tag:theconversation.com,2011:/africa/topics/obama-legacy-34301/articlesObama legacy – The Conversation2022-02-12T16:36:52Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1762552022-02-12T16:36:52Z2022-02-12T16:36:52ZWhat is the ‘social cost of carbon’? 2 energy experts explain<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/446038/original/file-20220212-17-f9qw0n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C13%2C4360%2C2865&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The Capitol Power Plant, which uses fossil fuels.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/ObamaClimatePolitics/55211e853add422cb03911d1e33eed21/photo">AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>When a power plant runs on coal or natural gas, the greenhouse gases it releases cause harm – but the power company isn’t paying for the damage. </p>
<p>Instead, the costs show up in the billions of tax dollars spent each year to deal with the effects of climate change, such as fighting wildfires and protecting communities from floods, and in rising insurance costs.</p>
<p>This damage is what economists call a “<a href="https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/03/210301133829.htm">negative externality</a>.” It is a cost to society, including to future generations, that is not covered by the price people pay for fossil fuels and other <a href="https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/inventory-us-greenhouse-gas-emissions-and-sinks">activities that emit greenhouse gases</a>, like agriculture. </p>
<p>To try to account for some of the damage, federal policymakers use what’s known as a “social cost of carbon.” </p>
<h2>A tug-of-war over the social cost</h2>
<p>The social cost of carbon, a dollar figure per ton of carbon dioxide released, is factored into <a href="https://www.archives.gov/federal-register/codification/executive-order/12291.html">the costs and benefits of proposed regulations</a> and purchasing decisions, such as whether the Postal Service should buy electric- or gasoline-powered trucks, or where to set emissions standards for coal-fired power plants. </p>
<p>That extra social cost can tip the scales for whether a regulation’s costs appear to outweigh its benefits.</p>
<p>The Trump administration slashed the social cost to <a href="https://www.science.org/content/article/trump-downplayed-costs-carbon-pollution-s-about-change">between $1</a> and $7 per metric ton of carbon dioxide – low enough that the administration could justify rolling back EPA regulations on <a href="https://www.epa.gov/sites/default/files/2018-08/documents/utilities_ria_proposed_ace_2018-08.pdf">power plant emissions</a> and <a href="https://www.epa.gov/regulations-emissions-vehicles-and-engines/safer-affordable-fuel-efficient-safe-vehicles-proposed">vehicle fuel efficiency</a>.</p>
<p>The Biden administration temporarily raised it to $51, close to its pre-Trump level, and has been preparing to finalize a new social cost that might encourage regulators to push for emissions cuts in everything from agriculture to transportation to manufacturing.</p>
<h2>What social cost means for you</h2>
<p>One of Joe Biden’s <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/presidential-actions/2021/01/20/executive-order-protecting-public-health-and-environment-and-restoring-science-to-tackle-climate-crisis/">first actions</a> as president was to reverse the Trump administration’s bargain-basement accounting of the “social cost.” The Biden administration <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/cea/written-materials/2021/02/26/a-return-to-science-evidence-based-estimates-of-the-benefits-of-reducing-climate-pollution/">returned it to the Obama-era level, adjusted for inflation</a>, by setting an interim social cost at $51 per metric ton of carbon dioxide that would rise over time.</p>
<p>If that were a carbon tax paid by consumers, it would raise gasoline by about 50 cents per gallon.</p>
<p>But the social cost of carbon has no direct effect on the price of gasoline, electricity, or emissions-intensive goods like steel. Instead, it influences purchasing and investments by the government, and indirectly, by private companies and consumers.</p>
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<img alt="Biden at a lectern with Hummer EVs in the assembly line behind him." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/446040/original/file-20220212-25314-wqw7gl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/446040/original/file-20220212-25314-wqw7gl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/446040/original/file-20220212-25314-wqw7gl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/446040/original/file-20220212-25314-wqw7gl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/446040/original/file-20220212-25314-wqw7gl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/446040/original/file-20220212-25314-wqw7gl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/446040/original/file-20220212-25314-wqw7gl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">President Joe Biden spoke at a GM electric vehicle factory in November 2021. The social cost of carbon can signal to automakers that stricter auto emissions rules are likely.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/president-joe-biden-speaks-at-the-general-motors-factory-news-photo/1236628917?adppopup=true">Nic Antaya/Getty Images</a></span>
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<p>A higher social cost of carbon signals to companies that the government sees big benefits to cutting greenhouse gas emissions. Figuring in damage from emissions also helps it justify investments in green technology.</p>
<p>For instance, the U.S. Postal Service asked Congress in 2022 to approve $11.3 billion for a <a href="https://apnews.com/0a0ead5536be0e3561b4cb2fccccb7a3">new fleet</a> of gasoline-powered mail delivery trucks. Those vehicles would burn through <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2022/02/02/usps-trucks-epa-climate-change/">110 million gallons of gasoline a year</a>. At $51 per ton of emitted carbon, that purchase implies a social cost of $1.1 billion over 20 years. Incorporating such costs might push the government to consider <a href="https://www.government-fleet.com/10150653/zeta-usps-shows-bias-in-reasoning-for-ice-vehicles">including electric vehicles</a> in the future postal service fleet.</p>
<p>Currently, economists calculate the social cost by using <a href="https://www.carbonbrief.org/qa-how-integrated-assessment-models-are-used-to-study-climate-change">integrated assessment models</a> that bring together long-term projections for population, economic growth and greenhouse gas emissions. These models use emissions scenarios to estimate future climate change, and then calculate the effects on the country’s – and the world’s – GDP, and they can vary widely depending on the assumptions used. </p>
<p>For example, damage estimates for 2100 produced by the three models currently used in the government’s cost-setting process range from $80 to $290 per ton. The Biden administration set the interim social cost to rise to $85 by 2050 to account for greater impact of climate change over time.</p>
<p>Using models to produce such estimates have become a routine part of policymaking, but they are also <a href="https://www.nber.org/reporter/2017number3/integrated-assessment-models-climate-change">massively uncertain</a>.</p>
<h2>Why Trump’s social cost was so much lower</h2>
<p>The Trump administration’s estimate was lower for two reasons: It accounted for climate damage only within U.S. borders; and the administration placed a lower value on future costs by setting a discount rate of 7%, more than double the 3% used by Obama and Biden. Economists use different rates to “discount” future benefits versus the cost we pay today to get there. A high discount rate on climate means we put a lower value on damages that occur in the future. </p>
<p>Unsurprisingly, discount rates are contentious. New York state uses a <a href="https://www.dec.ny.gov/press/122070.html">2% discount rate</a> to produce its current social cost of carbon of $125 per ton. Some analysts argue for a 0% discount rate because anything higher places a lower value on costs borne by future generations.</p>
