralized."

Human Rights Questions

Some human rights activists and groups have expressed concern about the development of non-lethal weapons, saying that they could be misused by the military and police-particularly by repressive regimes-in exerting social control and could violate international law as well. This concern is reflected in a book, Non-Lethal Weapons: A Fatal Attraction? (Zed Books, 1997) by Nick Lewer and Steven Schofield, researchers at the University of Bradford in the United Kingdom. They write that "an obvious danger is that civil security becomes increasingly militarized as the police deploy a sophisticated array of weapons and use military-style tactics and operational behavior." Lewer and Schofield also say "one great danger with non-lethal weapons is that, quite simply, they ride a coach and horses through both the spirit and the letter of major weapons conventions. These include the U.N. Inhumane Weapons Convention and the Biological and Chemical Weapons Conventions."

William M. Arkin, senior military adviser to Human Rights Watch, a major human rights organization, says he has little concern about basic non-lethal weapons such as rubber bullets and pepper spray. However, he does worry about the military's high-tech programs-particularly acoustic weapons and high-power microwave weapons. "I believe that weapon systems need to undergo a rigorous legal, political, humanitarian evaluation before they are deployed," Arkin says. "Like blinding lasers, like anti-personnel land mines, like cluster bombs, there are weapons out there which are on the edge of whether or not they cause unnecessary suffering or are indiscriminate or fail to comply with our obligations under international humanitarian law."

Regarding the military's projected use of the newly announced microwave directed-energy weapon for crowd dispersal, Arkin comments: "What about children in the crowd? What about pregnant women and the elderly? We have developed a non-lethal weapon which causes pain. What happens when someone continues to walk toward the source of the high-power microwave? What happens when panic ensues in a crowd as a result of high-power microwave? What happens when it's focused on someone's eyes?"

Hopping the Hurdles

Among the most ardent supporters of non-lethal weapons is John B. Alexander, a retired Army colonel whose book Future War (St. Martin's Press, 1999), explores the role of non-lethal weapons in 21st century warfare. In his book, Alexander says the "high degree of instability at flash points around the world has a direct bearing on the development and deployment of non-lethal weapons. It seems clear that use of force will be required to resolve, however temporarily, disputes in many areas. Peace support operations and humanitarian missions are likely to increase."

Alexander says that when the Pentagon started the non-lethal weapons program, the directorate was "given a relatively small amount of money and a small number of people." Now, he says, the organization is ramping up its efforts.

The 1999 Council on Foreign Relations study of non-lethal technologies was conducted by a 17-member task force chaired by Richard L. Garwin, senior fellow for science and technology at the council and a former IBM research scientist. Overall, the panel endorsed the findings of a 1995 council study that said, "non-lethal weapons have the potential for providing new strength for diplomacy, new credibility for deterrence, new flexibility for the military [and] new strategic options for policy-makers." At the same time, the task force criticized several parts of the non-lethal weapons effort:

Limited funding. "The DoD and the services have not yet made the investment required to realize the benefits that non-lethal weapons offer."
Uncoordinated policy. "Department of Defense policy for non-lethal weapons is inadequate in practice. The substantial barriers that exist between the Joint Non-Lethal Weapons Directorate, with its focus on research and development for tactical applications, and the apparently larger Air Force and Navy classified programs, constitute an impediment to the desired single, optimum non-lethal weapons program that is required to exploit the full potential of these weapons."
Lack of synergy with other programs. The task force says the Defense Department needs "a program of exploration, development, experimentation, demonstration and training to provide meaningful integration of information warfare, psychological warfare and strategic non-lethal weapons, at a level expanded to some $100 million per year."

Fenton says the joint directorate received a $6 million increase from Congress this fiscal year, for a total budget of $29 million. "I would tell you that we compete, just as any other activity does compete within the Department of Defense. And typically what do we compete for? Resources-people, time and money," he says. "On balance, I think, honestly, my own view is that we've done an exceptionally good job of doing that."

On the question of policy coordination, Fenton says, "There are a number of programs-tactical, operational, strategic-level programs. Some are unclassified, some are classified, some might be highly classified. We have insights into those programs." As for a possible combination of non-lethal weapons with information warfare and psychological warfare programs, the directorate's chief says: "We have chosen within the Department of Defense not to put all of that into one entity. That doesn't mean that we don't talk, share and exchange information." Christopher Morris, a member of the Council on Foreign Relations task force and vice president of M2 Technologies, a support contractor to the Joint Non-Lethal Weapons Directorate, says that since the task force issued its report in 1999 "there has been moderate improvement in communications and in the degree of cooperation DoD is giving to put teeth and reality into the congressional language" mandating the program. Another member of the task force, who asked not to be identified, says he believes that most of the criticisms presented by the task force report are still valid.

Steven Aftergood, a military analyst with the Federation of American Scientists, says the directorate is doing a "reasonable job" of managing the non-lethal weapons program under Marine Corps direction. "I think somebody had to step up and claim non-lethals as their own, and the Marines did it," he says. "It was important for the program to have a home in the bureaucracy, and arguably they make the most sense."

According to Aftergood, as recent strife between Palestinians and Israeli security forces has demonstrated, "the use of lethal force makes it more difficult to recover from a conflict, for those who want to recover and revert to a peaceful situation. . . . I was skeptical 10 years ago when people were starting to get gung-ho and suggesting that non-lethals might be the solution to all possible problems. I thought that the case was grotesquely overstated. But I've sort of come full circle and believe that there's an unmet need for effective, inexpensive, readily deployable non-lethal weapons."

