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President Obama's Science Advisor Keeping an Eye on Trump Administration

John Holdren, science advisor and director of OSTP under President Obama.
Elsa Partan
/
WCAI

President Donald Trump has yet to name a science advisor, a position that dates back to the Franklin D. Roosevelt administration. It wouldn't be the first time that a president has decided he's better off without one. 

President Nixon wasn’t happy with the advice he was getting from his Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP).  He fired his science advisor and he dissolved the office of science and technology. But in 1976, Congress decided the executive branch really needed such an office and so it restored it by law.

"So, it would be difficult to do away with OSTP because it was created by statute," Obama Administration science advisor John Holdren told WCAI. "Of course it can be done away with with another law, passed by Congress and signed by the president.”

How much should we read into Trump's lack of a science advisor?

Not too much, according to Holdren. It seems that science is not his top priority. But when asked his reaction to the report on Greenwire that two advisors that Trump is considering have contradicted the scientific consensus on climate change, Holdren said it would be "unfortunate" if a climate skeptic became Trump's science advisor.

"Particularly if the person was a climate skeptic without benefit of having been a climate scientist," he added.

Holdren calls global climate change an immensely dangerous problem.

"Dangerous not just in the usual environmental terms but dangerous to our economy, dangerous to our security," he said. "The Pentagon has understood it, the intelligence community has understood it, the economics community has understood it. We really need the Trump administration to embrace a forward-leaning agenda on clean energy, on climate change mitigation and adaptation.”

Not only does climate change have the potential for dire economic consequences, innovation has the potential to boost the U.S. economy, Holdren said. 

“Most economists agree that between 50 and 80 percent of productivity increases over the last half century and more have come from science, technology and innovation," he told WCAI. "These should not be partisan issues. That is, improving public health, advancing the economy, protecting us against the potential ravages and even the ongoing ravages of climate change. These should be bi-partisan issues.”

Holdren says he is concerned by the Trump Administration's crackdown on government scientists' communications with the public. If that situation doesn't get better, Holdren says he will be among those speaking out.  

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Elsa Partan is a producer and newscaster with CAI. She first came to the station in 2002 as an intern and fell in love with radio. She is a graduate of Bryn Mawr College and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. From 2006 to 2009, she covered the state of Wyoming for the NPR member station Wyoming Public Media in Laramie. She was a newspaper reporter at The Mashpee Enterprise from 2010 to 2013. She lives in Falmouth with her husband and two daughters.