Failing to appoint scientific advisors is putting national security at risk (Foreign Policy mag)

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https://foreignpolicy.com/2017/05/30/how-the-white-house-lost-its-brains/

Report
How the White House Lost Its Brains
Failing to appoint scientific advisors to the president is putting national security at risk.
By Jenna McLaughlin
. . .

Trump’s failure to appoint scientists could have a detrimental impact on national security, says John Holdren, former director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy. Holdren directly advised President Obama, and served as the co-chair for the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology. “In the national security space, OSTP’s responsibilities are much greater than generally appreciated,” he said in an interview with FP.

A quarter of the floor space in the Office of Science and Technology Policy’s workspace in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building is secured for classified work, or set up to be a sensitive compartmented information facility, also known as a SCIF, Holdren says. In those spaces, scientists work on issues like “intelligence technology, classified space technologies, weapons, defense against weapons of mass destruction, emergency communication abilities,” Holdren said.

Council members get security clearances for their work, if they don’t already have them from their other jobs. “If you think about, the national security space is full of highly technical issues,” he said.

According to Holdren, the Office of Science and Technology Policy and the president’s science council are “joined at the hip” with the National Security Council, and regularly meet with the intelligence community to discuss future and current threats to the nation. During President Obama’s term, the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology completed two studies, both classified and unclassified, into the threats presented by cyberattacks and bioengineering.

Holdren’s team finished the study into bio threats late in President Obama’s term, and didn’t get the chance to oversee its influence in policy. “My hope would be that those reports which are on topics which are not partisan in nature … will survive into the Trump administration,” Holdren said. “But again, so many key positions are vacant, so it’s hard to tell at this point.”

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