Barton Reppert is a freelance writer based in the Washington area. ]]>

Advanced Technlogist

Barton Reppert — Fri, 01 Dec 2000 00:00:00 -0500

Career executive Alan Balutis has the politically delicate job of spearheading the Commerce Department's Advanced Technology Program.

hile watching the Olympics on television in September, veteran Commerce Department executive Alan P. Balutis felt a surge of pride-but not from watching American athletes bring home the gold. It came during a General Electric commercial highlighting a new, more accurate type of mammography. The reason: Commerce's Advanced Technology Program (ATP), which Balutis heads, played a key role in aiding development of the new technology, which improves early detection of breast cancer. Though 32 million mammograms are performed in this country each year, 15,000 to 45,000 cases of breast cancer go undetected. Digital mammography may help reduce that number. "It was just a nice thing to feel associated with something that . . . could help save lives," Balutis says.

In 21 years at Commerce, Balutis has worked in a variety of positions, including deputy chief information officer. None has been tougher, however, than overseeing ATP, which promotes high-risk technologies through cost-sharing partnerships with industry. ATP funds projects ranging from biomedical engineering and pharmaceutical design to sophisticated electronics, computer software, manufacturing technologies, industrial catalysts and energy generation and storage devices. Since becoming ATP director last April, Balutis has been working to improve management and strengthen morale. Just as importantly, he has been striving to build political support for the program, which in recent years has become a lightning rod for criticism by conservative Republicans in Congress. Critics say the program doles out "corporate welfare" to private companies and involves the government in setting national industrial policy and picking private sector winners and losers.

Budget Cliffhangers

ATP is based at Commerce's sprawling National Institute of Standards and Technology complex in Gaithersburg, Md. The program was launched a decade ago by the Bush administration and grew rapidly under the Clinton administration in the mid-1990s. However, with GOP conservatives controlling key committees in Congress over the last several years, the program has endured what Balutis calls "Perils of Pauline"-repeated appropriation cliffhangers. The picture was the same this year. Funding was eliminated in the House, restored in the Senate and finally approved in a Senate-House conference. ATP wound up with a total fiscal 2001 budget of $190.7 million, down from the previous year's $210.3 million and substantially less than the program's funding peak of $508.7 million in 1995.

Balutis and others say that Republican opposition to the ATP is a vestige of the GOP campaign to abolish programs and agencies, including Com-merce. Looking ahead to next year, with a new President and Congress, Balutis says he'd like to achieve more stable and assured funding. He also hopes his focus on careful, even-handed management will prevent him from becoming a political target.

"I've been a career person working with political people for 15 of the 25 years I've worked in government," Balutis says. "I've worked with both Republicans and Democrats within the executive branch, and I've worked with Republicans and Democrats on the Hill. My job is to manage, guide [and] direct this program as well as I can under the current legislation that authorizes it. So my role is to be a good manager. My role is [also] to be responsive to both legislative and executive policy officials . . . So no, I don't expect that I will be a [political] target. I'm only managing the program as it's structured."

Balutis notes that when he met with then-Secretary of Commerce William M. Daley last spring to discuss the ATP assignment, Daley told him: "I want a manager out there, not a scientist, and I want somebody out there I can trust. I want somebody who will pay attention to financial management, budgeting, those kinds of issues." That's one of the reasons that the job went to Balutis rather than to a physicist or engineer.

After taking over the program, Balutis quickly focused on redirecting funds for projects that were completed early or cancelled. Recapturing these funds has been a problem because ATP's previous managers made a practice of obligating in the first year all of the funds budgeted for multi-year research projects. ATP projects typically run for three to five years. Funds would then need to be "de-obligated" when projects were terminated early because, for example, companies in a joint venture failed to actually come together or technology under development failed or results were achieved earlier than expected. After such early terminations, the program "had all this money . . . that you'd have to go back and try to recapture," Balutis says. "It [was] a rather large amount of money, like $40 million-plus." Balutis resolved the problem and is seeking to strengthen financial management by obligating funds for multi-year projects on a year-by-year basis. "It will never happen again," Balutis says.

Other steps that Balutis has taken include:

Expanding contacts with the American venture capital community to raise the profile of the ATP and to enlist their help in spotting promising technology projects.
Developing a closer dialogue with state and local technology offices across the country to help foster regional development activities.
Substantially simplifying and streamlining the ATP proposal process to make it easier for businesses, particularly small businesses, to apply for the program.
Moving toward "rolling admission" for projects, so that proposals are reviewed and funded throughout the year.
Strengthening morale of the 80-member ATP staff. "The people here have been under attack, have been faced with the threat of abolition for several years," Balutis says. "The staff is an excellent staff but they're a little bit reactive, defensive and shell-shocked. I really want to build back the excitement and the energy of the people who work here."

A Commerce Career

Balutis, 54, grew up in Utica, N.Y., went to Syracuse University and did his graduate work at the State University of New York at Albany. He then taught political science at SUNY Buffalo before coming to Washington in 1975 on a fellowship sponsored by the National Association of Schools of Public Affairs and Administration. "I'm one of these people who came down to Washington for what was going to be a one-year fellowship and never went back," he says. Initially he worked in a variety of budget, personnel, policy and management analysis positions at the then-Department of Health, Education and Welfare.

After joining the Commerce Department in 1979, Balutis served as director of systems and special projects (1983-84); management and organization (1984-87); budget planning and organization (1987-94); and budget, management and information (1994-98). From 1998 until earlier this year, he was the department's deputy CIO. His accomplishments in these positions included managing Commerce's $1.1 billion information technology budget; integrating strategic planning, IT planning and secretarial goal-setting into departmental budget form- ulation; creating the first major IT systems oversight board in the government; and serving as staff director for major governmentwide studies for the President's Council on Management Improvement, the Cabinet Council on Management and Administration and the President's Management Council.