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<p>Several Republican state attorneys general sued to try to block Biden’s interim increase, and a <a href="https://cdn.theconversation.com/static_files/files/1972/cain-ruling-scc-021122.pdf">federal judge in Louisiana agreed</a> with their argument that global damages could not be considered in social costs tailored for U.S. regulations. The judge issued an injunction <a href="https://apnews.com/article/climate-joe-biden-business-trending-news-louisiana-8d06087eb01ebdcf8f60be06a99c05d0">blocking Biden’s interim increase</a>. But an appeals court <a href="https://cdn.theconversation.com/static_files/files/2049/5th_Cir_Stay_of_SCC_injunction.pdf?1647527400">stayed that injunction</a>, allowing the higher social cost of carbon to again be used while the ruling was appealed, and the U.S. Supreme Court in May 2022 <a href="https://www.scotusblog.com/2022/05/justices-decline-to-block-biden-policy-on-social-costs-of-greenhouse-gases/">declined to lift the stay</a>. A similar lawsuit in Missouri <a href="https://www.reuters.com/legal/litigation/rep-ags-appeal-social-costs-greenhouse-gas-lawsuit-2021-09-03/">was dismissed</a>, and the Supreme Court <a href="https://www.eenews.net/articles/the-legal-battle-over-bidens-climate-metric-isnt-over/">declined to review it</a>.</p>
<p>Some scholars debate whether a social cost of carbon should be used at all.</p>
<p>The United Kingdom uses a “cost effectiveness analysis” instead to determine the value of carbon removal. That method uses a target – net-zero emissions – and calculates the cheapest route to get there. Some <a href="https://www.nber.org/papers/w28472">prominent scholars</a> are recommending the U.S. adopt the U.K. approach, while <a href="https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abi7813">others</a> object.</p>
<h2>Other options: Carbon taxes and emissions caps</h2>
<p>There are other ways to account for the costs of climate change.</p>
<p>A <a href="https://www.taxpolicycenter.org/briefing-book/what-carbon-tax">carbon tax</a> is more straightforward and effective, but tougher to enact because it requires Congress to act. Such a tax would dissuade people from burning fossil fuels by taxing them for the damage those emissions cause – the negative externality.</p>
<p>Another form of carbon pricing uses a marketplace for companies to trade a declining number of emissions permits. Such <a href="https://www.epa.gov/acidrain/acid-rain-program">cap-and-trade</a> programs are in place today in the European Union, <a href="https://www.rggi.org/">a few U.S. states</a>, including <a href="https://ww2.arb.ca.gov/our-work/programs/cap-and-trade-program">California</a> and <a href="https://www.energypolicy.columbia.edu/washington-s-carbon-pricing-bill-model-other-states">Washington</a>, and elsewhere.</p>
<p>Taxes and emissions caps would reduce carbon emissions, but they are unpopular with voters and Congress because they raise prices. A social cost of carbon is easier both to enact and to modify through regulatory review, without legislation. It allows the government the flexibility to address climate through routine policymaking – but can also be changed by subsequent administrations.</p>
<p><em>This article was originally published Feb. 12, 2022.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/176255/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The social cost helps regulators factor in harm from climate change when they consider new rules and purchases, like buying electric- vs. gas-powered trucks for the Postal Service.Jim Krane, Fellow in Energy Studies, Baker Institute for Public Policy; Lecturer, Rice UniversityMark Finley, Fellow in Energy and Global Oil, Baker Institute for Public Policy, Rice UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1456632020-10-21T08:18:48Z2020-10-21T08:18:48ZHow much of Barack Obama’s legacy has Donald Trump rolled back?<p>Throughout Donald Trump’s first term in office, the US president has harked back to the Obama years. From blasting the “<a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/world-us-canada-41587428">horrible</a>” Iran nuclear deal to blaming Barack Obama’s administration for the “<a href="https://www.vox.com/2020/4/20/21227903/trump-blames-obama-coronavirus">obsolete, broken system</a>” that Trump claims has hindered the US response to the COVID-19 crisis, he’s used his predecessor as a constant foil. </p>
<p>During his 2016 campaign for the White House, Trump committed himself to rolling back much of the Obama legacy. Now, his 2020 election opponent is Obama’s former vice president, Joe Biden. This ensures that the choice American voters make at the ballot box in November will either reinforce Obama’s legacy – or rebut it once again. </p>
<p>It’s not always easy to pinpoint the exact legacy a president leaves behind, particularly in the short term. Sometimes, political legacies that appear immediately important can diminish in significance over time. Or those that initially seemed flat – such as <a href="https://potus-geeks.livejournal.com/1134889.html">that of Harry Truman</a> – come to be seen in a much more positive light as the years pass.</p>
<p>For Obama, the successes he enjoyed and disappointments he endured after his election in 2008 were often a consequence of the political environment in which he operated. Once Republicans took control of the House of Representatives in January 2011, the scope for legislative action dramatically diminished and his administration had to find other ways to get things done. Such routes included executive actions as well as presidential memoranda. </p>
<p>During the 2016 campaign, candidate Trump <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2017/01/23/trump-pledged-to-reverse-obamas-executive-orders-heres-how-well-past-presidents-have-fulfilled-that-pledge/">declared</a> that he would “cancel every unconstitutional executive action, memorandum and order issued by President Obama.” Yet, while executive actions are simpler to reverse than legislative achievements, there are still <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2016/12/03/trump-says-hell-cancel-obamas-unconstitutional-executive-actions-its-not-that-easy/">procedural obstacles to overcome</a> if a predecessor’s actions are to be rolled back. And these obstacles were not always given due attention by the Trump administration.</p>
<p>Nor was America’s institutional fragmentation brushed away with a new broom once Trump entered the White House. Like Obama, he enjoyed two years when his party controlled both houses of Congress – until <a href="https://theconversation.com/us-midterm-results-six-key-issues-and-what-they-mean-for-the-countrys-uncertain-future-106467">the Republicans lost their majority</a> in the House of Representatives in the 2018 mid-term elections. This limited Trump’s capacity to continue unpicking his predecessor’s achievements. </p>
<p>In <a href="https://edinburghuniversitypress.com/book-obama-v-trump.html">a new book</a>, we’ve looked at what kind of legacy Obama left as well as what success Trump has had in trying to roll it back. We’ve found that while some aspects of the Obama legacy were vulnerable to reversal, other areas proved more resilient. The stand-out legacies of the Obama years would become a direction of travel, if not always an end point. </p>
<p>Here we will look at four key areas: healthcare, immigration, climate policy and racial justice. </p>
<h2>Healthcare</h2>
<p>The standout domestic policy legacy of the Obama administration was the Affordable Care Act (ACA), also known as Obamacare. Enacted in early spring 2010, ACA was the most significant policy reform of the US healthcare system since the 1960s. While the new law built on existing programmes such as Medicare and Medicaid, rather than replacing them, it significantly expanded the government’s role in funding healthcare and the regulation of the private health insurance market. </p>
<p>At the signing ceremony for the bill, Biden was caught on microphone describing the moment as a “<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/richard-adams-blog/2010/mar/23/joe-biden-obama-big-fucking-deal-overheard">big fucking deal</a>”. Republicans agreed with this sentiment and spent much of the remainder of Obama’s presidency declaring their aim to repeal the law. After taking control of the House in January 2011, Republicans passed multiple bills to repeal all or parts of the ACA. But while Obama remained in office, with a power to veto these bills, this remained symbolic rather than <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2016/01/08/politics/obama-vetoes-obamacare-repeal-bill/index.html">substantive politics</a>. </p>
<p>Yet that symbolism mattered. It meant that the <a href="https://politicalquarterly.blog/2018/09/03/is-obamacare-really-doomed/">law remained contested</a> and that Republican controlled state-level governments, such as <a href="https://uk.reuters.com/article/us-usa-health-texas/texas-rejects-key-provisions-of-obamas-health-law-idUSBRE8680O220120709">Texas</a> with its large uninsured population, did not cooperate with implementing key aspects of Obamacare. When Republicans took control of the White House and both chambers of Congress in January 2017, the outlook for the preservation of Obamacare looked bleak.</p>
