On January 20th 2021, the United States swore in its current president, Joseph R. Biden. As a campaigner, President Biden proposed to be a president “guided by science”. This pledge was well-heard by the scientific community, as organizations such as Scientific American endorsed Biden, while others like the New England Journal of Medicine condemned his opponent. Moreover, following the erosion of public perception of government health agencies such as the NIH and CDC during the previous administration, government officials have encouraged the new administration to implement changes reflecting the President’s commitment to science. Namely, these include reinforcing the integrity of scientific policy-making, tackling the coronavirus pandemic, rejuvenating American research funds, and tackling the ongoing climate crisis. Now past the “honeymoon” phase of the administration, how has President Biden’s commitment to science held up so far?
Scientific integrity of federal agencies
Even before taking office, President Biden announced his appointments to the Office of Science Policy and Technology (OSTP) and the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST). These appointments are tasked with making evidence-based decisions guided by the best available science and data. The advisors composing these offices are indeed guided by science; the Director of OSTP is Dr. Eric Lander, one of the country’s leading scientists and a founding director of the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard and most well-known for his significant contributions to the Human Genome Project. In addition to his appointment, President Biden promoted the scientific advisory role to that of a cabinet position, giving the scientific advisor a more prominent role in our government decision-making.
Dr. Frances H. Arnold and Dr. Maria Zuber have been appointed co-chairs of PCAST. The Director of the Rosen Bioengineering Center at the California Institute of Technology, Dr. Arnold is an expert in protein engineering, namely through pioneering the process of directed evolution, and the first American woman to win a Nobel Prize in Chemistry, in 2018. In her acceptance speech following her appointment, Dr. Arnold referenced her commitment to following science and technology for a variety of current-day issues that the nation faces, including the pandemic, climate change, and using scientific discoveries to develop industries and bolster the country’s economic recovery.
A recipient of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry, Dr. Frances Arnold was recently tapped to co-chair the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST).
Meanwhile, Dr. Zuber is an expert in geophysics and planetary science, and the first woman to lead a NASA mission. Dr. Zuber was the first woman to lead a science department at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and she also chaired the National Science Board. Together, these two scientists are the first women to co-chair PCAST, highlighting another top goal of President Biden to have a historically diverse cabinet, including a record number of women. By choosing scientists such as Drs. Arnold and Zuber, who have well-established careers in science and technology, PCAST is similarly expected to follow science and research in a non-partisan manner in its policy-making decisions.
With the exodus of scientific researchers from federal agencies in recent years, the Biden administration has acknowledged the need for restocking the government’s cache of researchers. This “brain drain” of federal agencies has largely been speculated to be due to budget cuts as well as federal scientists’ input being ignored and the spread of misinformation not backed by science. These factors have culminated in a low morale and a significantly decreased workforce. To support federal scientists and to revive the public trust in federal science agencies, the administration has released a memorandum to restore scientific integrity in government policymaking. The memo establishes a task force of scientific integrity to review the effectiveness of scientific-integrity policies in federal agencies within the executive branch of government such as the Office of Scientific and Technology Policy the Council on Environmental Quality, and others. The primary goals of this task force were to study whether existing federal policies properly prevent political influence in scientific decision-making and to determine which policies are subjected to political motives. Additionally, the task force was assigned to establish effective practices in federal scientists’ engagement with the news media and social media, such that government-held information is provided to the masses in full transparency and openness while simultaneously limiting the disclosure of classified information, again without bias or influence from political interference. Furthermore, the task force was assigned to establish effective ways to handle allegations of misconduct by Federal scientists and contractors working on scientific matters of federal agencies after disregarding these policies.
Coronavirus
As a presidential candidate, Joe Biden pledged to encourage the use of mask use/mandates, to improve coronavirus testing and contact tracing efforts, and to continue support for the development and distribution of vaccines. On these points, President Biden has upheld his pledge quite well. Before vaccinations became widely available to the public, Biden continued his personal and professional support for mask use in public, fastidiously donning one in public and mandating all employees of federal buildings to wear them at work. Regarding testing and vaccination support, Congress passed the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021, on which Biden has signed. Many individuals would recognize this as the bill that supplemented the income of all Americans making up to $75,000 a year ($150,000/year for couples) a $1,400 stimulus check, but it also provided $47 billion towards COVID-19 testing activities, including COVID testing and tracing. Additionally, the bill allocated $7.5 billion of federal funds towards a distribution plan for COVID-19 vaccines, $1 billion towards vaccine confidence in the general public (such as public service announcements for vaccine information), and over $6 billion to support the research, development, manufacturing, and supply of vaccines. In addition to these efforts within our borders, this bill also allocated $750 million towards combatting COVID-19 on a global setting. This effort was followed by an additional pledge by the administration in June 2021 to donate 500 million vaccine doses to other nations around the globe. Within the month, the United States government donated 1.5 million vaccine doses to the Latin American country of Honduras, which at the time had one of the worst vaccination rates in the region.
Scientific funding
How has scientific funding changed due to actions taken by this administration? In addition to the funding allocated to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) from the American Rescue Plan Act, a bipartisan piece of legislation known as the US Innovation and Competition Act was passed by Congress and subsequently signed into law by Biden mid-2021. The Act was aimed to confront the growing influence China has on multiple fronts, including in the areas of science and technology research; the bill will invest more than $200 billion into American manufacturing, technology, research, and development. Importantly, one of the specific goals of this bill is to subsidize semiconductor manufacturing by $50 billion over five years, which is currently in short supply due to a global chip shortage and a large dependence on China’s manufacturing-based economy.