Balutis' colleagues describe him as articulate and energetic with a congenial demeanor and a wide-ranging knowledge of how the government works. Michael S. Sade, director of the Office of Acquisition Management at Commerce, worked with Balutis on COMMITS (Commerce Information Technology Solutions), a government-wide contracting vehicle set aside for small business. "One of the key things I've learned from him is that it really does pay off to be disciplined about how you approach these things, particularly in the government. And he was one of the first to teach me that just as it's important to come up with a good idea and try to implement it, it's just as important to have an evaluation program behind that to make sure you're accomplishing your goals."

Robert Welch, a former procurement executive at Commerce and the Treasury Department, says, "in my 32 years of government service, I'd put [Balutis] in the top five public servants I've had the honor to work with, maybe the top three." Welch also worked with Balutis on COMMITS. "We brought our staffs together. It was one of the real 'one plus one equals three' synergistic team behavior solutions." Allan V. Burman, a former Office of Federal Procurement Policy administrator, worked with Balutis in developing the government purchase card program. "I think he's very focused on getting results for the agency, asks good questions, frames issues well. He's just very impressive," says Burman, currently president of the consulting firm Jefferson Solutions and a contributing editor of Government Executive.

Balutis also gets high marks from ATP staff members. "Most people here seem to like his very open management style," says Rosemarie Hunziker, a program manager. "He's very accessible, but he also doesn't want to listen to long diatribes. If you have something to say, you better know what it is you're going to say and be straight to the point with him, because he doesn't have any time for just chit-chatting." Robert T. Sienkiewicz, a special assistant to the director, says, "He's a really good role model for what a government executive should be. He treats all of his staff like professionals. He is very respectful of our privacy. He's just really good to work with, a no-nonsense type of person."

Uncertainty and Instability

Balutis draws on every ounce of his executive skills in managing the ATP, which has been controversial ever since its creation in 1988. ATP was born amid serious concerns about the global competitiveness of American industry, particularly in the face of Japan's challenge in automobiles, electronics and other technology-intensive products.

Sen. Ernest F. Hollings, D-S.C., then-chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee, championed the effort to create the ATP. "Hollings' personal support was critical," says Christopher T. Hill, vice provost for research at George Mason University in Fairfax, Va., and an expert on ATP. The senator remains a strong advocate of the program. In a statement appended to a Senate Commerce Committee legislative report issued in August, Hollings argued that the program is "an important investment in American economic competitiveness. It supports American industry's own efforts to develop new cutting-edge, next-generation technologies-technologies that will create the new industries and jobs of the 21st century." Now that the U.S. economy is strong and American industry is much more globally competitive than in the late 1980s, the motivation that spurred the formation of ATP has diminished, Hill argues. "[ATP has] had its political challenges, it's had its management and administrative challenges," he says. "[Now], paradoxically, the program is challenged by the fact that the economy is so strong."

The situation has been compounded by conservative Republicans' political arguments against ATP. "At a time when the Congress is committed to funding true priorities in areas such as defense, education and basic science, the administration is continuing to fund wasteful corporate welfare projects," said Rep. John R. Kasich, R-Ohio, chairman of the House Budget Committee, in a press release last April. "The government should not be in the business of picking corporate winners and losers," he added. ATP continues to draw support, however, from congressional Democrats and more moderate Republicans, including Rep. Sherwood L. Boehlert, R-N.Y., second-ranking GOP member on the House Science Committee. "I support the program as a way of providing valuable assistance to American industry at relatively modest cost," Boehlert says. He has confidence in ATP's leadership and believes the program has been largely successful in insulating project funding from political pressures.

A study panel of the National Research Council, an operating arm of the National Academy of Sciences, is conducting a detailed assessment of ATP. Charles W. Wessner, program director for the council's Board on Science, Technology and Economic Policy, says the panel plans to complete the assessment early in the next administration. "I would not say that ATP is broken, but I've worked in government too long to think that things can't be done better," he says. "And our task will be trying to figure out what can usefully be improved in ATP and make recommendations to its management, while obviously keeping the core things that are working well." Wessner says that the program could benefit from more funding stability. "This ritual-of the House zeroing it out and the Senate providing money and then it's resolved at the last minute in conference really doesn't encourage vice presidents for research and development in major corporations to commit time and allocate funds for a partnership in something that they're not sure is going to continue," says Wessner. "That uncertainty and instability would be a problem for any program, but particularly for a program that relies on private-sector partners."

Wessner says ATP critics who object to government involvement in industrial policy haven't done their homework very well. "The U.S. has a longer history than most people realize of active government-industry partnerships and active government intervention in helping to create the conditions of economic growth," Wessner says. As early as the 1790s, government procurement contracts with Eli Whitney were instrumental in creating the American firearms and machine tool industries. In the 1840s, Congress provided funds to Samuel Morse to help develop the telegraph. The Navy took an equity position in RCA during the 1920s because the then-Secretary of the Navy was convinced that the United States should have an independent radio capability and not rely on the British. Government involvement with the private sector accelerated during and after World War II. "When you look at how much the federal government has contributed to the [recent] biotechnology revolution, I personally take umbrage when they say we never pick winners or losers," Wessner says.

Overall, he says, "the Advanced Technology Program seems to be a low-cost, effective means of disseminating technology of significant value through the economy faster than it might otherwise go and a way of capitalizing on R&D. There is corporate welfare in Washington, there's an awful lot of corporate welfare, [but] this isn't it."