<p>But despite <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/video/2016/08/08/trump-i-will-repeal-and-replace-obamacare.html">Trump’s promises</a> to “repeal and replace” the ACA, it is still the law of the land as his first term draws to a close. In 2017, the Republican-led House <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/04/us/politics/health-care-bill-vote.html">passed the American Health Care Act</a>, which would have repealed large parts of the ACA. Although the Republican leadership bent all the Senate’s norms to breaking point, <a href="https://www.psa.ac.uk/psa/news/walking-dead-republican-effort-repeal-obamacare">no equivalent legislation passed in the upper house</a> and Obamacare remained. </p>
<p>In fact, the Republican efforts to undo the law seem to have been central to a growth in popularity for the ACA. Throughout Obama’s time in office, a plurality of Americans said that they viewed the law unfavourably, but that <a href="https://www.kff.org/interactive/kff-health-tracking-poll-the-publics-views-on-the-aca/#?response=Favorable--Unfavorable&aRange=all">shifted once</a> it came under sustained threat and reports emerged of how many people <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/26/us/politics/senate-health-care-bill-republican.html?mcubz=3">would lose insurance</a> should it be repealed. </p>
<p>It also became clear that the sheer complexity of the law made it difficult to unravel if Republicans were to keep in place its popular aspects, notably protections for people with pre-existing medical conditions. In addition, the new president’s <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2017/02/27/politics/trump-health-care-complicated/index.html">manifest frustration</a> at the complex details of health policy made him an ineffective broker in negotiations. </p>
<p>Efforts have continued throughout the Trump presidency to undermine the application of Obamacare. The administration is backing a <a href="https://www.kff.org/health-reform/issue-brief/explaining-california-v-texas-a-guide-to-the-case-challenging-the-aca/">court case that will be heard by the Supreme Court</a> a few days after the November election that could bring the ACA crashing down. </p>
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<a href="https://theconversation.com/if-the-supreme-court-strikes-down-the-affordable-care-act-trumps-health-care-order-is-not-enough-to-replace-it-147159">If the Supreme Court strikes down the Affordable Care Act, Trump's health care order is not enough to replace it</a>
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<p>Meanwhile, healthcare remains a key battleground in the 2020 election, particularly in the midst of a pandemic. Confounding logic, Trump claims that Biden would threaten protections for Americans with pre-existing health conditions and that these protections will only be preserved if he is re-elected. But these protections exist <a href="https://www.cbpp.org/research/health/suit-challenging-aca-legally-suspect-but-threatens-loss-of-coverage-for-tens-of">as a result of the ACA</a>, which the Justice Department is trying to bring down.</p>
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<p>A Biden victory along with Democratic control of both houses of Congress would likely see moves to build on the ACA. <a href="https://www.vox.com/2019/4/10/18304448/bernie-sanders-medicare-for-all">Medicare for All</a>, a single-payer government funded healthcare plan championed by the senator Bernie Sanders, is not on the Biden agenda. However, it’s possible his administration could introduce measures such as a <a href="https://www.kff.org/health-reform/issue-brief/10-key-questions-on-public-option-proposals/">public insurance option</a> to compete with private insurers in the individual insurance market. In this context, conservatives are probably right to see the public option as a <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/13/health/policy/13plan.html">Trojan horse</a> that could open the door to greater government involvement in the provision of American healthcare. </p>
<p>All this means the ACA is an Obama legacy that has proved more resilient than expected when Trump took office in 2016. </p>
<h2>Immigration</h2>
<p>Obama’s legacy in other areas was more mixed and relied less on legislative action than efforts to use the executive power of the presidency. A good example was immigration. The Obama administration’s promise of comprehensive reform didn’t really come <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/oct/24/obama-congress-immigration-reform-gop-opposition">close to making it</a> through Congress, even when the Democrats controlled both chambers. </p>
<p>Obama did use his executive power to introduce the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) policy in mid-2012. This provided temporary legal status to so-called “Dreamers”, people who had been brought into the US without documentation as children and who were deemed illegal despite many having <a href="https://eu.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2018/02/13/who-daca-dreamers-and-how-many-here/333045002/">lived their lives as Americans</a>. A subsequent <a href="https://www.nilc.org/issues/immigration-reform-and-executive-actions/dapa-and-expanded-daca-programs/">executive action</a>, which would have granted legal status to a much wider group, never came into force as it was <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/24/us/supreme-court-immigration-obama-dapa.html">thwarted by the courts</a> in 2016. This left DACA as Obama’s major legacy in terms of immigration policy. </p>
<p>As an executive order it should have been relatively straightforward for the Trump administration to reverse. This seemed especially likely given how Trump had so remorselessly used his <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/election-us-2016-37225020">antagonism to “illegal immigration” as a campaign tool</a> in 2016. </p>
<p>Trump did in fact express some ambiguous sentiments about the plight of the Dreamers, but in September 2017 he labelled DACA an “<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/05/us/politics/trump-daca-dreamers-immigration.html">amnesty first approach</a>” and declared that the protections the programme offered would start to be rolled back in six months. Yet in the summer of 2020, the Supreme Court ruled that the administration’s effort to reverse DACA was so fumbled as to fail to meet the <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2020/06/18/politics/daca-supreme-court-explainer/index.html">relatively straightforward</a> administrative procedure required to do. </p>
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<a href="https://theconversation.com/supreme-court-ruling-on-dreamers-sends-a-clear-message-to-the-white-house-you-have-to-tell-the-truth-141099">Supreme Court ruling on Dreamers sends a clear message to the White House: You have to tell the truth</a>
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<p>This makes the 2020 election even more critical – especially for those people living in America who don’t have a vote. The Trump administration would surely try again to <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/19/us/politics/trump-daca.html">rollback DACA</a> if re-elected and given a second chance to do so. Meanwhile, a Biden administration would likely try to codify the protection for Dreamers through legislation, and <a href="https://joebiden.com/immigration/#">pursue further reform</a> to offer a path to legal status for others living in the US without documentation. </p>
<h2>Climate crisis</h2>
<p>When it comes to action on climate change, Obama’s legacy was less tangible, and certainly more complex. The myriad layers involved in creating, executing and defending an agenda to combat the climate crisis made for inevitable problems to implement reform. This, combined with the heft of opposition, fake news and political baggage that accompanied the issue, made for a series of challenges, some victories and many disappointments for the Obama administration and those eager to embed a green government agenda during his two terms in office. </p>
<p>Trump’s <a href="https://theconversation.com/trumps-decision-to-quit-the-paris-agreement-may-be-his-worst-business-deal-yet-78780">decision to withdraw</a> the US from the Paris Climate Agreement, which Obama’s administration signed in 2015, is often held up as an example of how he rolled back Obama’s legacy. But other reforms showed with clarity the push-pull nature of policy from the Obama to Trump administrations. </p>
