Rep. Sherwood Boehlert

Boehlert's Legacy

October / November 06 By: Tom Michael Volume 4 Number 5

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When Rep. Sherwood Boehlert officially announced his retirement in July, many environmentalists and science advocates voiced a collective groan of dismay.

The moderate New York Republican, chairman of the House Science Committee, owns a reputation as one of his party's staunchest environmental defenders and he leaves a considerable legacy as a proponent of governmental investment in science research and development. The 12-term representative also counts himself among a dying breed in Congress, a centrist politician who is not afraid to buck his own party or even—€”gasp—€”work with Democrats when he thinks it's in America's best interest.

In a wide-ranging interview with Innovation in Washington, Boehlert said he's gravely concerned about the political polarization of Congress, but optimistic about the legislative body's commitment to science.

"I've never seen a higher level of partisanship or a lower level of tolerance and that has to change for the common good," Boehlert said. "I literally have colleagues who can't look me in the eye and say with a straight face that they know members of the other party—€¦and that does not bode well for a cordial, working partnership. Hopefully that will change."

However, Boehlert said he is growing more optimistic about the federal government's commitment to science. That seed of optimism was planted when President Bush unveiled the American Competitiveness Initiative during his State of the Union address this year, he said. The ambitious plan, based on a landmark report by American business leaders (Rising Above The Gathering Storm: Energizing and Employing America for a Brighter Economic Future), aims to retain America's place as the world leader in technological innovation.

"It was music to my ears when the president unveiled it," Boehlert said. "It changed the dynamics because it wasn't just the chairman of the science committee saying we need to invest more in science—€¦it was the president and the business community saying the same thing. We were finally all reading from the same hymn."

Boehlert's enthusiasm soared higher when Bush came back to Congress several weeks later with a blueprint that actually paid for his proposals.

"Presidents are marvelous at speechifying, but the real test was do we have meaningful deeds following those eloquent words?" Boehlert said. "And in this instance we did. And Congress has responded the way we hoped it would, by providing more money for basic science investment."

Congress this year doubled the budgets of the National Science Foundation, the Office of Science in the Department of Energy and the National Institute of Science—€”despite an exceptionally grim budget outlook.

"We don't have unlimited resources so we've got to prioritize," he said, noting with immense satisfaction that science appears to have become a congressional priority.
But while paying for all that science research and technology is good policy, it's also good policy to figure out how to move it to the marketplace. Boehlert said technology transfer is an area in which the government still has much room for improvement.

"We've got to have more people in government agencies more attuned to the need for tech transfer," he said. "We've got to be more creative in thinking how to transfer this and get it out into the private sector where they can run with it and capitalize on it to the benefit of all concerned."

The legions of lobbyists that flood Capitol Hill every day can actually help in that regard. Lobbyists for major tech companies such as Intel or Microsoft tend to focus "only on their hot button issue of the moment"—€”such as a request to tweak trade or tax policy to boost their bottom line. But they have the vision and resources to look farther down the road, the Congressman explained.

"I keep telling these guys to make two appointments with members of Congress—€”one for the hot-button issue and one for longer range needs," he said.

"They can get Congress committed to the proposition that we need to invest more. We've got to get people in Congress to understand how important all of this is. There isn't a member of Congress who has a district without at least one high-tech company or research university or fill-in-the-blank."

He said Congress talks a good game about tech transfer, but then drops the ball. For example, the Energy Policy Act of 2005 required the DOE to more aggressively pursue tech transfer successes. To date, virtually none of the congressional directives have been implemented and despite vows to do so, Congress has conducted no oversight hearings.

"Congress has to be more actively engaged," Boehlert said. "We do exceptionally good work at addressing a problem and coming up with a legislative solution. But then we say —€˜Our job is done, let's go onto the next solution'.

"We'll invest a ton of money in (a particular area) of research but then we should ask what have we gotten out of it and what are we doing to get that research out to the private sector and the private domain? After all, the taxpayers paid for this research; shouldn't they derive full benefit from the research?"

Boehlert said Congress should make sure to keep R&D tax credits in place. But it also needs to provide more incentives—€”possibly through more creative tax breaks—€”to get companies to invest in long-range private sector R&D. "Businesses won't invest in highly speculative or risky research because they need to answer to the next quarterly report," he said. "We've got to incentivize businesses to do what we want them to do, which is invest more in longer-range research."

And speaking of long-range research, Boehlert said research that is already complete could help wean America off foreign oil. The nation currently uses 21 million barrels of oil per day, 14 million of which comes from foreign countries."Our heavy dependence on foreign source oil need not be," he said. "Science has solved the problem if we'd only take the science off the shelf."
A longtime advocate of increasing fuel economy standards, Boehlert said he thinks other key members of Congress, such as Senate Energy Committee Chairman Pete Domenici, are finally seeing the light. Boehlert said the Congress should move—€”at minimum—€”from a 25-mile per gallon standard for passenger cars to 35 mpg over the next decade "That's a no-brainer and we should have done it long ago," he said.

And investors looking for the next major opportunity to build capital and create jobs should looks to companies that create the fuels of the future—€”i.e. renewables. "Renewables are a potential area of major job growth and anyone who doesn't look at the possibilities that can be derived from investment in green technology is very short-sighted," Boehlert said.

Tom Michael reports from Washington for Innovation.