Partisan politics fog tech policy agreement In Congress the dissonance over technology policy increased a few days ago when House Republicans and Democrats unveiled their separate plans for restoring the U.S. to technological p r e e m i n e n c e . Not only are the plans nifty summaries for anyone needing a quick review of technology policy, but they also appear to neatly differentiate between Democratic and Republican approaches to competitiveness. Still, pessimists might conclude after reading the statements that the two sides will never get together on a common solution. The fact is, however, they already have, months ago, in a bill (H.R. 4329) called the American Technology Preeminence Act, just reported out by the House Science, Space, & Technology Committee, and authored by the committee's chairman, Robert Roe (D.-N.J.). The trouble is that politics, as usual, seem to have muscled aside any lingering spirit of bipartisanship. On June 19, the Democrats, led by the House majority leader, Richard A. Gephart (D.-Mo.), called a press conference to announce what he presented as the Democrats' scheme for r e n e w i n g U.S. technological prowess. The list was composed of provisions in H.R. 4329, plus components of a few other bills the House had either passed or was considering. "The Democrats," said Gephart, "don't want to leave America's economic future to chance. We want to work with America's hightechnology industry to make our economy grow again. The Administration has no strategy for dealing with high technology or the global marketplace. And this failure means we're losing." The Democratic plan consisted of a set of programs involving strong government agency participation in the development of various technologies—what in earlier days were seen as typically Democratic solutions to problems. Technologies mentioned that were parts of H.R. 4329 and other bills were high-definition television, metal casting, agricultural biotechnology, high-perfor-
mance computers, and various manufacturing systems. Not mentioned, but due for future consideration, would be additional technologies being selected by the White House Office of Science & Technology Policy. Both the Commerce and Defense departments have given OSTP their lists of "critical technologies" and the office is assembling for Congress a final list of 20. Among the areas being considered are artificial intelligence, optoelectronics, sensor technology, medical diagnostics, a n d h i g h density data storage.
NEWS ANALYSIS The Democratic plan introduces other ways for improving the U.S.'s technology position, including: • A plan to make it easier to do on the federal level what state governments have been doing routinely for years—helping companies tap the expertise of university and government scientists in research fields that have high technological potential. This approach goes beyond the usual professor-as-consultant relationship. It constitutes a kind of "technological extension service" similar to that which has existed between land-grant universities and farmers for well over a century. • Changes to antitrust law to allow companies to join with other firms in production joint ventures. The hotly competitive Japanese companies do not even engage in such ventures, although they do cooperate in research projects much more than do U.S. firms. • Various education ideas involving improved math and science curricula for vocational colleges, regional university-industry-local government consortia for educational improvement, and new academies to train science and math teachers in the international policy aspects of science and technology. • Recommendations to loosen restrictions on the export of technology to Eastern Europe and to establish a $125 million export-import bank fund to help companies export their technology to that region.
• Ways to use national economic security as the basis for regulating the takeover by foreign companies of domestic high-tech firms. What the Democrats failed to mention in presenting their list was that the ideas were developed by Republicans, too. So in an angry response, as House sources relate it, the Republicans got together the next day and presented their own plan, along with an attack on the Democrats. Leading the assault was Rep. Tom Campbell (R.-Calif.). "The solution to American competitiveness," Campbell said, "is not more government intervention. The answer is that government must stop punishing Americans for doing the very things that will allow us to compete in the 21st century: making long-term investments in research and development and in startup companies, forming partnerships in cuttingedge fields, and developing innovative products." Out came the Republican plan, which included the permanent restoration of the research and development tax credit, hiking the capital gains tax deduction to 50%, removing the tax incentive for leveraged buyouts, increasing protection of intellectual property, raising the tax credit on industrial equipment, allowing joint production ventures, and lowering liability suit costs by standardizing the tort system. Not mentioned by Campbell was that most Congressional Democrats endorsed just about all of the points in this scheme. Thus, instead of using the opportunity to articulate in some ways a historic bipartisan technology policy h a m m e r e d out over t h e y e a r s through endless hearings, reports, and debate, the issue fell to partisan politics. And the irony is that both sides are sorry about it. " T h i s t h i n g last week was a grudge match, a ridiculous show," one House staffer says. "It was basically stupid political stuff. It totally missed the point and obscured the agreement between the Republicans and Democrats over technology policy. Both sides want to take credit for the House bill. They just couldn't share it." Wil Lepkowski July 2, 1990 C&EN
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