Wessner praises Balutis for bringing dynamism, rigor and a "fresh look" to the Advanced Technology Program. Close examination of the ATP and other government technology programs yields an important lesson, he says. "Management matters. You can have a well-designed program, but if you don't have effective management, you can end up wasting significant taxpayer resources. There's a tendency to think that there's some rule you can apply that will solve all the problems. That's simplistic. What you need are good managers and good managers who are held accountable."

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The National Science Foundation's push for a budget boost could help the United States pull ahead in the race for breakthroughs in research.

Barton Reppert — Wed, 01 Nov 2000 00:00:00 -0500

Marking its 50th anniversary this year, NSF supports about half of all nonmedical basic research at universities and colleges across the country, as well as extensive science and mathematics education programs. The research efforts range from manipulating individual atoms and molecules to probing the origins of the universe; from analyzing cellular metabolism to computer modeling of complex ecosystems; from campus laboratories to field studies in jungles, deserts, the oceans and the vast frozen expanses of Antarctica.

NSF, an independent agency that has been a budgetary favorite of the Clinton administration, sought $4.6 billion for fiscal 2001-a 17 percent increase over the previous year-to pay for several major initiatives as well as expanded funding of core disciplinary research. After congressional action, the agency ended up with an appropriation of $4.4 billion for fiscal 2001, an increase of $529 million or 13.6 percent. In August 1998, Colwell, a marine microbiologist, became the first woman to lead NSF, after physicist Neal Lane went to the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy to serve as President Clinton's science adviser. One of Colwell's chief goals is to at least double the agency's budget within the next five years. "NSF is only about 3.5 percent of the total government budget, which is much, much too small," Colwell says. "The NSF budget ought to be somewhere between $10 billion, $12 billion, $13 billion for a nation that has a federal budget of $1.8 trillion and an economy of $9.6 trillion." Substantially increased investment in research, Colwell contends, is "absolutely critical" if the United States is to maintain world leadership and preserve its free society, economic prosperity and national security.

Colwell's advocacy of significantly expanded government spending on fundamental research is echoed by Eamon M. Kelly, an economist and president emeritus of Tulane University who chairs the National Science Board, a 24-member group overseeing NSF. Kelly says his "overriding concern" is U.S. under-investment in this area. "We now spend substantially less than 3 percent of our gross domestic product on research and development, and an infinitesimal percentage in terms of basic research," he says, adding that other countries are now starting to devote a much higher proportion of their GDP to research.

NSF, whose headquarters and 1,150 employees are based in Arlington, Va., is generally held in high regard within the U.S. research community and among Washington policymakers and interest groups. The agency usually receives broad bipartisan support on Capitol Hill. However, NSF's operations have been marred by difficulties with its "FastLane" system for computerized processing of grant proposals and other research project documentation.

The NSF's origins date back to the closing days of World War II. In July 1945, Vannevar Bush, director of the wartime Office of Scientific Research and Development, sent President Harry S. Truman a report, "Science-the Endless Frontier," stressing the importance of government support for science. He wrote that "without scientific progress no amount of achievement in other directions can ensure our health, prosperity, and security as a nation in the modern world." Focusing on the vital role of fundamental research in leading to new applications of science, Bush observed, "Basic research leads to new knowledge. It provides scientific capital. It creates the fund from which the practical applications of knowledge must be drawn. New products and new processes do not appear full-blown. They are founded on new principles and new conceptions, which in turn are painstakingly developed by research in the purest realms of science." Truman signed legislation creating the National Science Foundation in May 1950.

NSF started out dealing almost entirely with the physical sciences, and most of its directors have come from those disciplines. But the agency's portfolio has gradually expanded to include the biological sciences, education, engineering, and the social and behavioral sciences. In fiscal 2001, NSF plans to devote $837 million to four initiatives, ramping up substantially from this year's efforts. These areas are information technology research, nanoscale science and engineering, biocomplexity in the environment and education of the 21st century workforce.

Computers on the Head of a Pin

NSF is the lead agency for a federal IT research and development program that involves nine other agencies, including the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, National Security Agency, Energy Department, NASA, National Institutes of Health and National Institute of Standards and Technology. The NSF initiative is budgeted at $327 million for fiscal 2001, a 160 percent increase from this year. Ruzena Bajcsy, NSF assistant director for computer and information science and engineering, says the initiative emphasizes basic research because in computing, the technology is far ahead of scientific understanding-just as the practical craft of metallurgy, for example, long preceded the development of modern materials science. "We build systems-networking systems, software systems, embedded systems. And by the seat of the pants we put them together and tune them and make them work. And they are making a revolution in our society," she explains. "But the scary thing is that we don't fully understand why these systems work. We cannot predict when they will fail. We cannot guarantee their safety. We cannot guarantee their security.

"Here we are talking about systems where the components are in hundreds of thousands and soon to be millions," Bajcsy says. "They are interacting, and we don't understand what the consequences of that interaction will be. In addition to that, we have people as components of these systems. These people are affected by these systems, and they affect the systems. And understanding, modeling people, as we all know, is very difficult. People can be rather unpredictable." Bajcsy says that during the current fiscal year, "we are going to be able to support 10 to 12 percent of proposals that we receive. This is terribly low. We will have to reject another 10 to 12 percent of proposals that were ranked excellent and very good." NSF's initiative in nanoscale science and engineering involves design and construction of ultra-small structures, down to the scale of individual atoms and molecules. NSF is budgeting this initiative at $217 million for fiscal 2001, a 123 percent increase from this year. "Nanoscale science and engineering promise to yield a dominant technology for the 21st century because the control of matter at the nanoscale underpins innovation in critical areas from information technology and medicine to manufacturing and the environment," according to the agency's budget proposal. "Possible future uses of nanotechnology include artificial photosynthesis for clean energy and computer chips capable of storing trillions of bits of information on an area the size of a pinhead." When asked how realistic such forecasts are, NSF Deputy Director Joseph Bordogna-an engineer whose career has included work with laser communications systems and electro-optic recording materials-notes that some parts of computer circuits already have dimensions of about 10 nanometers (a nanometer is one-billionth of a meter). Soon, "we might have DNA molecules doing the computing," he says. "Certainly within the next decade these things are going to happen."

