Over the past few weeks, various members of teh online liberal/progressive community, that included quite a few Kossaks, worked together in a democratic fashion to create the Netroots Platform
American Prosperity through Science and Technology
In the past, government funding for scientific research has yielded innovations that have improved the landscape of American life, technologies like the Internet, digital photography, bar codes, Global Positioning System technology, laser surgery, and chemotherapy. At one time, educational competition with the Soviets fostered the creativity that put a man on the moon. Today, we face a new set of challenges, including energy security, HIV/AIDS, and climate change. Yet, the United States is losing its scientific dominance. Among industrialized nations, our country's scores on international science and math tests rank in the bottom third and bottom fifth, respectively. Over the last three decades, federal funding for the physical, mathematical and engineering sciences has declined at a time when other countries are substantially increasing their own research budgets.
We believe that federally funded scientific research should play an important role in advancing science and technology in the classroom and in the lab.
The 21st century tools of technology and telecommunications have unleashed the forces of globalization on a previously unimagined scale. They have flattened communications and labor markets and have contributed to a period of unprecedented innovation, making us more productive, connected global citizens.
We believe that by maximizing the power of technology, we can strengthen the quality and affordability of our health care, advance climate-friendly energy development and deployment, improve education throughout the country, become a spacefaring society, and ensure that America remains the world's leader in technology. Through marshalling our exploding base of knowledge in biotechnology and related fields, we will support 'efficient medicine' to drastically reduce the costs of health care - and human suffering - by preventing disease and by improving health outcomes. To facilitate a more effective Science & Technology policy, and foster America's global competitiveness, we must educate more scientists and engineers than ever before.
We believe that we should invest in the Sciences. We support doubling federal funding for basic research, changing the posture of our federal government from being one of the most anti-science administrations in American history to one that embraces science and technology. This will foster homegrown innovation, help ensure the competitiveness of US technology-based businesses, and ensure that 21st century jobs can and will grow in America. It is often federally supported basic research that has generated the innovation to create markets and drive economic growth. For example, one recent report demonstrated how federally supported research in fiber optics and lasers helped spur the telecommunications revolution.
We resolve to make the R&D Tax Credit Permanent. We will invest in a skilled research and development workforce and technology infrastructure here in America so that American workers and communities will benefit. We will make the Research and Development tax credit permanent so that firms can rely on it when making decisions to invest in domestic R&D over multi-year timeframes.
Restoring Scientific Integrity to Federal Policy Making
Scientific knowledge and its successful applications have played a large role in making the United States of America a powerful nation and its citizens increasingly prosperous and healthy. The challenges that face the United States in the twentyfirst century can only be met if this tradition is honored and sustained.
To that end, the U.S. government must adhere to high standards of scientific integrity in forming and implementing its policies. Breaches of this principle have damaged the public good and the international leadership of the United States.
The United States government must adhere to high standards of scientific integrity in forming and implementing its policies on crucial issues such as climate change. To meet its obligation to serve the public interest, the government must have reliable scientific work and advice at its disposal, and provide the public with reliable scientific information. This requires the government to provide the resources needed to carry out its scientific missions, and to create an environment that respects the scientific method. To that end, scientists should have the freedoms and protections they need to fulfill their public responsibilities.
We believe that federal government science should be depoliticized.
1. We believe that scientists should have freedoms and protections that enable them to fulfill their responsibilities to the public, including legislation that strengthens the rights of federal employees who blew the whistle on fraud and corruption. Career civil servants should perform press release reviews of government-funded scientists' data--not partisan propagandists from any side of the aisle.
2. We believe that government should be more transparent, so politicized science can be detected and disavowed. The policy-making process should presume that government information is public knowledge, to be withheld only when necessary, and scientific results or analysis used in promulgating any policy, guidance, or regulation should be available to the public.
