Science and Technology Leadership in American Government Ensuring the Best Presidential Appointments (1992) / Chapter Skim
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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Pages 1-18
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The need for highly competent and dedicated scientists, engineers, and other experts in top policy and program management positions in the federal government has never been greater. Leadership of the government's role in science and technology is exercised by executives in fewer than 100 positions.
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The nation needs exceptionally able scientists and engineers in these executive positions to weigh the advice of technical specialists and to make key programmatic and policy decisions. The government's capacity to perform these science and technology functions would be seriously affected by increasing difficulties in recruiting highly qualified personnel.
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More detailed requirements for public financial disclosure i, · Pay that is not competitive with comparable positions in the private and nonprofit sectors; · The high costs of moving to and living in Washington; · Increased public scrutiny of one's personal life; · Decreased capacity of government to carry out effective programs; and · Lower public esteem for and prestige of public service. Although these factors may affect all potential candidates for presidential appointments to some degree, they can have a differential impact on the government's ability to attract researchers from academia and industry and managers with technical backgrounds from industry.
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CONSEQUENCES One of the most difficult challenges facing modern government is to make decisions about complex matters that take into account the constantly evolving scientific knowledge and technological changes that occur by and large outside the government itself. To meet this challenge, the nation cannot rely on generalists alone, and in fact, we have developed a tradition of recruiting highly trained individuals to felt key S&T leadership positions in the government.
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As a nation, we are facing a serious problem of recruitment and retention in government leadership positions, the effects of which have been accumulating steadily for several decades and promises to worsen. The long-term nature of this erosion of governmental capacity led the recent National Commission on the Public Service (Voicker Commission)
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Many of those who do serve must make large financial sacrifices, suffer loss of privacy, and risk unjustif~ed accusations of scandal. The major hurdles include: postemployment restrictions that are becoming too broad in application; the cost of complying with conflict-of-interest interpretations; the perception of inappropriate ideological "litmus tests"; inadequate compensation; the belief that it is much harder to accomplish anything in and through government; and the lengthier and more burdensome appointment process.
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Overlapping, conflicting, confusing, and in some respects overly broad postemployment restrictions that were suspended with the passage of the Ethics Reform Act of 1989 have come back into effect over the last year, and there is constant pressure to broaden the restrictions further by banning officials involved in specific procurement actions from working in any capacity for any competing contractors for periods of one, two, or three years. A particularly damaging feature of some recently imposed and proposed restrictions is that they often treat presidential appointees who have broad procurement oversight responsibilities as having participated personally and substantially in a wide range of contract determinations under their official jurisdictions.
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The recent efforts to create a scandalproof government have gone so far that they, on balance, do more harm than good by deterring talented and experienced scientific and engineering personnel from taking senior government positions. These laws afford little additional ethical protection at very high cost a bad bargain for the government and the public.
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Currently, the laws especially those concerning postemployment restrictions- are overlapping and inconsistent in content and in their application to comparable agencies, making Hem hard to understand or enforce. The resulting uncertainty makes it difficult for the Office of Government Ethics, designated agency ethics officials, or personal legal advisors to tell appointees what restrictions and bans will apply to them.
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In applying the conflict-of-interest laws, divestiture of assets should not be considered the primary remedy and therefore required routinely. Recusal, coupled with full public financial disclosure, should be considered the primary remedy in most cases by the Senate, the Office of Government Ethics, and agency ethics; officials.
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In those rare cases where resignation may be justified, there should be no implicit arrangements for the appointee to return. Reducing Other Hurdles and Costs Adequate Compensation Until recently, low and inadequate pay was a major disincentive to serve, even in presidentially appointed executiveleve!
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Greater Reliance on Department and Agency Recruitment The locus of decisionmaking for subcabinet political appointments should be with the cabinet secretaries and agency heads. We believe that shifting the balance toward the departments and agencies will improve the chances of recruiting and keeping f~rst-rate scientists and engineers in presidentially appointed positions.
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Without giving up their exclusive right to make executive appointments, presidents should place greater reliance on cabinet secretaries and agency heads for active identification and recruitment of candidates for subcabinet positions involving S&T expertise. The White House cannot hone to fill the thollsan~ls of _% .
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The President should designate the Assistant to the President for S&T early in the transition and instruct him or her to work closely with department and agency heads and the Office of Presidential Personnel in an active effort to identify and recruit outstanding scientists and engineers for presidential appointments. The President's Assistant for S&T also should help recommend changes, whether in personnel or in the authorities, location, reporting relationships, and staff and budgetary resources of key S&T positions that may be required to make the positions more effective and attractive.
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Finally, the Assistant to the President for S&T should play a key role in identifying and recruiting candidates for certain positions considered key to the President's program and to the government's major S&T efforts, and should monitor for the President the overall effectiveness of the recruitment process where it counts-namely, in successful scientific and engineering policies and programs. Other Recruiting Recommendations While the federal government should improve its recruitment process as much as possible, the other partners in the national S&T enterprise also have an interest and an obligation to encourage their most qualified leaders to serve in top government policy and management positions.
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Because government is best sewed if the best technical judgment on difficult public policy issues is heard, considered, and balanced with political and odler considerations by decisionmakers, the S&T executive leadership structure should be carefully designed to ensure that unbiased and accurate technical judgments can be made and directly applied to relevant policy choices. For example, although they should not be removed from politics, positions whose incumbents are expected to act primarily on long-term scientific or technical grounds should be insulated from day-to-day partisan pressures, and in selected cases, from automatic removal with changes in administration.
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This was done with assistant directors of the NSF. Reducing the Administrative "Overbrush" The number of presidential appointments to full-time executive branch positions requiring Senate confirmation has increased from about 150 in 1965 to about 550 today.
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These appointees e.g., noncareer SES holding deputy assistant secretary or similar positions and Schedule C staff assistants- tend to dilute decisionmaking authority held by agency and bureau heads. This hampers the ability of S&T leaders to manage their programs and encourages second-guessing or "micromanagement" of decisions that are made by the highly qualified officials who are in the best position to reach informed judgments involving technical as well as political and economic considerations.
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