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<p>The <a href="https://archive.epa.gov/epa/cleanpowerplan/fact-sheet-overview-clean-power-plan.html">Clean Power Plan</a> (CPP), which set out to curb US greenhouse gas emissions, is one such story. Unveiled by Obama in 2015, the CPP was groundbreaking in a range of ways. It demonstrated that the world’s leading superpower acknowledged the existence of human-made climate change, and offered an initiative to reduce carbon emissions back to 2005 levels by 2030. A significant step forward in itself, the CPP looked to set a bar for other nations and give a warning to big polluters. So far, so environmentally good.</p>
<p>But the CPP quickly caused consternation with governors in dozens of states, who lost no time in taking legal action against a plan they viewed as a serious threat to the economy. By early 2016, <a href="https://www.climatecentral.org/news/the-suit-against-the-clean-power-plan-explained-20234">24 states were challenging</a> the CPP in court, resulting in a Supreme Court decision to issue a <a href="https://energypost.eu/obamas-clean-power-plan-wounded-dead-yet/">judicial stay</a> on Obama’s plan.</p>
<p>When Trump arrived in the White House, the path to undermining the plan was already paved. In March 2017, he signed an <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/presidential-executive-order-promoting-energy-independence-economic-growth/">executive order</a> requesting that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) carry out a review of the CPP. By this time, the agency was headed by former Oklahoma attorney general Scott Pruitt, known for his <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/mar/09/epa-scott-pruitt-carbon-dioxide-global-warming-climate-change">rejection of the climate crisis</a> as a man-made phenomenon. </p>
<p>In June 2017, the US formally withdrew from the Paris Climate Agreement, and four months later, the EPA announced that the CPP would be repealed. These two developments were directly connected, as the CPP was a route via which the US would have met its modest Paris emissions targets. </p>
<p>With both Obama-era legacies unpicked, the Trump administration moved towards implementing its own, far more polluter-friendly option, the <a href="https://www.epa.gov/newsreleases/epa-finalizes-affordable-clean-energy-rule-ensuring-reliable-diversified-energy">Affordable Clean Energy</a> plan. In keeping with his repeal and replace approach to Obama policy, Trump’s plan did not place limits on greenhouse gases, an aim that was central to the CPP. Instead it opted for an “inside the fenceline” approach, imposing less than stringent restrictions on individual power plants. </p>
<p>By chance, the earliest possible date that the US can legally withdraw from the Paris Climate Agreement is November 4, 2020, one day after the presidential election. As part of his <a href="https://joebiden.com/climate-plan/">US$2 trillion plan</a> for Climate Change and Environmental Justice, Biden has vowed that the US will re-engage with the Paris deal. This is significant for environmental reasons but also as a demonstration to external observers that a post-Trump America will take its international obligations seriously. </p>
<p>In direct contrast to the Trump environmental agenda, Biden has pledged that his presidency would move America, the world’s largest polluting country, <a href="https://news.bloomberglaw.com/environment-and-energy/biden-promises-100-clean-energy-net-zero-emissions-by-2050-1">towards 100% green energy use by 2050</a>. Trump’s plan offers an America First-focused alternative, prioritising US energy independence <a href="https://www.sierraclub.org/sierra/trump-epa-calls-for-dirty-power-climate-crisis-accelerates-clean-power-plan-affordable-clean-energy-rule">via further use of fossil fuels</a>. On the environment, as with many other policy areas, the polarised options on offer reflect the state of the nation.</p>
<h2>Racial justice</h2>
<p>There is one aspect of the Obama legacy that cannot be undone, and that is the moment he sealed victory in 2008. Obama ran, however unrealistically, on a post-racial election ticket in 2008, and the world watched as America elected a young, highly educated, politically progressive black man for the first time as leader. </p>
<p>In the early years of his administration, issues not overtly related to race remained at the forefront of the political agenda. Nonetheless, the 2008 economic collapse and the nation’s ongoing healthcare crisis further laid bare the disproportionate systemic challenges that Americans of colour continued to face. Throughout his time in office, Obama was criticised by those on the left of “<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/gdpr-consent/?next_url=https%3a%2f%2fwww.washingtonpost.com%2fnews%2fbook-party%2fwp%2f2016%2f02%2f18%2fthe-racial-procrastination-of-barack-obama%2f">racial procrastination</a>”.</p>
<p>Inevitably, a moment would come when Obama would have to confront the race issue. It arrived via the 2013 <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/gdpr-consent/?next_url=https%3a%2f%2fwww.washingtonpost.com%2fnational%2fanger-flows-at-acquittal-of-george-zimmerman-in-death-of-trayvon-martin%2f2013%2f07%2f14%2fe1a1216a-ec98-11e2-bed3-b9b6fe264871_story.html">acquittal of charges against George Zimmerman</a>, a neighbourhood watch volunteer, for the fatal shooting of unarmed black high-school student, Trayvon Martin. After Zimmerman’s acquittal, Obama offered unusually personal reflections, stating that Martin <a href="https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/the-press-office/2013/07/19/remarks-president-trayvon-martin">“could have been my son</a>”. He was lauded for his empathy and simultaneously criticised for stoking racial tensions. </p>
<p>The moment, combined with the lengthy list of other Americans of colour on the receiving end of police violence, often fatally, ignited the Black Lives Matter movement. This presented Obama with an ever-narrowing tightrope to walk as the calls for racial justice grew louder in a nation where not everyone had come to terms with a president whose heritage included Kenya as well as Kansas. </p>
<p>As it turned out, America opted in 2016 to turn its back on the progress embodied by the first black man in the White House. Instead, as the writer Ta-Nehisi Coates put it, the US elected the nation’s “<a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/10/the-first-white-president-ta-nehisi-coates/537909/">first white president</a>”. Coates argued that Trump’s victory was in no small part predicated on negating the racial legacy of his predecessor. Obama may have broken the glass ceiling, an achievement that no-one could undo, but a determined successor could substantially paper over those cracks – and Trump made every effort to do so. </p>
<p>Once in office, Trump did not pretend to prioritise issues around racial justice – and his administration took repeated steps to reverse the proactive measures started during the Obama administration to call out institutional racism. Notably, in the context of the demands of the Black Lives Matters protests, Trump’s attorney-general, Jeff Sessions, stopped <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/04/jeff-sessions-blind-eye/521946/">investigations into local police forces</a> that had begun in 2015 in the wake of protests in Ferguson, Missouri, after the police shooting of Michael Brown in the city the previous year. </p>
<p>As protests grew in response to the police killing of George Floyd, in May 2020, Trump <a href="https://www.vox.com/identities/2020/5/30/21275588/trump-policing-policies-doj-george-floyd-protests">drew widespread criticism</a> for adding to already boiling tensions via divisive words.</p>
<p>November 2020 will present voters with very different visions of how to manage race relations in this divided era. A president Biden would be unlikely to pursue the more radical demands of Black Lives Matters activists such as defunding the police, but there would probably be a change in tone from Trump’s <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2020/09/30/politics/proud-boys-trump-debate-trnd/index.html">confrontational language</a> and a reintroduction of Justice Department investigations into local police forces.</p>
<p>The issues we’ve focused on here are a way to illustrate the strands of Obama’s legacy that Trump was so eager to dismantle. There are numerous further examples which show how Trump was determined to pursue a process of “de-Obamafication”. With the assistance of Republicans in Congress, and the agency heads he appointed, Trump succeeded in some, although far from all, of his rollback plans. </p>
<p>As voters head to the polls in November, they are faced with starkly different candidate choices. The US will have the opportunity to add another coat of whitewash over eight years of progressive efforts by its first black president, or reward the Biden half of the 2008 ticket – thereby reinforcing much of the Obama legacy. The stakes are high and the consequences of the choice facing voters is profound.</p>
