Science - Obama Presidency Oral History

Many of the administration’s major science and technology policy actions occurred in the first two years of the Obama presidency, while Democrats enjoyed a governing trifecta in Washington. Obama took office amid the worst economic crisis the United States had faced since the Great Depression, and much of the administration’s early attention was devoted toward stimulating economic growth. The centerpiece of this effort was the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, which empowered the government to spend hundreds of billions of dollars to preserve and create jobs, and make transformative investments in the American economy. The majority of Recovery Act funds were spent on tax relief and support for state and municipal budgets, but it also awarded major grants to government science, research, and technology development agencies. More than $18 billion was awarded for research and development, including more than $10 billion to the National Institutes of Health (NIH), while nearly $90 billion was committed to clean energy technology-related programs and incentives. These grants and programs impacted an extraordinary diversity of issues and policy areas, and the bill is discussed in greater detail on the topic page for the Financial Crisis and the Economy. 

Like the Recovery Act, the administration’s approach to data cut across policy areas. The White House emphasized that widespread access to large, machine-readable government datasets could be powerful toward addressing major social and scientific problems, and beginning with data.gov in May 2009, the administration built, redesigned, and launched several websites through which researchers and the public could access hundreds of thousands of such datasets. These websites were complemented by programs including the interagency Big Data Research and Development Initiative, the Precision Medicine Initiative, the National Science Foundation’s Big Data Hubs and Big Data Spokes Initiative, the Climate Data Initiative, and the Policing Data Initiative. Science advisors, White House aides, and agency officials describe these programs in their interviews, while data issues are discussed broadly on the Transparency topic page. 

The White House was also committed to the training of future generations of scientists, technologists, and engineers, and made STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) programming a centerpiece of its education policy. Obama emphasized the importance of STEM education in his public statements, and the administration laid out explicit targets for developing national proficiency with STEM subjects, improving math and science teaching, and expanding access to opportunities in STEM fields for women and underrepresented minorities. Coverage of these programs is available on the Education topic page. 

Throughout the Obama years, dozens of executive branch agencies and offices launched science-related programs and initiatives. Discussion of these efforts can be found on several topic pages in the Obama Presidency Oral History collection, including Healthcare; Public Health; and Climate, Environment, and Energy. Despite the enormous variation between these programs, many shared structural features. Especially after Republicans gained control of the House of Representatives in the 2010 midterm elections, and opposed White House budget requests for new money to be spent on new federal programs, the administration increasingly launched “grand challenges”—competitions, prizes, and “moonshot” objectives that focused attention on important social issues, created shared ambitions, and spurred activity in particular areas. The hundreds of grand challenges included the Beau Biden Cancer Moonshot, the Department of Energy’s SunShot Grand Challenge, NASA’s Asteroid Grand Challenge, and USAID’s Grand Challenges for Development. 

In addition to the wide-ranging coverage of these science and technology policies available in the Obama Presidency Oral History collection, the project also illuminates the ways that the Obama administration incorporated scientific analysis and expertise into its policy processes and governance. Those themes can be explored in the archive's coverage of, for instance, the H1N1 pandemic, the Ebola epidemic, the Flint water crisis, the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster, the redesign of federal nutrition standards, and the White House Task Force on 21st Century Policing.