Putting It All Together

NSF's initiative on biocomplexity-budgeted at $136 million in fiscal 2001, an increase of 173 percent from this year-bears the pronounced stamp of Director Colwell, who herself continues to pursue research on cholera, a major scourge in developing countries. Biocomplexity is Colwell's term for an interdisciplinary approach to biodiversity, sustainability and ecosystems studies that puts emphasis on quantitative modeling. The initiative is aimed at understanding the many complex systems that are structured or influenced by living organisms or biological processes. Mary E. Clutter, NSF assistant director for biological sciences, notes that molecular biology generally has used a reductionist approach, while traditional ecology was observational. By contrast, she says, biocomplexity takes an interdisciplinary approach to understand the big questions about living things and systems. It's a systems approach. Clutter, who has been at NSF since 1989, says Colwell is the first director she has known who is "actually a bench scientist." That gives Colwell an appreciation for what it is like to be in the trenches, fighting for funding. "I think Rita is thinking along the right lines in many, many ways-certainly in biocomplexity, which many people professed in the beginning not to understand," Clutter says. "People are understanding [now], because the kind of [research grant] proposals we are getting are terrific."

The 21st century workforce initiative-budgeted at $157 million for fiscal 2001, an increase of 113 percent from this year-seeks to build upon NSF's long-standing programs to support science and math education. Those programs involve about 82,900 K-12 teachers, 11,300 K-12 pupils, 30,000 undergraduates, and 21,400 graduate students. "Many times we embark on activities in the education arena without really having a solid research base for knowing how to move ahead. And that's something that this initiative is in part trying to remedy," observes Judith S. Sunley, NSF assistant director for education and human resources. "So it's emphasizing the importance of research on the science of learning, on understanding how children and adults learn, and how we can facilitate that learning process through education." Another key aspect of the workforce initiative is building partnerships between higher education and K-12 education. "You can have the research-level scientists, mathematicians, engineers involved in content-rich parts of K-12 education-developing materials, helping to train teachers, and things of that sort," Sunley says. Colwell strongly advocates another workforce initiative program that involves placing science and engineering graduate students in K-through-12 classrooms, where they gain a better understanding of teaching and serve as resources for the schoolteachers and pupils.

NSF draws nationwide and global attention for its central role in running U.S. research programs and facilities in Antarctica and the Arctic. In Antarctica, the agency operates three year-round research bases-McMurdo Station on Ross Island, Palmer Station on Anvers Island and Amundsen-Scott Station at the South Pole. Ski-equipped planes, helicopters and ships, including a specially constructed ice-breaking research vessel, support the bases. Arctic facilities include camps and sites for studies of greenhouse gases, monitoring stations for research on ultraviolet radiation, ice coring sites for studies of global climate history, high latitude radar observatories and magnetometers for upper atmospheric research.

In Antarctica, a major effort is under way to rebuild and modernize the South Pole Station. According to Karl A. Erb, director of NSF's Office of Polar Programs, the $150 million effort is on budget and scheduled for completion in 2005. The reconstructed station is designed to accommodate up to 150 researchers and support personnel. Erb notes that Antarctica has become popular for astronomers and astrophysicists in addition to researchers in ecology and geophysics. Astronomers love it because of its extremely dry air, virtually free of image-distorting water vapor, he says. "For certain kinds of astronomy and certain wavelengths, it's the best place anywhere in the world."

FastLane Jammed

Every year NSF receives approximately 30,000 new research grant proposals and funds about 10,000 of them. It also receives more than 85,000 proposal reviews. To help cope with the processing work, the agency started an electronic administration program in 1994 called FastLane. NSF officials contend that the computerized system is being implemented quite successfully.

But some university research administrators say FastLane has been giving them headaches.

"There have been a whole lot of both technical and procedural problems," says Jack W. Lowe, executive vice provost for research at Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y. "The thing is that FastLane was put up as an experiment originally. The objectives are admirable and we support them completely. The trouble is that before the system was really ready to handle the load . . . they informally made it mandatory for many big deadline proposals. We've had many cases where the system gets swamped." Lowe says that the ongoing problems with FastLane have caused "an enormous amount of grief. There's a feeling out in the [research] community that, yeah, this is nice, but it's a hell of a lot of trouble to deal with it." "We've had a variety of different challenges, and we are attacking each one," responds Linda P. Massaro, NSF's chief information officer. "We've certainly added to our server capacity. And I think we have that particular problem licked. We had earlier this year some Internet service provider problems. . . . What we've done to solve that problem is we're adding a second or backup Internet service provider." Massaro views the FastLane telephone help desk's overly large workload as the biggest remaining challenge to the system. She says the problem is being dealt with by assigning additional personnel during peak periods. "There are still challenges ahead, but I think that we're meeting the tough ones head on and we're in good shape," Massaro says.

Leading at the Edge

Within the research community, Colwell's performance as NSF director draws generally good reviews. D. Allan Bromley, dean of engineering at Yale University and White House science adviser during the Bush administration, says the agency has been doing extremely well under Colwell. "Rita has been very effective in representing the activities of the National Science Foundation in congressional hearings and in general presentations to the scientific and technological community," Bromley says. Marcel C. LaFollette, a research professor at the George Washington University's Center for International Science and Technology Policy, adds, "From the standpoint of not only her symbolic but her real activities, she's actually taken us light years ahead."

