Technology for Economic Growth: A Checklist of Clinton Administration
Key Accomplishments
- Establish clear policies for the Federal Government's role in civilian
technology, including a shift in the Federal R&D balance for civilian
technology toward a 50/50 ratio.
- Developed within the Administration's first month an explicit,
aggressive plan for using technology to support America's economic growth.
- Submitted and advanced a budget for FY 1994 that included an
additional $2.6 billion investment in civilian R&D, moving the government
toward greater civilian-military balance in Federal R&D support.
- Launch the Technology Reinvestment Project (TRP) to stimulate the
transition from defense to civilian industrial capabilities.
- Conducted a national outreach initiative to ensure maximum TRP
participation by U.S. industry, generating 2,850 proposals for this
unprecedented, ARPA-led multiagency program.
- Selected 41 projects, accounting for $140 million in requested Federal
matching funds the first wave of grants to projects designed to create
jobs by promoting new, dual-use technologies.
- Planned to announce remainder of awards in this $472 million
merit-based program in November.
- Expand dramatically the Advanced Technology Program (ATP) to spur
industry's development of high-risk, high-payoff commercial technologies.
- Strongly endorsed the tenet behind this cost-shared program with
industry to support high-risk, high-potential commercial technologies, a
major change in policy from previous Administrations.
- Designed the scale-up of the ATP to ensure that it has major impact on
the U.S. economy and won congressional support for dramatic funding
expansion for this program to $200 million in FY 1994, up from
$68 million at the Commerce Department's National Institute of Standards
and Technology.
- Planned to announce 60 new ATP awards to industry in FY 1994, plus
three first-time strategic program competitions.
- Increase access to commercially useful technology at Federal R&D
agencies.
- Made a clear break with prior Administrations by placing heavy
emphasis on dual-use technology development by the Department of Defense
to ensure that military and commercial sectors benefit mutually from
technology advances and proposed an additional $260 million for this
effort.
- Declared goals and established a specific plan for strengthening and
streamlining linkages between Department of Energy laboratories and
U.S. industry.
- Upgraded technology commercialization priorities at the National
Aeronautics and Space Administration.
- Mobilize Federal resources and policies to support the National
Information Infrastructure (NII).
- Set an ambitious action agenda for a National Information Infrastructure
that clarifies private- and public-sector responsibilities and makes
clear the fundamental requirements for universal citizen access and
commercial-sector benefits.
- Organized a multiagency task force to coordinate the Federal
Government's NII activities and to work closely with industry in carrying
out the action agenda and in addressing specific policy issues.
- President Clinton signed legislation to transfer to the private sector a
portion (200 MHz) of the radio frequency spectrum now used by
Federal agencies, and to allow competitive bidding in granting new
licenses thereby promoting private investment in the National
Information Infrastructure.
- Initiated a grants program to ensure all Americans have access to the
NII and won congressional approval for $26 million to begin the
initiative.
- Promote technology-based exports by revamping and liberalizing
government export control and promotion programs, and by establishing and
carrying out supportive trade policies.
- Completed a major review of government's trade promotion and export
policies and operations and developed a strategy to boost U.S. exports
by 60 percent and generate 6 million new jobs by the year 2000.
- Freed up $35 billion in exports by reducing controls on U.S. computer,
supercomputer, and telecommunications products, raising the threshold
for licensing computer exports, and proposing a dramatic change in the
definition of a supercomputer and removal of prior export licensing
requirements for most telecommunications exports.
- Began to streamline and improve the government's export promotion
programs, creating a pilot one-stop shop to eliminate the maze of
Federal offices that exporters must now contact.
- Advanced the NAFTA agreement, which is expected to bring substantial
benefits for U.S. technology-based industries and workers.
- Establish a network of manufacturing extension centers to assist small and
medium-sized businesses to modernize.
- Created a comprehensive plan to scale up from seven
government-supported centers to a nationwide network of 100 centers in a
Manufacturing Extension Partnership by 1997.
- Jump-started this national network through the defense Technology
Reinvestment Project, and gained congressional support to fund additional
centers in FY 1994.
- Make worker training and education more accessible and more productive
to better prepare the American workers of tomorrow.
- Established a new Office of the American Workplace in the Department
of Labor to speed the adoption of high-performance work practices,
including people-oriented technology strategies.
- Initiated a thorough review of federally funded retraining and assistance
programs with the aims of consolidating the patchwork of existing
services and of improving program effectiveness.
- Proposed creation of a national system of standards for occupational
skills to improve the match between workers' skills and businesses'
workforce needs. (Legislation is pending in Congress.)
- Advocated an initiative to build an effective school-to-work system that
prepares young people for high-skill, high-wage jobs.
- Developed an aggressive and innovative program for investing in
education and training technologies.
- Create new Federal partnerships with industry to strengthen U.S. economy
and create jobs through the development and commercialization of
technology.
- Established a partnership with the auto industry for a new generation of
more energy-efficient vehicles, the Clean Car Initiative, and agreed
upon aggressive, far-reaching goals.
- Entered into a record number of Cooperative Research and Development
Agreements between Federal technology agencies and U.S. industry,
with an additional 1,600 new joint projects expected this year.
- Began or strengthened collaborations with industry through consortia
covering semiconductors, display technology, textiles, biosensors,
aerospace alloys, polymer blends, and microelectromechanical systems.
- Create a business environment that fosters innovation and forward-looking
private-sector investments.
- Won congressional approval of tax incentives for private-sector
investment in R&D and new business formation, including a 3-year extension
of the R&D credit and a targeted capital gains reduction for investments
in small businesses.
- Harmonize environmental and economic objectives and improve efficiency
in the use of energy resources.
- Developed a strategy for reducing the growth of greenhouse gases
linked to global warming, including initiatives relying on increased
energy efficiency that will stimulate technology investments and
strengthen the U.S. position in the global environmental marketplace.
- In addition to the Clean Car initiative, launched separate initiatives: to
fund a long-term Federal R&D effort for natural gas and to develop
environmentally sound technologies and to boost exports of these
technologies.
- Organize government technology efforts to perform more efficiently and
effectively, and to work more closely with the private sector.
- Created a strong, new system to better coordinate technology plans and
programs across the government and with industry.
- Championed key legislative proposals to increase coordination across
government agencies and to improve the effectiveness of Federal
technology programs.
- Made advanced civilian technology a top priority at the Commerce
Department for the first time and developed a department-wide strategy
for meeting industry's technology-related development, commercialization,
and trade needs.
- Launched a wide-ranging effort to reinvent government, including the
start of a major push to capitalize on new technologies to revamp
Federal agency operations and better serve industry and the public.
- Maintain U.S. leadership in basic science, mathematics, and engineering.
Worked with the Congress to increase the National Science
Foundation's FY 1994 budget by 11 percent to a total of $3 billion,
providing:
- strong support for fundamental research critical to manufacturing,
advanced materials, environmental technologies,
and biotechnology;
- establishment of a technical education program geared to
community colleges; and
- doubled support for modernizing academic research facilities
and instrumentation.
Putting Technology to
Work for America's Future