<p><em>This article was updated to correct the point that George Zimmerman was a neighbourhood watch volunteer, not a police officer.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/145663/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>From healthcare, to the environment, immigration and racial justice, which areas of Barack Obama’s legacy were the most vulnerable – and most resilient – during Donald Trump’s first term?Clodagh Harrington, Associate Professor of American Politics, De Montfort UniversityAlex Waddan, Associate Professor in American Politics and American Foreign Policy, University of LeicesterLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1363822020-04-15T20:49:04Z2020-04-15T20:49:04ZSanders exit opened door for Obama to endorse Biden – and offer up his rhetorical skills<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/328165/original/file-20200415-153341-b71jc8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=5%2C0%2C3609%2C2205&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Three years after his farewell address, Obama is embracing party politics again. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/on-tuesday-january-10-u-s-president-barack-obama-and-vp-joe-news-photo/631551612?adppopup=true">Cheriss May/NurPhoto via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The three endorsements Joe Biden needed most came within the space of 48 hours.</p>
<p>First, Bernie Sanders <a href="https://www.c-span.org/video/?471177-1/senator-bernie-sanders-endorses-joe-biden-president">backed his former Democratic rival</a> for president on April 13, effectively ending the Democratic primary. The emergence of a consensus candidate appeared to liberate former president Barack Obama, who a day later reentered American politics proper, after dedicating three years to staying largely below the political radar.</p>
<p>In <a href="https://www.c-span.org/video/?471214-1/president-obama-endorses-joe-bidens-presidential-bid">a 12-minute YouTube video</a>, Obama declared he was “proud to endorse Joe Biden” adding, “I believe Joe has the qualities we need in a president.” Sen. Elizabeth Warren followed suit <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/15/us/politics/elizabeth-warren-endorse-biden.html">on April 15</a>, pledging her own support to Biden.</p>
<p>The emergence of a consensus candidate – reportedly after Obama <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/14/us/politics/obama-biden-democratic-primary.html">held a series of conversations with Sanders</a> – allowed the former president to unshackle Biden from the expectation that he had to defend all things Obama. The former president also used the opportunity to unleash a frontal attack on President Trump’s competence. In so doing, Obama demonstrated his usual command of rhetoric, a topic I have studied extensively as <a href="https://uoregon.academia.edu/DavidFrank">a scholar of political communication</a>. </p>
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<p>Obama had reportedly told friends and candidates that he wouldn’t <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/18/us/politics/obama-2020-democratic-candidates.html">endorse anyone</a> until the voters had made their choice known.</p>
<p>Sanders’ backing of Biden made the former vice president the presumptive Democratic candidate for the 2020 election. Obama’s endorsement address built on Sanders’ celebration of Biden’s decency and competence. Biden, Obama observed, would provide the country with the leadership needed to manage the pandemic. </p>
<p>Obama then gave Biden his blessing to move away from the policies and platforms of their shared past. “If I were running today,” Obama declared, “I would not run the same race or have the same platform as I did in 2008. The world is different. There is too much unfinished business for us to look backwards.” </p>
<h2>Left a bit</h2>
<p>By freeing Biden from defending Obama-era policies, the former president may have laid the groundwork for aligning Sanders’ and Biden’s vision and policies. </p>
<p>In his endorsement, Obama observed that both men understood the need to “look to the future.” Obama declared Biden’s policy platform “is the most progressive platform of any major party nominee in history.” </p>
<p>And Obama borrowed a catch phrase from Warren, saying the country needs “real structural change.” </p>
<p>By attacking the Trump administration’s record, Obama established a blueprint for the Biden campaign. </p>
<p>Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign personalized the election, <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0002764217707623?casa_token=4rEqOGicY9QAAAAA%3Aix3yW5A0Jyu_uesc21S-m3pPiTyIsx2dv-XEDqfBfs0En8PsSpfbbIUUCI8bC5occ-xwqWxl8Qes">targeting Donald Trump by name</a>. </p>
<p>In his endorsement, Obama resisted the temptation to make Trump and his personality the focus. Trump is unnamed in the address – but his policies and competence get plenty of mention. Obama claimed that his successor’s tax cuts for the wealthy have worsened inequality. He also took a swipe at what he characterizes as Trump’s unleashing of polluters and disregard for basic norms, the rule of law, facts and science.</p>
<p>In contrast, Obama said, Biden would restore the qualities of dignity and competence to presidency. “I know he will surround himself with good people. Experts, scientists, military officials who actually know how to run the government and care about doing a good job running the government, and know how to work with our allies, and who will always put the American people’s interest about their own,” Obama said. </p>
<h2>Speak freely</h2>
<p>The Trump campaign is well-funded and prepared for such attacks. Even with Obama’s help, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/paloma/the-trailer/2020/04/12/the-trailer-the-general-election-has-started-here-s-where-things-stand/5e922d3a602ff10d49ae2d67/">unseating Trump will be difficult</a>. </p>
<p>Trump is chronically underestimated as a speaker. He is strikingly effective in his favorite venue: the Trump rally. Even with Obama’s move to embrace the Democratic left in his endorsement address, there is no guarantee that Sanders supporters will enthusiastically embrace Biden. And, in the main, Biden remains an uneven speaker – <a href="https://www.salon.com/2020/03/10/the-scripted-speeches-that-turned-joe--bidens-campaign-around_partner/">prone to verbal excess and lack of precision</a>. Yet, Biden has, on occasion, demonstrated that he can effectively deliver a well-written speech. He did so in his South Carolina primary victory address, offering a compelling story of purpose and unity necessary for coalition politics. Biden’s life is marred with deep tragedy, which has given him the gift of empathy, a genuine quality that shines through. </p>
<p>Regardless, Biden does not possess Obama’s rhetorical skill and will need him on the campaign trail. Obama’s history of rhetorical success is remarkable. His <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eWynt87PaJ0">2004 Democratic National Convention Address</a>, <a href="https://www.c-span.org/video/?204469-1/obama-campaign-speech-race">2008’s “More Perfect Union” speech</a> and his <a href="https://www.c-span.org/video/?c4542312/user-clip-obama-full-eulogy-speech">2015 Charleston gun eulogy address</a> stand out as <a href="https://uoregon.academia.edu/DavidFrank">exceptional examples</a>. The qualities that made these speeches remarkable are also present in his endorsement of Biden. He is now liberated to put his powers of rhetoric in service to the Biden campaign. </p>
<p>[<em>Deep knowledge, daily.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=deepknowledge">Sign up for The Conversation’s newsletter</a>.]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/136382/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>David A. Frank does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>In his endorsement of Biden, Obama gave his consent for his former running mate to go beyond the policy platform they built. It also freed Obama to use his rhetorical powers in the upcoming election.David A. Frank, Professor of Rhetoric, University of OregonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1024112018-08-30T14:02:40Z2018-08-30T14:02:40ZHonouring Annan, McCain and others: why eulogies have blind spots<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/234283/original/file-20180830-195301-tq9f9f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A United Nations staff member pays tribute to Kofi Annan during a ceremony at the European headquarters of the UN in Geneva, Switzerland.