A veteran NSF official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, observes that Colwell's management style is much different than that of her low-key, consensus-oriented predecessor, Neal Lane. "Neal was the kind of leader who liked to get a lot of people around the table and discuss where the agency should go and what should be its policies and priorities, thoroughly, with all of the senior managers given an opportunity to lay out what they think and why," he says. "Rita, on the other hand, is much more decisive and more quick to act. She does want advice from people, but on the other hand she's not against making a decision on her own without what seems like a whole lot of discussion amongst the senior folks at NSF, and then moving ahead on it."

The challenge of effectively managing NSF is accentuated by the constant need to keep the agency at the leading edge of science and technology. "The management challenge is to be agilely responsive to change, because the frontier is constantly changing. And we all know it, and it's uncomfortable," says Deputy Director Bordogna, NSF's chief operating officer. "Change is uncomfortable, and it's disruptive at times because a new theory kills ana old theory. But that's what we're all about. The vision is very simple: enable America's future . . . through discovery, learning and innovation," he adds.

Catching a Gravity Wave

NSF's willingness to take risks on major research projects is exemplified the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO). To date no one has ever directly detected and measured gravitational waves, although Albert Einstein predicted their existence in 1918 in his general theory of relativity. Gravitational waves are believed to be ripples in the fabric of space and time produced by violent events in the universe, such as the collision of two black holes or in the cores of supernova explosions. Such waves are emitted by accelerating masses much as accelerating charges produces electromagnetic waves. In 1994, Joseph Taylor and Russell Hulse were awarded the Nobel Prize in physics for their observations on the apparent influence of gravitational waves on a binary pulsar, two neutron stars orbiting each other.

In an effort to directly detect and measure gravitational waves, NSF is spending about $300 million on LIGO, the largest single enterprise ever undertaken by the agency. LIGO consists of two identical installations, one at Livingston, La., and the other at Hanford, Wash. Each installation has a 4-foot diameter vacuum pipe arranged in the shape of an L with 2.5-mile arms. At the vertex of the L and at the end of each of the arms, test masses hang from wires and are fitted with mirrors. Ultrastable laser beams traversing the vacuum pipes measure the effect of gravitational waves on the test masses.

Basic construction of the facilities-designed by a team of scientists from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the California Institute of Technology-has been completed, and extremely high-precision laser interferometers are being installed. According to Robert A. Eisenstein, NSF assistant director for mathematics and physical sciences, the plan is to start taking measurement data in the last quarter of 2001. "We're quite pleased," Eisenstein says. "But it's a risk. We don't know what LIGO will see."

Eventually LIGO will be part of an international network of gravitational-wave observatories, with other installations to be constructed near Pisa, Italy, and Hanover, Germany, and in Japan. An NSF fact sheet on LIGO notes that "investing in leading-edge research and education is a future-oriented endeavor, which involves taking risks. Increasingly, it requires international collaborations and integrating knowledge across traditional disciplinary boundaries. And, as science reaches the brink of what is considered nearly impossible measurement, it requires technological innovations that were barely conceived of even a few decades ago."

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Science & Diplomacy

Barton Reppert — Thu, 01 Jun 2000 00:00:00 -0400

letters@govexec.com

n recent years, issues involving complex scientific and technological problems have risen to the forefront of the American foreign policy agenda. Here are just a few of the challenges that the State Department has faced:

Preventing a dangerous "brain drain" of former Soviet biological warfare scientists.
Monitoring exports of militarily sensitive technology to China and other countries.
Negotiating an environmental biosafety protocol on international trade in genetically modified organisms.
Helping in the fight against HIV/AIDS and other infectious diseases in developing countries.

As science and technology issues proliferate around the world, prominent members of the American scientific community argue that the State Department is ill prepared to address them. In response, the department has embarked on what Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright calls "a multiyear, multiadministration, bipartisan mission" to bolster its science and technology capabilities. S&T policy experts say they are cautiously optimistic about the new approach, but they point warily to the checkered history of previous attempts to institute reforms in this area and say it will be several years before the outcome of the new strategy can be assessed.

Last fall, the National Research Council (NRC), an operating arm of the National Academy of Sciences, released the results of an 18-month study that found significant S&T problems and weaknesses throughout the State Department. The study concluded that the department lacks top-level policy guidance; that its Washington headquarters staff is stretched thin on important S&T issues; that it has cut back on science officers at key embassies and missions abroad; and that it has failed to adequately recruit, train and promote foreign and civil service officers knowledgeable about science and technology.

On Feb. 21 Albright went before a gathering of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) to announce a series of measures to address the situation. She said State wants to "forge a truly active partnership with the S&T community" and urged scientists to support increased funding to ease the department's budget squeeze.

"As we strive to shape the future together, America's diplomats must have scientists in our ranks and by our side," Albright said.

Albright said the State Department would establish a new position of senior S&T adviser to the Secretary within the department's undersecretariat for global affairs; draft a departmentwide policy statement on S&T issues; re-establish a previously closed Science Directorate in the Bureau of Oceans and International Environmental and Scientific Affairs (OES); reassess the needs of key embassies for science officers; and review State's recruitment, training and promotion policies.

Former White House science adviser Jack Gibbons, who is serving as a consultant to the department, says the current effort is "an attempt at a renaissance of the role of science and technology in State's operations."

"I think the challenge is going to be, over the long term, to do things that can slowly acculturate this business of science, engineering, and technology into the process that so long has been governed by people who have history, political science and language backgrounds," he says.

