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Nature: What a Joe Biden presidency would mean for five key science issues.
The following appears in the "News" section of the major scientific journal Nature:
What a Joe Biden presidency would mean for five key science issues (Amy Maxmen, Nidhi Subbaraman, Jeff Tollefson, Giuliana Viglione & Alexandra Witze, Nature News October 1, 2020.)
I believe the article is open sourced and anyone can read it.
Some Excerpts:
Election Day in the United States is a little more than a month away, and scientists are watching the outcome of the presidential race closely. President Donald Trump’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic, actions to downplay climate change and perpetuation of misinformation have horrified many scientists. “We face a national crisis unlike any we have witnessed,” says a statement of concern about the state of democracy in the country, drafted by US scientists and signed by more than 3,400 supporters in response to Trump’s leadership...
...But what does Biden, a six-term senator from Delaware who served as vice-president under former president Barack Obama, stand for science-wise? Nature interviewed current advisers to Biden, advisers who served during Obama’s presidency and policy analysts about actions the former vice-president might take in five key science areas if he’s elected. (The Biden campaign did not respond to questions from Nature.)
Pandemic response
If Biden wins the election on 3 November, he will inherit not only a country in the throes of a pandemic that’s destroyed lives and livelihoods — but also one in which public opinion is deeply divided over the true extent of the coronavirus outbreak and the measures taken to abate it. Despite public-health agencies counting more than 200,000 COVID-19 deaths in the country, some Trump supporters feel that the impact of the virus has been exaggerated in an effort to control the populace.
Why the United States is having a coronavirus data crisis
Biden would also inherit a haphazard pandemic response, researchers say. “The problem with our whole response is that we’ve been changing the response since day one,” says Georges Benjamin, the executive director of the American Public Health Association in Washington DC...
... Coming in with a strong response plan and the ability to adapt to an evolving situation will be crucial for steadying both the outbreak and the US economy, he adds.
Biden’s pandemic plans — which his team has been preparing since March, say sources close to the campaign — promise to ramp up the country’s test-and-trace programmes; address racial and ethnic disparities in COVID-19 infection rates and outcomes; and rebuild pandemic-readiness programmes cut by the Trump administration.
Still, it will take time to bring the pandemic under control in the United States, says Kavita Patel, a physician who advises on health policy for Harris but is not currently advising the campaign. Biden’s staff members, she says, “need to hit the ground running” in order to turn the US response around...
...If elected, Biden has committed to supporting the World Health Organization (WHO), which Trump began to withdraw the United States from in July. As well as providing badly needed funds to the WHO to fight the coronavirus, polio and other diseases globally, reinstating the United States’ commitment to the organization would pave the way for joining its international COVAX facility, which aims to accelerate the search for and manufacture of coronavirus vaccines...
Climate change
...The coronavirus pandemic isn’t the only divisive issue that Biden would face if elected — he would also be confronting climate change. Trump has moved to pull the United States out of the 2015 Paris climate treaty, rolled back a suite of regulations intended to reduce greenhouse-gas regulations and called global warming a hoax.
In contrast, Biden is now campaigning on the most aggressive climate platform ever advanced by a US presidential nominee in the general election. Addressing the demands of an increasingly vocal liberal base, his US$2-trillion plan calls for massive investments in clean-energy research and development and low-carbon infrastructure, such as public transit and energy-efficient buildings. It also calls for the United States to generate 100% clean electricity by 2035 and to produce “net-zero emissions” by 2050. The question facing Biden and his team, if they win in November, is how to make it happen...
...But what does Biden, a six-term senator from Delaware who served as vice-president under former president Barack Obama, stand for science-wise? Nature interviewed current advisers to Biden, advisers who served during Obama’s presidency and policy analysts about actions the former vice-president might take in five key science areas if he’s elected. (The Biden campaign did not respond to questions from Nature.)