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">EPA-EFE/ Salvatore Di Nolfi</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>As an old adage says: <a href="https://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/beauty-is-in-the-eye-of-the-beholder.html">“beauty is in the eye of the beholder”</a>. So it should not come as a surprise that prominent people are sometimes remembered selectively when they are dead. </p>
<p>Perspectives have blind spots. We often appreciate or dislike others because of how we relate to them through our spectacles, coloured by the values we treasure. There is a wide zone between fact and fiction. The truth is that the interpretation of others’ legacies often reveals a great deal about us and our values. And is often less about the complexity of the lives of those with whom we engage.</p>
<p>I have experienced such a balancing act in my engagements with Dag Hammarskjöld, the second Secretary-General of the United Nations, before he met his untimely death in a <a href="https://www.hurstpublishers.com/book/who-killed-hammarskjold-2/">plane crash at Ndola</a>, in then Northern Rhodesia (today Zambia), in 1961.</p>
<p>As the world’s highest international civil servant, Hammarskjöld provoked divided opinions. Some saw him as a tool of Western imperialism for the assassination of the Congolese leader <a href="https://www.versobooks.com/books/792-the-assassination-of-lumumba">Patrice Lumumba</a>; others praised him as being <a href="https://www.press.umich.edu/8873047/hammarskjold">close to a saint</a>.</p>
<p>Kofi Annan, the UN secretary general who recently passed away, said that Hammarskjöld was his <a href="https://www.daghammarskjold.se/event/dag-hammarskjold-21st-century-kofi-annan/">role model</a>. The obituaries that followed Annan’s death led me to reflect on the two men, the legacies they left, and how imperfectly high profile people are remembered after they’re gone.</p>
<p>Politicians and diplomats are a special breed. We owe it to them and to us, to find an adequate way of engaging with their legacies in a format that avoids the superficial praise song and highlights the contradictions when entering the power games of policy. </p>
<h2>Kofi Annan</h2>
<p>There wasn’t much of a balancing act when it came to remembering Annan. Many eulogies had few critical undertones for <a href="https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2018-08-19-kofi-annan-a-man-who-cared-for-humanity/">“a man who cared for humanity”</a>.</p>
<p>Some managed to address his <a href="https://theconversation.com/kofi-annan-a-complicated-legacy-of-impressive-achievements-and-some-profound-failures-101791">complicated legacy</a> while others were courageous enough to emphasise his shortcomings as Secretary-General, including his refusal “to acknowledge any meaningful sense of personal or institutional responsibility” for <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/kofi-annans-unaccountable-legacy">some major debacles</a>. </p>
<p>But these remained the odd ones out. Others were quick to list his merits, which outweighed the shortcomings as <a href="https://theconversation.com/kofi-annan-a-man-who-paid-his-dues-to-global-peace-and-security-101837">a man who paid his dues</a>.</p>
<p>Many obituaries conceded the impact of his influence on <a href="https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2018-08-21-kofi-annan-a-geopolitical-obituary/">the global stage</a>. But acknowledgements missed mentioning at least two other Africans, who during Annan’s terms played an important role in the agenda-setting he is praised for. Lakhdar Brahimi was crucial in promoting more <a href="http://www.un.org/en/events/pastevents/brahimi_report.shtml">effective peacekeeping operations</a>; Francis Deng made major contributions towards the UN’s <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/book/sovereignty-as-responsibility/">“Responsibility to Protect” agenda</a>.</p>
<p>Like others – think of former US-President Jimmy Carter’s track record as human rights advocate and his <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2018/08/22/jimmy-carter-lives-in-an-inexpensive-house.html">modest lifestyle</a> – Annan’s merits lie more in his time after office. Most prominently in his role as one of the <a href="https://theelders.org/kofi-annan">Elders</a>. </p>
<p>He was a noteworthy mediator, most spectacularly in <a href="https://www.nation.co.ke/news/Kofi-Annan-and-Kenya--Hero-to-some-and-villain-to-others/1056-4718852-3xqgmw/index.html">Kenya</a>. Commendable is also his recent commitment towards a solution for the plight of the <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/former-secretary-general-kofi-annan-urges-un-to-push-for-rohingya-return-to-myanmar/a-40950080">Rohingya in Myanmar</a>.</p>
<p>What might explain the overtly positive eulogies to Annan is that there were moments of human dignity and decency, in which the opportunity was seized to set a morally acceptable example. This seems to have also been the case when it comes to John McCain, American politician and military officer <a href="https://theconversation.com/obituary-john-mccain-who-survived-torture-and-ran-for-the-us-presidency-97020">who recently passed on</a>. </p>
<h2>John McCain</h2>
<p>McCain was widely celebrated in the established media as <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-mccain/senator-john-mccain-ex-pow-and-political-maverick-dead-at-81-statement-idUSKCN1LB00C">war hero and maverick</a>. He was also deemed an <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/video/2018/aug/26/an-american-hero-the-life-of-john-mccain-video">American hero</a>, whose “principles and belief in bi-partisanship” <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/aug/27/john-mccain-paradox-america-principled-moral">made him unique</a>.</p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/234285/original/file-20180830-195304-1tdht6w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/234285/original/file-20180830-195304-1tdht6w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=759&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/234285/original/file-20180830-195304-1tdht6w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=759&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/234285/original/file-20180830-195304-1tdht6w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=759&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/234285/original/file-20180830-195304-1tdht6w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=954&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/234285/original/file-20180830-195304-1tdht6w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=954&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/234285/original/file-20180830-195304-1tdht6w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=954&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">The late former US Senator John McCain.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">EPA-EFE/CJ Gunther</span></span>
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<p>But moments of personal integrity were at times deeply ambiguous. His defending Barack Obama as “a decent man” and <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/video/2018/aug/27/john-mccain-remembered-defending-obama-from-racist-questions-video">“family father”</a>, was far from dismissing racism. It only exonerated his contender and should not make up for McCain being willing to compromise his declared principles in his bid for <a href="https://theconversation.com/john-mccain-dead-at-81-helped-build-a-country-that-no-longer-reflects-his-values-97054">presidential power</a>. </p>
<p>The conservative values praised as a sign of integrity, elevating him into <a href="https://theconversation.com/obituary-john-mccain-who-survived-torture-and-ran-for-the-us-presidency-97020">“a class of his own”</a> should not distract from McCain’s role as a war monger who did not care for human life and dignity. </p>
<h2>Weigh right and wrong</h2>
<p>All too often – and Annan has been a particularly prominent example – those praising a person highlight their own involvement. They cannot resist focusing on the impact the person had on them or when and where the person left a lasting impression through a personal encounter. Often, such eulogies reproduce a photo of the praised person, shown together with the one who applauds her or his merits – almost as if these were their own merits.</p>
<p>This leaves me wondering what kind of memory will be paid to Obama. As the first black president of the US there were a number of things deserving positive recognition, mainly in domestic policy. But they should not prevent a condemnation of his massive failures. But then, in the shadow of Obama’s through and through immoral successor in office, it already makes a difference to display some degree of ethics, moral consciousness and decency.</p>
