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. Roanoke 11mes &World-News UESDAY, DEC. 29, 1992 coMMIENr", Give industry a bigger science rol By PATRICK J. MICHAELS THE SPIN-UP of a new administration allows scientists a great opportunity, They can cast off their shackles, reduce the deficit, increase productivity, and set the country pointing toward the shining city on the hill of technological supremacy and scientific lead& ership. ~ How? Easy. Get the govermnent off their backs. The fact is that virtually every successful academic scientist is a ward of the federal • government..Oftgwot dQ.the research neo- ed tenure . h ~.. ~ t t t 0 wi ou appe tng o one or ano r agency for considerable financial support. In the environmental sciences, the amount necessary to build such a research machine in time to get tenure (six years) is around $1 million. This requires no mean amount of supplication and obedience to, say, the National Aeronautics and Space Adminis- tration, the Environmental Protection Agen- cy, the Department of Energy, or the National Science Foundation. , ' If anyone truly believes that these agen- cies do not have political agendaa, they need look no further than "public choice" ecoaom• ic theory. They exist to perpetuate them- selves, and to expand their territory and their political influence. Government agencies bo- have just like people. The agency goals cannotbe accomplished without the largesse of Congress. Thus begias' a peculiar back-scratching in which political patrons define a particular problem as The Most Important in History. The agency re- sponds by testifying that the end is near un- less a few billion is spent pronto-and then it probably will be even worse than we thought. Such issues and constituencies include the ozone "hole" (NASA, NSF, EPA); global warming (NASA, NSF, DOE, EPA); sexually transmitted diseases (National Institutes of Health, NSF); or roughage shortages (NIH, U.S. Department of Agriculture). The list is as infinite as is the predilection for Homo sapi- errs to have nightmares. All this is well and good for agencies, but horribly destructive of science. For the most progress in science is made when researchers challenge existing paradigms, the most over- arching of which is that we am doomed. But don't expect agency heads to march up to the Senate's Subcommittee on Science, Space, and Technology and say that, well, global warming isn't much of a problem after all, so maybe we ought to;be investigating how it might cmam a better world. Heck no. That's the province of industry, and industry has as much of a vested interest in funding research based upon that hypothe- sis as the government does in promoting the apocalypse. But the amount of funding that industry tenders toward basic research on the environ- ment is minuscule, and is viewed as "tainted" by a community whose primary source of funding is designed to prove that things are terrible and getting worse. So hetet 's how to chan things, save money and promote scientif oeprogress: The Clinton administration should pro- vide an enhanced tax incentive for the sup- port of basic research by industry. Every re• search dollar provided by industry shoWd be met by a consequent reduction in federal support.The resnlt will be that scientists will no longer be required to shill for the apocalypse in order to keep their jobs. Government has its agenda (more government) as surely as ?ndustry has its: more industry. Both are bi- ased, self-serving entities. Scientists should be allowed, or even en- couraged, to choose between biases in their choice of funding. Right now, they have no choice. As a result, the diversity of opinion and contention that is required for scientific progress is being stifled by a government hetl- bent on promoting itself. Now it would be easy to blanie the gov- ernment for getting us into this mess in the first place, but in fact it didn't. Rather, in try abdicated. Government got into big science with the Manhattan Project on nuclear f s: - an explosive success. Then, the social tion of science became institutionalized : the panic response to 'the launching of Soviet Sputnik in 1957. Industry saw ei- developments as a great way to get suppo, basic science off its own back. And so it did. Now, industry reaps whirlwind: excessive regulation and econt ic miasma, because we're about to cente; plan the world's energy economy based on threat of global warming. This threat rather easily be diminished by close insp tion of the facts - something that all th, agencies that are getting oh-so-fat are ~ about to trumpet and promote. So, there you have it, Mr. Clinton. i duce federal spending on basic science much as industry will compensate for it; ~ courage industry with tax incentives. Scii tists operating and benefiting from a f, market of ideas, rather than government co mand-and-control, will help get you out of regulatory mess that had to result when g~ ernment took over seience. What you will get, Mr. Clinton, is a verse, rejuvenated scientific community tl divides equally between the worried and optimistic. Parity between those groups v enhance the dynamic tension necessary _ scientific progress. And because the Unil States has more good scientists than any i tion in history, it's a sure shot that you'll credited with the greatest explosion ever scientific progress. Patrick J. Michaels is associate professt of environmental sciences at the University Virginia and is affiliated with the Washington-based Science & Environment Policy Project. The Science & Environmental Policy Project, 2101 Wilson Blvd., #1003, Arlington, VA 22201 .(703) 527-0130 2074144040