Pandemic response
If Biden wins the election on 3 November, he will inherit not only a country in the throes of a pandemic that’s destroyed lives and livelihoods — but also one in which public opinion is deeply divided over the true extent of the coronavirus outbreak and the measures taken to abate it. Despite public-health agencies counting more than 200,000 COVID-19 deaths in the country, some Trump supporters feel that the impact of the virus has been exaggerated in an effort to control the populace.
Why the United States is having a coronavirus data crisis
Biden would also inherit a haphazard pandemic response, researchers say. “The problem with our whole response is that we’ve been changing the response since day one,” says Georges Benjamin, the executive director of the American Public Health Association in Washington DC...
... Coming in with a strong response plan and the ability to adapt to an evolving situation will be crucial for steadying both the outbreak and the US economy, he adds.
Biden’s pandemic plans — which his team has been preparing since March, say sources close to the campaign — promise to ramp up the country’s test-and-trace programmes; address racial and ethnic disparities in COVID-19 infection rates and outcomes; and rebuild pandemic-readiness programmes cut by the Trump administration.
Still, it will take time to bring the pandemic under control in the United States, says Kavita Patel, a physician who advises on health policy for Harris but is not currently advising the campaign. Biden’s staff members, she says, “need to hit the ground running” in order to turn the US response around...
...If elected, Biden has committed to supporting the World Health Organization (WHO), which Trump began to withdraw the United States from in July. As well as providing badly needed funds to the WHO to fight the coronavirus, polio and other diseases globally, reinstating the United States’ commitment to the organization would pave the way for joining its international COVAX facility, which aims to accelerate the search for and manufacture of coronavirus vaccines...
Climate change
...The coronavirus pandemic isn’t the only divisive issue that Biden would face if elected — he would also be confronting climate change. Trump has moved to pull the United States out of the 2015 Paris climate treaty, rolled back a suite of regulations intended to reduce greenhouse-gas regulations and called global warming a hoax.
In contrast, Biden is now campaigning on the most aggressive climate platform ever advanced by a US presidential nominee in the general election. Addressing the demands of an increasingly vocal liberal base, his US$2-trillion plan calls for massive investments in clean-energy research and development and low-carbon infrastructure, such as public transit and energy-efficient buildings. It also calls for the United States to generate 100% clean electricity by 2035 and to produce “net-zero emissions” by 2050. The question facing Biden and his team, if they win in November, is how to make it happen...
I will state, for the record, that I regard the rote political position of our party, my party - that so called "renewable energy" will save the world - to be dangerously wrong headed, since so called "renewable energy" has been failing miserably at addressing climate change for several decades: The situation is getting worse not better, but I do believe that science - which is a human activity and begins with theory, some of which are biased - does demand experimental proof, and the failure of the anti-nuclear "renewable energy will save us" experiment has unmistakable results, and one does see growing recognition of this.
But no matter, since Biden can think and Trump cannot, he will at least take the issue seriously and hopefully bring young fresh minds into the discussion.
Research priorities
...As well as tackling the pandemic and climate change, a President Biden would have the opportunity to develop other science priorities for his administration. This process typically includes tapping experts to coordinate science policy and establishing research focuses for the White House. (The actual job of doling out science funding is left to Congress.)
These advisers will be crucial because although Biden and Harris generally support science and its role in crafting public policy, neither has worked extensively on science issues. When he served in the Senate, Biden’s focus was more on foreign affairs and the judiciary, and Harris has a background in criminal justice, including her former position as California’s attorney general.
NASA soars and others plummet in Trump’s budget proposal
If Biden is elected, he should choose a science adviser as quickly as possible to start developing and implementing whatever research priorities do emerge, says Michael Lubell, a physicist and science-policy expert at the City College of New York. That position is currently held by meteorologist Kelvin Droegemeier — who did not start until nearly two years into Trump’s presidency...