<p>Maybe this is also a valid explanation why so many failed in their tributes to Annan or McCain. It might be difficult to enter the necessary investigations of what is right and what is wrong in times when reactionary populism requires a desperate search for alternatives. But, it is in support of such alternatives that we shouldn’t shy away from the challenge.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/102411/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Henning Melber does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Kofi Annan and John McCain’s positive eulogies could be because both men seized moments of human dignity and decency.Henning Melber, Extraordinary Professor, Department of Political Sciences, University of PretoriaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/847472017-10-09T09:24:30Z2017-10-09T09:24:30ZFive ways Donald Trump is rolling back the Obama years – or trying to<p>In the absence of any clear ideology associated with Donald Trump’s US presidency, it does seem he has at least one obvious priority that transcends the hype and spin: he is determined to <a href="http://edition.cnn.com/2017/09/21/politics/donald-trump-barack-obama-legacy/index.html">undo his predecessor’s legacy</a>. </p>
<p>Trump’s efforts to “repeal and replace” have had mixed success, just as Obama’s efforts to build that legacy in the first place were stymied by the 2010 Republican takeover of the House of Representatives. Obama did push <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2014/08/05/executive-directives-and-misdirection/?utm_term=.8ea73fd5719c">executive branch authority to its limits</a> – most notably when it came to the diplomatic thaw with Cuba – but relying on administrative powers to bring about change was a second-best way of building a robust legacy. </p>
<p>Eight months into his term, Trump has added no major legislative achievements to his name, but he too has used executive powers to chip away at the achievements of his predecessor. Here are some examples of where his administration has tried to roll things back so far.</p>
<h2>Healthcare</h2>
<p>As a candidate Trump broke with conservative orthodoxy on some key social policy issues, notably in his support for the government-run Medicare and social security programmes. But he joined with Republicans to vociferously denounce Obama’s signature domestic policy achievement, the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/26/us/politics/hillary-clinton-donald-trump-affordable-care-act.html">Affordable Care Act</a>, better known as “Obamacare”. </p>
<p>Through 2017 congressional Republicans advanced various proposals and the House passed the American HealthCare Act in May, only for this bill to die a death in the Senate. The GOP’s narrow 52–48 majority means there is little room for internal party dissent, giving some voice to the few remaining moderates. The final week in September brought the year’s <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/23/us/obamacare-repeal-graham-cassidy-mccain-trump.html?emc=edit_th_20170924&nl=todaysheadlines&nlid=5348137">last-ditch effort at repeal</a>, since the Senate’s arcane rules dictate that the use of the “reconciliation” process, which would preclude any Democratic filibuster of reform, ended on September 30.</p>
<h2>Trade and tarriffs</h2>
<p>Trump has consistently attacked trade deals that he claims are bad for American workers. Through the campaign he lambasted the North American Free Trade Agreement, which dates back to the George H W Bush and Clinton presidencies, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/06/opinion/campaign-stops/global-trade-war-trump-edition.html">and suggested that</a> the US might impose significant new tariffs on Chinese imports. He was also scornful of the Trans Pacific Partnership, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/15/world/asia/the-trans-pacific-trade-deal-and-a-presidents-legacy.html">a deal the Obama administration had negotiated</a> with 11 other countries and which encompasses almost 40% of the world’s economy. Here Trump promptly fulfilled his promise and withdrew the US from the agreement, which had yet to come into effect. Regarding other deals while Trump’s rhetoric remained fiery, he has mainly instructed <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2017/04/29/100-days-trump-order-review-free-trade-agreements-commerce/101066150/">that they be reviewed rather than revoked</a>.</p>
<h2>Funding family planning overseas</h2>
<p>On his first day in office Trump signed a memorandum reinstating the so-called Mexico City policy, which prevents federal funding from going to NGOs that perform or promote abortion as a means for family planning as part of their work. In May, Trump had <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/15/us/politics/trump-gag-rule-abortion.html">announced</a> that it would expand the range of activities that would be prohibited under what critics call the “global gag” rule. The US would save around US$500m a year and Trump scores a win with his socially conservative base, while the number of abortions carried out in Sub-Saharan Africa and other areas is likely to rise, rather than fall. While the funding ban does not affect American women directly, it sends a clear message to them that their president is sympathetic to those who oppose female reproductive autonomy.</p>
<h2>Transgender Americans in the armed forces</h2>
<p>In August 2017 the president reinstated a ban on transgender recruits signing up to the US Army, and a ban on the military paying for any related medical expenses or surgery. Responsibility for the decisions on what to do regarding the thousands of currently serving transgender army members was left to the generals. </p>
<p>Again, this presidential memo was a direct reaction to an Obama-era initiative. It remains a political flashpoint, and as of September 2017 a six-month delay in implementation has been put in place. Those in favour of the ban decry the notion of the army being used as a forum for “social experiment” while others argue that a person’s qualification and suitability for military service should be the only criteria that matters. Chelsea Manning responded to the ban <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/chelsea-manning-donald-trump-military-transgender_us_5978959fe4b0a8a40e84234d">by stating</a> that the armed forces “have always been a social experiment just as much as a fighting force”.</p>
<h2>Gun rights</h2>
<p>Speaking to the BBC in the summer of 2015, President Obama noted that his biggest regret as president was the failure to make any headway on gun control. In truth it was only after the Sandy Hook massacre, in which 20 primary school children and their six teachers were gunned down, that he made the issue a top priority. Despite sustained efforts to get Congress on board, his efforts were fruitless, and he was forced to resort to executive action in January 2016. This had symbolic and some substantial value, and if nothing else demonstrated he was prepared to take on the gun lobby. Trump, on the other hand, embraced the gun lobby as a candidate, which rewarded him by donating US$30m to his campaign. That investment began to pay off when President Trump, on February 28 2017, <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/trump-signs-bill-revoking-obama-era-gun-checks-people-mental-n727221">signed a bill</a> that undid one of Obama’s measures to strengthen background checks. </p>
