Reviews Mixed on Early Administration Moves on Policy Formation

The administration has appeared to outside observers to be “chaotic and weird” and “a world where policy was devalued,” said Bret Swanson, visiting fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. But throughout 2017, the administration made progress on several fronts, he said. “I’m optimistic,” Swanson said. “The FCC had things like the spectrum frontiers order, which was started in the previous administration, and has taken a few steps forward,” he said. “The 5G spectrum opportunity is massive.” The U.S. is seeing “the front edge” of a likely multi-decade boom “in applying information technologies” to traditional industries, Swanson said. “We’re going to see proliferation of policy issues surrounding autonomous vehicles and drones and healthcare.”

Kumar Garg, senior fellow at the Society for Science & the Public and a federal deputy chief technology officer in the last administration, gives the Trump administration much less credit during its first year in office. A year ago, there was a general fear that science and tech policy wouldn’t be a Trump focus, Garg told us. “The year has gone substantially worse than people had feared.” A year in, the administration lacks a CTO or chief White House science advisor, he said. The administration also proposed 20 percent cuts to federal funds for R&D, even though research usually has bipartisan support. The White House didn’t comment.

There's a single deputy CTO and the administration has started work on a handful of tech issues, Garg said. There’s is no the-glass-half-empty or -full analogy, he said. “The glass has a couple of drops in it.” China, for example, has made it clear it wants to lead the world on artificial intelligence, Garg said. “There hasn’t been that much that new administration has discussed around its priorities for AI or the national security implications,” he said. “There might be things they’re doing under the hood.”

UCS said the “advisory committees that federal agencies rely on for independent, expert scientific advice, are, by several measures, in the worst shape since the government began tracking them more than 20 years ago." President Donald Trump hasn't nominated a presidential science advisor, said the report: “Abandoning Science Advice: One Year In, the Trump Administration Is Sidelining Science Advisory Committees.” It said “OSTP, which the advisor would direct, sits mostly dormant, with a skeletal staff of 38 in contrast to its 130 staff members in 2016.”

“I haven’t seen anything I would characterize as policy markers,” said Larry Downes, senior fellow at the Georgetown Center for Business and Public Policy, who lives in Silicon Valley. “There are certainly clear and strong agendas being pursued at the independent agencies, notably the FCC and the FTC, but I’d be hard-pressed to say what the administration’s tech policy priorities are,” he said. “That doesn’t mean they don’t exist or that they aren’t being communicated inside the beltway. But here in the Valley, the vision isn’t clear.”

The first year has been a “mixed bag,” said Doug Brake, telecom policy director of the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation. "The administration is not as comprehensive in its approach to science and technology policy as it could be,” he said. “Key leadership roles are unfilled. Folks underestimate the potential for real upside to the Trump administration breaking through misguided Washington consensus.” Brake said FCC Chairman Ajit Pai was “quick off the blocks,” and NTIA Administrator David Redl is just getting started since his confirmation was delayed. “I’m still optimistic on meaningful reform to federal spectrum policy,” Brake said.

“It’s good that some policy markers are being laid down a year into the Trump presidency," said Gigi Sohn, aide to then-FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler. "I don’t see a lot new here.”