Dead Horse?

The history of State Department efforts to grapple with science and technology issues goes back to a 1949-50 study by a group headed by geophysicist Lloyd V. Berkner. The panel issued a report concluding that the "present organization is inadequate to assess with accuracy the nature of the broad policy issues involving science." In response, the State Department created a small science office and posted a few science attaches abroad.

In 1975, a foreign policy study commission chaired by Robert D. Murphy, a former senior State Department official, issued a report predicting that "technological and environmental issues will continue to grow in importance" in the international arena. It recommended several changes at the State Department, including the creation of an undersecretariat for economic and scientific affairs. The department, however, did not follow up on the recommendations.

In 1992, the Carnegie Commission on Science, Technology and Government published a report asserting that "deep-seated reforms" were needed in the way the U.S. government was organized to handle international affairs because of changes being wrought in the world by science and technology. "The formulation and implementation of modern foreign policy requires a continuing reconnaissance of science and technology mapped onto the topography of politics, culture and economics among both friends and rivals," the report argued. "The government is not now fully equipped for this task."

The Carnegie panel's study offered a series of recommendations, which include appointing a senior S&T counselor at the State Department, adding 25 more officers working in S&T components in Washington, and posting 50 additional science officers at U.S. posts abroad. However, little was done by the Bush administration in response to the report.

Now, as the State Department starts to move ahead with its new strategy, S&T policy experts outside the government are divided about the most effective way to better integrate science and technology into American diplomacy.

Anne G.K. Solomon, a senior associate at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington and former State Department official, favors the creation of a new Bureau of Science and Technology at the department. "I'm a little hesitant to recommend the establishment of yet another bureau," says Solomon, who left the State Department in spring 1997 when her position as deputy assistant secretary for science, technology and health was eliminated. "But this would allow for a number of functions and programs that are now spread across several bureaus to be aggregated in this one bureau."

Solomon also believes the new S&T adviser should be associated with State's Policy Planning Staff-with a direct link to the Secretary-rather than located within the undersecretariat for global affairs, as Albright has directed.

Rodney W. Nichols, president and CEO of the New York Academy of Sciences and author of the 1992 Carnegie Commission report, says although various steps can be taken to help improve the State Department's management of S&T issues and programs, it may be time to consider having State turn over the main responsibility to other agencies. "For whatever combination of causes-especially the lack of funding-science and technology skills and professional outlooks don't seem to graft very well onto the diplomatic culture, the State Department bureaucracy, the day-to-day rhythms of operations," he says.

Nichols says that if State continues to try to manage S&T issues, it should get an infusion of about 30 S&T specialists from such agencies as the National Science Foundation, National Institutes of Health, National Institute of Standards and Technology and NASA for two- to three-year stints. The department should also consider reinstituting "a very active advisory apparatus" of outside S&T experts to provide policy guidance, adding S&T questions to the foreign service examination, and increasing the number of science officers at U.S. posts abroad, Nichols says.

But Nichols argues that in view of the current situation, "I really think we ought to go in the direction of getting the State Department out of the science and technology business. Stop beating this horse, which is so close to dead. Let's just have it die a peaceful death and let the State Department basically outsource these tasks to the other agencies."

Under this approach, he says, State and the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy would turn over main operational responsibility to the technical agencies, while retaining "a very careful watch on those key countries and key issues where the political, economic and diplomatic factors are really all-important."

Question of Resources

For now, however, the State Department is focusing on its new initiative to beef up its own science and technology expertise. Frank E. Loy, undersecretary of State for global affairs, is leading the effort. "Frank is a seasoned guy but he's not calcified," says Gibbons. "He's ready to move in new directions when he sees a new need."

In April 1999 Loy told a group of scientists and Washington policy-watchers at an AAAS science and technology policy colloquium that the State Department was determined to address S&T issues. "We have heard the criticism from the science community. . . . We're very sensitive to your concerns and take them seriously," he told the group.

Since last October, Loy has been overseeing the work of two department task forces-involving more than 40 officials-formed to review the NRC's report and develop plans for implementing some of its recommendations.

The State Department has about 200 S&T-related positions at its headquarters in Washington. Of those, 125 are officers-39 in the Foreign Service and the rest in the civil service-based in OES. Overseas, 57 positions are formally classified as environment, science and technology officers, while approximately 30 additional officers have more than a half-time commitment to S&T issues.

For fiscal 2001, the department has requested a 22 percent budget increase for OES, from $3.6 million to $4.4 million.

The re-established Science Directorate within OES will be headed by Kenneth C. Brill, a career foreign service officer who is the bureau's principal deputy assistant secretary. He most recently served as ambassador to Cyprus and earlier at posts in Ghana, Jordan and India.

Brill says "the department's leadership recognizes how important science-based
issues are to the foreign policy agenda of the future."

"So it's not a question of will," he says. "It is a question of resources, though. And if you're going to do the optimum job, you need to have more resources than we have -instead of just shuffling the deck chairs around on the Titanic. We're under a significant amount of budget pressure."

Brill notes that State is "not a science institution, and the NRC report did not ask us to become a science institution. Our role is to help bring people together . . . making sure that scientists in their laboratories have their work reflected in our policy development, our negotiating positions, our interactions between countries."

In State's officer corps, Brill says, "we need to have people who are familiar with how important science is on the key emerging issues of the future and who know how to get help when they get into specifics that are beyond a generalist's knowledge base. So it's important to have some people who have scientific training involved in these activities."

As an example, Brill points to the environmental biosafety protocol, adopted by more than 130 countries on Jan. 29 in Montreal after intensive negotiations, to regulate international commerce in genetically modified organisms, such as biotech agricultural products. The U.S. delegation to the talks, led by Loy and OES Assistant Secretary David B. Sandalow, was an interagency group including scientists from State and other departments along with policy experts and veteran multilateral negotiators.

