Office of Science and Technology Policy, U.S.

U.S. presidents throughout the years have availed themselves of advice from informal science advisers within and outside the White House; for example, this was Vannevar Bush's role in the Roosevelt administration that led to the influential post–World War II science policy blueprint, Science: The Endless Frontier (1945). But it was not until the administration of President Gerald R. Ford that Congress formally established a White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) as part of the National Science and Technology Policy, Organization, and Priorities Act of 1976 (Pub. L. 94-282).

The 1976 act provides OSTP a broad mandate to advise the president and others within the executive office of the president on science and technology as it relates to both domestic and international affairs. The 1976 act also authorizes OSTP to lead interagency efforts to develop and implement sound science and technology policies and budgets and to work with the private sector, state and local governments, academia, and other nations toward this end.

Under the 1976 act, the director of OSTP is subject to Senate confirmation. It is typical in recent [Page 542]history for OSTP directors also to carry the title of special assistant for science and technology or a similar title, but not required, and in fact the director of OSTP under the administration of President George W. Bush, John Marburger, did not carry the title of special assistant, although his successor in the Obama administration, John Holdren, is both director of OSTP and special assistant to the president. The position of special assistant is not subject to Senate confirmation. To date, every director of OSTP has been a physicist by training (not counting acting or interim directors).

The first director to take office under the aegis of the 1976 law was H. Guyford Stever, who was the president's science adviser when Pub. L. 94–282 was passed and served until 1977. Fifteen other directors and acting directors of OSTP have served since that time.

The director of OSTP is served by four presi-dentially appointed and Senate-confirmed associate directors who manage four divisions within OSTP. The purview for these associate directors is not specified in the 1976 act, but largely has been organized around issues of environment, national security (in some recent administrations termed homeland security) and international affairs, science, and technology. Health issues, for example, fall under the oversight of the science division; the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) has generally fallen under the technology division, climate change in the environment division, and so forth. Depending on the administration, OSTP typically houses about 50 employees, many of them on detail from other federal agencies. OSTP has been variously located either in the Old Executive Office Building adjacent to the White House or in other federal office space within a few blocks of the White House.

During the 2008 presidential election, then-candidate Barack Obama pledged, if elected, to appoint a “technology adviser” to the president in addition to a “science adviser,” presumably also falling under the rubric of the 1976 legislation. At the time this entry was being prepared, however, no such appointment had yet been made.

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