their provisional transition teams. After the election, the winning candidate, assisted by those advisers, should quickly identify a well-credentialed, well-suited person to be nominated for the position of assistant to the president for science and technology (APST). During the transition, the president-elect and the transition team should consult that person on vital S&T issues, on S&T strategic planning, and on identifying and nominating qualified candidates for appointive S&T posts.

Response: The principal Bush transition team did not include anyone with S&T expertise. But some members of subsidiary teams did have S&T backgrounds, such as Richard Mather Russell, later appointed associate director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy. However, he was not nominated for that position until October 2001, and his confirmation came almost a year later, in August 2002.

About 6 months after his inauguration, President Bush announced his nominee as Director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Post, John H. Marburger III. In October 2001, the Senate confirmed Dr. Marburger, and he officially took over the job several months later. By way of comparison, the Senate confirmed President Clinton’s nomination for the OSTP position, on January 28, 1993, Dr. John Gibbons, 8 days after inauguration. In the George H.W. Bush administration, Allan Bromley was confirmed on August 3, 1989, 8 months after that president’s inauguration.

Recommendation 2: Increase the breadth and depth of the pool of candidates by reducing the financial and vocational obstacles to government service.

As envisaged by this recommendation, the president and Congress should create a bipartisan framework or dialogue in which the executive branch, Congress, and the Office of Government Ethics (OGE) are represented to identify steps by both branches of government to increase the pool of qualified persons willing to