"All of these issues are pursued essentially on a teamwork basis," Brill says. "We need to know how to draw on the science agencies of the U.S. government, which are one of the great underappreciated national treasures."

Over the past decade, he notes, "the international environmental agenda . . . has mushroomed quite significantly. And I think it's important for people to realize that these negotiations are environmental but also economic. Each one of these negotiations affects vital American economic interests."

No 'Cone'

Within OES, the previous Directorate of Science, Technology and Health was eliminated in 1997 in order to focus more staff resources on environmental initiatives and negotiations. "We were into a zero-sum game," Brill says. "If you had to do something new, you had to give up something old."

State Department officials soon became concerned about the department's lack of commitment to S&T issues. Wendy R. Sherman, State's counselor, asked the National Academy of Sciences to study the department, saying "we may not be doing as much in the science, technology and health areas as we can." The NRC launched its study in April 1998, forming a 14-member study committee chaired by Robert A. Frosch, an S&T policy expert at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government. This panel issued a preliminary report in September 1998 and its final report Oct. 7, 1999, based on consultations with dozens of current and former officials at State and other departments and agencies.

In addition to steps already adopted by the State Department, the NRC study made various recommendations,
including:

Establishing an S&T advisory committee.
Expecting that all foreign service officers achieve a minimum level of S&T literacy and awareness.
Increasing the number of senior science counselors assigned to posts abroad from the current level of 10 to at least 25.
Increasing the use of specialists from other departments and agencies as rotating employees.
Transferring responsibilities for some S&T activities to other agencies.

Frosch, who has served as NASA administrator and head of research laboratories at General Motors, says he's pleased the department has begun to implement the NRC report's recommendations. "I guess I'd say that I'm cautiously optimistic," he says. "We're getting some action."

However, Frosch says that beyond the initial steps, the department needs to move toward reshaping the culture of the Foreign Service so that it can incorporate more S&T expertise into its ranks.

In talks with department officials, Frosch says, "we kept being told about the Foreign Service officer as generalist." He says he is concerned that such emphasis frequently works to the disadvantage of people who seek to go into the Foreign Service after receiving advanced degrees in science and technology fields.

"My personal view is that the State Department has sort of been vaccinated against any particular form of specialized knowledge-except perhaps for languages, maybe economics, possibly law," Frosch says. "But the idea that they need specialized knowledge to deal with some issues seems not to be in the culture."

Several years ago the State Department decided to abolish the personnel "cone" it had for science officers-the career grouping in which they received embassy assignments and competed for promotion. The NRC study committee did not propose that it be reinstituted. "We didn't recommend the cone because what had happened with the cone, frankly, was that it had become a ghetto," Frosch says. "So-and-so is a science type-put him over in that cone. The comments we got from people around the department were that it was seen as a dead end."

The NRC report does not advocate packing the Foreign Service with top scientists. "What we're suggesting is not that the place be populated with [Foreign Service officers] with Ph.D.s," Frosch says, but people who follow major science news, read mainstream science publications such as Scientific American, are aware of the mechanics of the science community and know where to get professional help on particular subjects. Such general awareness of S&T issues, Frosch says, should be complemented by a continuing interchange of professionals with advanced degrees between the department and other agencies, as well as universities and other outside organizations.

First Step

Rep. Vernon J. Ehlers, R-Mich., a member of the House Science Committee and author of a 1998 science policy study that criticized the State Department, says it suffers from a "deplorable" lack of S&T expertise. "I suspect the nuclear weapons testing in India and Pakistan wouldn't have been such a surprise if we had competent scientific attaches in our embassies there," he says.

The new S&T strategy at State is "certainly a good first step," Ehlers says. "It doesn't go as far as I would like or as far as the NRC report recommends. But at least it's a start."

According to Richard W. Getzinger, who is director of international programs at AAAS, Albright's personal interest in S&T issues and her willingness to address the organization's annual meeting earlier this year "shows a real commitment to do something."

Getzinger, who served during the 1980s as a science officer in Ottawa, Vienna and Tokyo, says he is particularly concerned about cutbacks in S&T positions abroad. "There are embassies where you really need a science person-a qualified, degreed science person-to do the job right," he says. "And the number of embassies that have such a person is much reduced now from what it was before, where if anything, the need is far greater than it used to be."

In addition to OES, State has officers with science and technology responsibilities distributed throughout several other bureaus and offices. An innovative State-coordinated effort that appears to be moving forward involves providing civilian employment for scientists and engineers who had been working on weapons of mass destruction in the former Soviet Union. (See "Avoiding Armageddon," June 1999, at www.govexec.com/features/0699/0699s3.htm.)

Despite such successes, many observers say the State Department has a long way to go to become an effective player in the science and technology arena. Eugene B. Skolnikoff, a professor of political science at MIT who served on the NRC panel, says the department's problems were illustrated by the 1997 Kyoto agreement. In that pact-still unratified by the United States-countries agreed to deal with global warming by cutting back on emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases.

"We ended up going down a path with the Kyoto agreement which we're not going to fulfill," says Skolnikoff, who has been professionally involved with U.S. S&T policy since he joined the newly established White House Office of Science and Technology in 1958. "It all became a political negotiating issue in which the science and what was possible to achieve just got lost, even though they had decent science in the process, within the department."

Skolnikoff says he finds Albright's recent endorsement of efforts to address the issues in the NRC report "very positive." But, he adds, "I don't think you'll be able to tell the real results of this for five years or more."

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