Additionally, the bill created a new Directorate of Technology, Innovation, and Partnerships within the National Science Foundation (NSF). The primary goal of this new Directorate is to “advance science and engineering research and innovation leading to breakthrough technologies as well as solutions to national and societal challenges, sustaining and enhancing US competitiveness on a global stage” and “accelerate the translation of fundamental discoveries from lab to market”. This aim will be accomplished by funding a variety of activities at the junction of science and business. For example, it will provide seed money to incentivize the advancement of the commercialization of scientific discoveries by bridging public and private partnerships. It will also invest in NSF entrepreneurial Fellowships for PhD-trained scientists and engineers to forge connections between industry, research, and the government. The Directorate has established 10 focus areas for research funding, including artificial intelligence, robotics, and technologies. The US Innovation and Competition Act increased money allocated to the NSF by $81 billion, $29 billion of which would be allotted towards this new directorate.
The president’s priorities can be glimpsed through his budget proposals. In April 2021, President Biden released the first budget proposal plan for the 2022 fiscal year. Unsurprisingly, the Health and Human Services (HHS) budget, which includes health-related agencies such as the National Institute of Health (NIH) and the CDC, increased by 24% to a total of $131.7 billion for 2022. The NIH budget was proposed to increase by about 20%, or $9 billion, largely to support an Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H). The ARPA-H, a new agency within the NIH, will focus on the development of platforms and capabilities to deliver cures for Alzheimer’s Disease, cancer, diabetes, and other diseases. All other institutes within the NIH would each receive at least a 2.7% increase in finding, however the budget specified certain priorities outside of the traditional budget increases, such as $100 million towards studying the health impacts of climate change, $16-22 million towards its scientific workforce diversity office, and $50-250 million towards its Buildings and Facilities account, to make a dent in its nearly $2.5 billion maintenance backlog.
Climate change
In addition to health-based research, the President must listen to researchers in other scientific fields as well. One of the most contentious and partisan topics in the US is the field of climate change, and therefore how President Biden aligns his goals with climate change science, rather than political influences, is exemplary of his pledge to be “guided by science”.
On the first day of his administration Joe Biden signed an executive order for the US to re-join the Paris Climate Accord, an international agreement for countries to limit the global rise in temperatures to 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels. This is a reversal of his predecessor’s move for the US to leave the Accord. Following the official re-joining of the Accord in February 2021, the US has pledged a 50-52% decrease in greenhouse gas emissions from 2005 levels by 2030. The methods for this ambitious goal were outlined in the administration’s sizable infrastructure plan. Although the details are still being debated, the largest portion of the bill would fund $213 billion over 10 years towards building, modernizing, and weatherizing affordable housing. Other sections of the bill outline $174 billion towards the transition to electric vehicles (EVs), including building a network of over 500,000 EV charging stations, $100 billion for power grid modernization and resilience, and $85 billion towards public transit. If passed, the bill would also establish a federal Energy Efficiency and Clean Electricity Standard, requiring utilities to deliver a certain percentage of their power from renewable resources. The plan also calls for $35 billion towards research and development funding, such as carbon capture technologies, and would direct $16 billion towards employing union gas and oil workers to clean up and decommission oil fields and gas mines.
Furthermore, the administration has supported efforts to replace carbon-based fuels with renewable resources. In addition to pausing federal leases for drilling oil, the administration directed the federal government to conserve 30% of all federally-held lands and water, and directed federal agencies to double offshore wind-generated electrical production to 30 Gigawatts by 2030.
By no means are these policies an exhaustive list of actions taken by the administration. But with these taken into consideration, how well is the Biden administration supporting science and implementing its discoveries? With any political question nowadays, the answer depends on who you ask. Climate change activist Greta Thunberg, for example, stated that Biden is “not doing nearly enough” to tackle climate change, stating that the President’s policies will not meet the world pledge to minimize global temperature increases to 1.5 – 2 degrees Celsius, and that global leaders in general are not “acting like the climate crisis is a crisis”, referring to the lackadaisical speed in which climate-control bills have been passed. Meanwhile, Republican lawmakers like Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) have criticized the use of solar panels in the US, claiming the Biden administration’s plans heavily rely on purchasing solar panels and other green technology from China, profiting China at the expense of US manufacturing. However, this criticism stands in contrast to the President's efforts to increase US manufacturing capacity, such as through the US Innovation and Competition Act.
Greta Thunberg, climate activist, encouraging Members of the European Parliament to show leadership in the climate crisis.
To answer the question of how well Joe Biden has aligned with his pledge to be “guided by science”, we can directly compare his priorities compared to his predecessor’s. Consider the fact that PCAST, the group of the most important advisors to the president on matters of science and technology, was not renewed during the prior administration until July 2020 – nearly half a year into the coronavirus pandemic. This council may have shifted the course of the pandemic, potentially averting some of the over 700,000 lives lost from the virus over the past two years; studies suggest that a faster response by a single week may have saved thousands of lives. By this single comparison, the administration under President Biden is leaps and bounds ahead of its antecedent.
Edited by Carly Lam
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