...Biden’s most obvious research interest has been in cancer science, particularly following the death of his 46-year-old son Beau in 2015 to brain cancer. As vice-president, Biden headed a government ‘cancer moonshot’ initiative that kicked off in 2016, the last year of Obama’s presidency. It aimed to speed up the rate of progress against the disease by coordinating with companies and researchers to share data and results. The initiative later morphed into a non-profit group, which Biden suspended last year after deciding to run for president.
“Biden will want to make sure that any momentum from that effort that began in 2016 has not waned," says Jon Retzlaff, vice-president for science policy and government affairs at the American Association for Cancer Research. He also notes that Harris’s mother, Shyamala Gopalan, a major influence on the vice-presidential candidate, was a leading breast-cancer researcher who died of cancer...
Space exploration
Under Trump, NASA has pursued an ambitious strategy — named Artemis, after Apollo’s twin sister — to put US astronauts on the Moon four years from now. Space exploration is one of the few areas where the Trump administration has put in significant effort to develop science policy.How Biden, if elected, might alter the course set out by Trump is another unknown. As vice-president, Biden was not deeply involved in space-policy issues — unlike Pence, who has actively worked on Trump’s space initiatives.
President Donald Trump views the Artemis II space capsule
Trump views a space capsule that's part of NASA's Artemis programme, which aims to put astronauts on the Moon by 2024.Credit: Bill Ingalls/NASA/Planet Pix/ZUMA Wire
He did, however, express enthusiasm for space in May, when NASA sent two astronauts to the International Space Station on a privately built spacecraft for the first time. In response, Biden posted his congratulations on the website Medium — and noted that he was vice-president when this ‘commercial crew’ programme began in 2009.
NASA might not dramatically change its course under a President Biden, experts say. The Democrats’ official platform says the party is “committed to continuing space exploration and discovery”, including “NASA’s work to return Americans to the Moon and go beyond to Mars”...
...As well as tackling the pandemic and climate change, a President Biden would have the opportunity to develop other science priorities for his administration. This process typically includes tapping experts to coordinate science policy and establishing research focuses for the White House. (The actual job of doling out science funding is left to Congress.)
These advisers will be crucial because although Biden and Harris generally support science and its role in crafting public policy, neither has worked extensively on science issues. When he served in the Senate, Biden’s focus was more on foreign affairs and the judiciary, and Harris has a background in criminal justice, including her former position as California’s attorney general.
NASA soars and others plummet in Trump’s budget proposal
If Biden is elected, he should choose a science adviser as quickly as possible to start developing and implementing whatever research priorities do emerge, says Michael Lubell, a physicist and science-policy expert at the City College of New York. That position is currently held by meteorologist Kelvin Droegemeier — who did not start until nearly two years into Trump’s presidency...
...Biden’s most obvious research interest has been in cancer science, particularly following the death of his 46-year-old son Beau in 2015 to brain cancer. As vice-president, Biden headed a government ‘cancer moonshot’ initiative that kicked off in 2016, the last year of Obama’s presidency. It aimed to speed up the rate of progress against the disease by coordinating with companies and researchers to share data and results. The initiative later morphed into a non-profit group, which Biden suspended last year after deciding to run for president.
“Biden will want to make sure that any momentum from that effort that began in 2016 has not waned," says Jon Retzlaff, vice-president for science policy and government affairs at the American Association for Cancer Research. He also notes that Harris’s mother, Shyamala Gopalan, a major influence on the vice-presidential candidate, was a leading breast-cancer researcher who died of cancer...
Space exploration
Under Trump, NASA has pursued an ambitious strategy — named Artemis, after Apollo’s twin sister — to put US astronauts on the Moon four years from now. Space exploration is one of the few areas where the Trump administration has put in significant effort to develop science policy.How Biden, if elected, might alter the course set out by Trump is another unknown. As vice-president, Biden was not deeply involved in space-policy issues — unlike Pence, who has actively worked on Trump’s space initiatives.