3. We believe that the regulatory process should be fundamentally reformed, to protect the important role of independent science in that process. A balance must be struck between the executive brand priorities and federal agency independence. Policies and executive orders which tightened centralized control of federal agencies under the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) should be reversed, restoring power to commence rule making to the agency heads and ensuring that OMB review of agency guidance documents does not permit inappropriate political review of scientific documents. The President and Congress should have testimony from authorities in science and technology fields, and the testimony should not be filtered by administrators.
4. We believe that scientists should have better mechanisms for communicating high-quality advice to government officials, so policy makers have accurate and robust information on which to base their decisions. The scientific advisory committee system should be reformed to insure that selection of advisory committee membership is fully transparent and based solely upon experience and technical qualifications. We believe that well informed representatives must have free and unbiased access to the best in the scientific and technology fields. In order to provide legislators with timely technical information, the Office of Technology Assessment (OTA) should be reinstated by appropriating enough funds to create a successful office and a widely respected scientist should be appointed to lead it. We believe that the National Academies of Science should provide such access to the representatives to any member of congress, the judiciary, or the administration at government expense. Because science and technology issues are so closely intertwined with other national priorities, including health, energy policy, and national security, the science advisor acting as an assistant to the president must be widely respected scientist. The position of Science Advisor to the President should be a cabinet-level job.
5. We believe that Congress and the executive branch should ensure the consistent enforcement of existing regulations and statutes in order to avoid politicizing the scientific process. We believe that the monitoring and enforcement of these laws should be depoliticized. In addition, executive branch agencies should compile an easily searchable database of federal environmental-monitoring programs.
Space Policy
1. The United States, in cooperation with other nations and private industry, must reduce the cost of reliable access to space in order to move humanity towards a spacefaring society.
Currently, the space industry is a $251 Billion dollar industry. Beyond pure economic benefits, space provides invaluable resources in the form of GPS, weather forecasting, new technologies, and so on. Further development and expansion of society into space, such that the average person can directly interact with space, will provide a range of benefits, from new resources and economic opportunities, enhance our understanding of ourselves and our universe, and engender a new era of peaceful cooperation with other countries. Key to these benefits is a massive reduction in the cost of reliable transport to space. We can best accomplish such breakthroughs by catalyzing innovation by private space entrepreneurs (using such policy tools as large scale prizes or guaranteed launch payments), and by working in close peaceful partnership with other spacefaring nations.
2. Space and NASA are vital to dealing with the intertwined problems of energy independence and climate change, including both monitoring and finding solutions.
NASA collects more data about Earths environment than any other single entity on our planet. NASA has also historically incubated new technologies that are vital to clean renewable energy such as solar cells, batteries, and lightweight composite materials. The resource of space solar power may even offer us a long term, large-scale solution to the problem of energy independence. However, under the Bush Administration, the Earth was removed from NASAs mission statement and the findings of NASAs leading climate change researchers were censored. Going forward, NASAs Mission to Planet Earth must be fully funded, and the NASA must be explicitly called upon play a central role in our nations understanding and mitigation of climate change.
3. The President should re-establish the National Aeronautics & Space Council. In addition, the National Aeronautics & Space Council needs to have direct access to the president.
Vital to our future in space is the re-establishment of the National Aeronautics & Space Council. To often, our policy, especially with regards to space policy, has been disjointed, and inarticulate. A range of issues, related to space, could finally be addressed in a comprehensive manner, that insures everyone who has a stake in space policy will have a voice. Issues like the International Trafficking and Arms Regulation, the establishment of large scale space prizes, and a working group on Space Solar Power are all examples of what this council would handle. However, such a council is only as effective if the president chooses to use such a council, and therefore it must have direct access to the president.
Broadband Infrastructure
We support the expansion of the nation's broadband infrastructure through the establishment of a broadband superhighway system, along with guaranteed access to broadband Internet connectivity.
Educational and enterprise innovation will thrive in an atmosphere of universal broadband access - laying the infrastructure for an explosive increase in American competitiveness in the information age.