The Role of the National Academies

Mr. FUQUA. Today we begin a 3-day series of hearings on the subject of the future role of the national academies. The national academies are a unique American institution. They constitute a strong, independent, scientific, technical, and policy advisory group for the entire Federal Government. There is no question that the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering, the Institute of Medicine, and their operating arm, the National Research Council, have made many valuable contributions to science and technology in the United States.

Our goal for these hearings is to determine what role the national academies should play in helping the Federal Government shape the future direction of America's science and technology and how that role can can best be performed.

Our first witness today is Dr. George Keyworth, former science adviser to the President and Director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy. He utilized the academies to assist him, and also observed the academies' interactions with the other parts of the Federal science and technology establishment.

Following Dr. Keyworth will be Dr. Thomas Larson, who is the Pennsylvania Secretary of Transportation. He is a member of the Academy of Engineering and various transportation panels, and he will provide us with a different view of the academy's advisory mechanism and its use by the States. The third witness today is Dr. James Wyngaarden, the Director of the National Institutes of Health, and a member of both the National Academy of Sciences and the Institute of Medicine. Dr. Wyngaarden will address the utilization of the academies by the National Institutes of Health, and their future impact on American science policy.

The final witness will be Dr. Duncan Luce of Harvard University Psychology Department. He will address an often neglected area, the social sciences, and what role the academies play in this area. We are very pleased to welcome back Dr. Keyworth who has been here many, many times. We are glad to see you again and to see that you are surviving and doing well, Dr. Keyworth.

STATEMENT OF DR. GEORGE A. KEYWORTH II, CHAIRMAN, KEYWORTH/MEYER INTERNATIONAL, WASHINGTON, DC, AND FORMER SCIENCE ADVISER TO THE PRESIDENT, AND DIRECTOR OF THE WHITE HOUSE OFFICE OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY POLICY [OSTP]

Dr. KEYWORTH. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. If I may, I would like to read an abbreviated version of my testimony and submit the whole for the record.

Mr. FUQUA. Yes, we will make the prepared part a part of the record, and if you wish to summarize, that would be fine.

Dr. KEYWORTH. As always, I am pleased to meet with the Science and Technology Committee, and I am glad to get in under the wire to finally meet with the Task Force on Science Policy. Before I address the specific issues at hand, I would like to say just a few words about this committee itself. During my nearly 5 years as science adviser, I inevitably enjoyed and was stimulated by appearances here, and I always considered your oversight hearings on the President's proposed R&D budgets as the most comprehensive look taken at science policy throughout the year. In a very real sense, by virtue of the committee's focus and on the time it devotes to science and technology issues, this committee has been a key forum for national science policy over the years, and, moreover, Mr. Chairman, much of the success of the committee in building this role is due to your own efforts. I know I speak for the science community when I say that we will miss your presence after this year. Speaking personally, I am pleased that you will at least remain in Washington where we can all continue to draw on your experience and leadership.

Now-to today's topic. The task force has posed an extensive series of questions about the role of the national academies. Rather than address them specifically, I would like to reflect on my own experience in the White House Science Office, as someone whose responsibilities for formulating and implementing science policy were critically dependent on the quality and on the timeliness of expert information, analyses, and recommendations.

Those inputs came from many individuals and groups, as they should, and I would say that the academies can be thought of as one of many sources of expertise to draw on. Of course, my own experience with the academies reflects only a small, albeit highly visible, part of their efforts. The bulk of academy work-the many contract studies performed under sponsorship of Federal agencies and the Congress-has little direct impact at the White House level of policymaking, though the substantial knowledge and analyses generated through those studies are obviously reflected in subsequent recommendations passed on by the agencies themselves.

In the White House, we had to be highly demanding and selective about the kinds of policy input that we could use effectively, and, to set that in perspective, I have to restate something that I have said many times before. Science advising is not advising the President about what is good for science and technology. It is advising the President about the impacts of science and technology on national policy. That means a major part of the science adviser's job is to anticipate issues in which he is likely to be called upon for

advice-and to make sure that he has the best possible array of options to consider. As a result, events external to the science and technology community control much of the science adviser's agenda-something that has always been difficult for the science community to accept or even understand.

If it is any one thing I would have the science community appreciate, it is how much more effective roles they could play if they could think more in terms of that national agenda.

With that in mind, it is clearer why policymakers seek information through multiple channels, and it might prove instructive for me to briefly run through the kinds of advisory bodies that I did draw on in the White House as a way of establishing some perspective for how the academies, in particular, fit into that level of policymaking. My primary source of outside advice was, not surprisingly, the White House Science Council, which, also not surprisingly, was composed largely of people who are also members of the academies. In addition to the invaluable informal advice I got from them on a regular basis, and I cannot overemphasize just how important that was, I also asked them to undertake formal studies from time to time. Among those were the two Packard studies-the first being our national laboratories, and the second being the recently released report on the health of universities. We also did a study at the request of the Federal Aviation Administration of their proposed national airspace plan, and I asked the Council to set up several panels to look at broad defense technology issues. One of those studies, as an example, was instrumental in the President's decision to propose the Strategic Defense Initiative. In other instances, we set up ad hoc panels outside of the Council, sometimes within OSTP, sometimes as interagency groups under the Federal Coordinating Council for Science, Engineering, and Technology. Among those were panels-generally composed of both Government and private sector experts-that assessed the state of our knowledge about carcinogens and about acid rain, that looked at research opportunities in aeronautics and supercomputers, at the prospects for biotechnology and agriculture and so on.

Now, in my first year in the White House, my initial interaction with the community both as represented in the academies, and in the societies and associations was, frankly, discouraging. I found it perplexing that something that good scientists can do so wellwhich is to evaluate and rank the quality of research-was something that they were often reluctant to do when assembled in a group within the beltway. Since a major part of my job was to help put together the R&D budget, I needed to note two things: What should be the priorities for supportive research within a discipline, and what should be the priorities for support within science and engineering overall?

In a few cases we were able to get straightforward answers to that first question. The best example was always the academies' astronomers, who periodically bit the bullet and published a rank-ordered list of facilities that they believed should be funded. Next, but a long way down the list, are my fellow physicists who, if locked in a room and deprived of food and drink, could sometimes agree on priorities for major new facilities. Most of the rest of the

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