President Donald Trump views the Artemis II space capsule
Trump views a space capsule that's part of NASA's Artemis programme, which aims to put astronauts on the Moon by 2024.Credit: Bill Ingalls/NASA/Planet Pix/ZUMA Wire
He did, however, express enthusiasm for space in May, when NASA sent two astronauts to the International Space Station on a privately built spacecraft for the first time. In response, Biden posted his congratulations on the website Medium — and noted that he was vice-president when this ‘commercial crew’ programme began in 2009.
NASA might not dramatically change its course under a President Biden, experts say. The Democrats’ official platform says the party is “committed to continuing space exploration and discovery”, including “NASA’s work to return Americans to the Moon and go beyond to Mars”...
Personally, I am a big supporter of robotic instruments in space, human space travel, not so much...but that's just me...
International research collaborations
Scientists widely feel that Trump’s isolationist stance has eroded the position of the United States as a global leader in major scientific collaborations and dimmed its allure as a destination for foreign students and researchers. Biden’s foreign-policy and immigration plans could mend some frayed ties, but science-policy experts warn that the road to recovery will be longer than a single four-year presidential term.
Well before the 2016 election, Trump’s nationalist campaign rhetoric, with vivid promises to build a wall along the US–Mexico border, spooked foreign scientists. And weeks after his presidential inauguration, a ‘travel ban’ executive order targeted at seven Muslim-majority countries stranded international students at airports, sparked protests and sent shock waves through the US research community. “When you don't have certainty over what the future immigration laws of the host country are going to be, you're going to think twice before deciding to uproot yourself and move to another country to pursue your PhD,” says Ali Nouri, a molecular biologist and president of the Federation of American Scientists...
Amid this crackdown, US scientists are concerned about racial profiling against Chinese scientists, and some scientists in China are wary of travelling to the United States for conferences or partnering on projects with US scientists. US funding agencies have denied that the increased scrutiny has caused collaborations to suffer and insist that the US government’s interest is in select cases of unethical or illegal behavior.
Scientists widely feel that Trump’s isolationist stance has eroded the position of the United States as a global leader in major scientific collaborations and dimmed its allure as a destination for foreign students and researchers. Biden’s foreign-policy and immigration plans could mend some frayed ties, but science-policy experts warn that the road to recovery will be longer than a single four-year presidential term.
Well before the 2016 election, Trump’s nationalist campaign rhetoric, with vivid promises to build a wall along the US–Mexico border, spooked foreign scientists. And weeks after his presidential inauguration, a ‘travel ban’ executive order targeted at seven Muslim-majority countries stranded international students at airports, sparked protests and sent shock waves through the US research community. “When you don't have certainty over what the future immigration laws of the host country are going to be, you're going to think twice before deciding to uproot yourself and move to another country to pursue your PhD,” says Ali Nouri, a molecular biologist and president of the Federation of American Scientists...
Amid this crackdown, US scientists are concerned about racial profiling against Chinese scientists, and some scientists in China are wary of travelling to the United States for conferences or partnering on projects with US scientists. US funding agencies have denied that the increased scrutiny has caused collaborations to suffer and insist that the US government’s interest is in select cases of unethical or illegal behavior.
Having an ignorant racist for a President is clearly extremely dangerous in science - as well as many other areas - because science is in fact international and we disconnect from the world at our peril.
Biden is sure to be a huge improvement, a vast improvement, in fact an improvement on an almost infinite scale, since essentially he'll be starting from zero or less than zero.
Anyway...
I felt that the Obama administration was, overall, the best administration for science in my adult life, particularly in the first term.
President Biden and Vice President Harris will have huge issues to address, many of them involving science and engineering issues, and if nothing else, we can be sure that without a President Biden and Vice President Harris, science will suffer greatly, as it is doing now, at the expense of hundreds of thousands (actually millions) of lives.
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I'm sure they got flooded with hatemail from all of 45's supporters who make a habit of reading Nature. 