<p>Even <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/oct/06/las-vegas-shooter-may-have-planned-other-attacks">in the aftermath</a> of Las Vegas, the biggest mass shooting in modern America, little is likely to change. With 59 dead and hundreds injured, there might seem an opening for political dialogue on the widespread access to weapons of war, but opponents of more regulation will protest against “politicising the issue”. Trump and the Republican party will remain wedded to a culture promoting gun rights, emphatically reinforced by power of the National Rifle Association. Presidential thoughts and prayers, rather than actions, will have to suffice.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/84747/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Donald Trump seems vague on many policies except one: undoing as much of Barack Obama’s legacy as possible.Clodagh Harrington, Senior Lecturer in Politics, De Montfort UniversityAlex Waddan, Associate Professor in American Politics and American Foreign Policy, University of LeicesterLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/721252017-01-31T13:34:42Z2017-01-31T13:34:42ZHow Trump’s travel ban differs from Obama’s visa restrictions<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/154972/original/image-20170131-13246-12ou03b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Anger at Trump's immigration controls continues to spread. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/109799466@N06/32478446291/sizes/l">joepiette2/flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/">CC BY-NC</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Donald Trump’s <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/27/us/politics/refugee-muslim-executive-order-trump.html">executive order on immigration</a>, issued on January 27 2017, indefinitely bars Syrian refugees from entering the US, suspends the admission of all refugees for 120 days and blocks citizens of seven Muslim-majority countries – Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen – from entering the country for 90 days.</p>
<p>Introduced <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/27/us/politics/refugee-muslim-executive-order-trump.html">as a policy</a> to “protect its citizens from foreign nationals who intend to commit terrorist attacks in the United States”, the order has provoked a storm of protest worldwide. Foreign governments <a href="http://www.news24.com/World/News/merkel-slams-trump-travel-ban-cites-geneva-convention-20170129">reminded</a> the US president of his obligations under international human rights law, such as the <a href="https://theconversation.com/a-guide-to-the-geneva-convention-for-beginners-dummies-and-newly-elected-world-leaders-72155">Geneva Refugee Convention</a>, of which the US is a signatory. </p>
<p>Visitors, students, scientists, family members, even permanent residents with green cards have been stopped at airports around the world, plunging customs and arrival zones into chaos. Former president, Barack Obama, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/30/us/politics/obama-trump-immigration-ban.html">publicly spoke out</a> against the immigration ban, and acting attorney general Sally Yates <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/jan/30/justice-department-trump-immigration-acting-attorney-general-sally-yates">was fired</a> after having instructed officials not to enforce the new order.</p>
<h2>Obama’s visa restrictions</h2>
<p>Deflecting the criticism, Trump now points a finger at Obama. Trump has compared his new policy with an alleged visa ban for refugees from Iraq for six months, <a href="http://heavy.com/news/2017/01/barack-obama-ban-refugees-did-iraq-iraqi-muslim-trump-jimmy-carter-iran-iranian-immigration/">issued in 2011 under his predecessor</a>. More recently, legislation that imposes travel restrictions on travellers from the seven countries had already passed congress under the Obama administration. </p>
<p>The suggestively labelled “<a href="https://www.congress.gov/bill/114th-congress/house-bill/158/text">Visa Waiver Program Improvement and Terrorist Travel Prevention Act</a>” of December 2015 complicated the visa application process for citizens of Iran, Iraq, Sudan or Syria. It also made it more difficult for anyone who had visited any of these countries on or after March 1 2011 to get a visa, as I <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-new-us-visa-rules-are-bad-news-for-europe-and-the-iran-nuclear-agreement-56185">had to find out myself</a> after I was effectively barred from attending a conference in the US as an EU academic because I had previously visited Iran. </p>
<p>The restrictions aimed to prevent people with ties to countries thought to pose a terror threat from using the <a href="https://esta.cbp.dhs.gov/esta/">Electronic System for Travel Authorisation</a> to travel to the US with minimal screening.</p>
<p>That act erected discriminatory barriers for access to the US for scholars, people with dual nationality, or tourists. And while the December 2015 act was not based on an executive order issued by the president, Obama <a href="http://history.house.gov/Institution/Presidential-Vetoes/Presidential-Vetoes/">could have vetoed</a> that congressional piece of legislation, but didn’t. Somalia, Libya, and Yemen were added in February 2016 as “<a href="https://www.dhs.gov/news/2016/02/18/dhs-announces-further-travel-restrictions-visa-waiver-program">countries of concern</a>” by the Department of Homeland Security, and it was this list of seven countries referred to in <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/27/us/politics/refugee-muslim-executive-order-trump.html?_r=0&mtrref=theconversation.com&gwh=33BDC15B15D160207461517BA58C2953&gwt=pay">Trump’s executive order</a>. </p>
<p>The arbitrary classification of these seven countries as “terror threats” stays the same. Saudi Arabia, Egypt or other countries with links to the 9/11 perpetrators are not on the list, rendering Trump’s <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/27/us/politics/refugee-muslim-executive-order-trump.html">evocation of the September 11 attacks</a> in the executive order sketchy at best. <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/countries-where-trump-does-business-are-not-hit-by-new-travel-restrictions/2017/01/28/dd40535a-e56b-11e6-a453-19ec4b3d09ba_story.html?utm_term=.25c24bf1702c">Neither are countries</a> like Turkey, in which the Trump Organisation has done business.</p>
<p>Trump’s new order, however, differs from the December 2015 law in its scale. Under the new rules, the US is detaining people that have already undergone lengthy vetting procedures. Imposing a blanket travel ban against entire nationalities not only violates commitments the US made under international law and is <a href="http://thehill.com/blogs/pundits-blog/immigration/316871-trumps-immigration-ban-is-clumsy-but-perfectly-legal">controversial constitutionally</a>, it is also imprudent policy. Jihadist groups are already <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/jihadist-groups-hail-trumps-travel-ban-as-a-victory/2017/01/29/50908986-e66d-11e6-b82f-687d6e6a3e7c_story.html?utm_term=.4efbfbf84c8e">celebrating the new travel ban as a propaganda success</a>, bolstering their claim that the US is waging a war on Islam – despite Trump’s <a href="http://www.cbsnews.com/news/president-trump-defends-travel-ban-saying-its-not-about-religion/">attempts to underline</a> that the travel ban is “not about religion”. </p>
<h2>Unsealing the Iran deal?</h2>
<p>With regard to Iran, the new policy has particular political implications. The US <a href="https://www.state.gov/documents/organization/245317.pdf">committed itself</a> to “refrain from any policy specifically intended to directly and adversely affect the normalisation of trade and economic relations with Iran” as part of a nuclear agreement with Iran reached in July 2015. The December 2015 changes to the US visa programme had already been <a href="http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2015/12/iran-syria-zarif-.html">criticised as contravening the spirit</a> of this agreement. </p>
<p>With Iranian academics, businessmen, and family members now <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-immigration-academics-idUSKBN15D10R">stranded at airports</a> and barred entry to the US, the US now is seen as taking steps that undermine pledges made in the nuclear deal. It has strengthened <a href="http://en.farsnews.com/newstext.aspx?nn=13951110001534">Iranian critiques</a> and hardened suspicions about the trustworthiness of US commitments. Iran has already announced that it will <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-immigration-iran-idUSKBN15C0NR">ban US visitors</a> in retaliation. </p>
<p>So besides the carefully rehearsed security argument, the new travel ban is also a policy that undermines the agreement made with Iran – and is therefore in line with Trump’s criticism of “<a href="http://edition.cnn.com/videos/tv/2015/09/10/donald-trump-interview-newday-part-one.cnn">one of the worst deals</a>” he has ever seen negotiated. As the order was drafted without inter-agency consultations with Homeland Security, the Justice, State, or Defense departments, it is <a href="https://www.lawfareblog.com/malevolence-tempered-incompetence-trumps-horrifying-executive-order-refugees-and-visas">not entirely clear</a> whether the “incompetence mitigates the malevolence” or whether the political signals are deliberate.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/72125/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Moritz Pieper does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Trump has pointed the finger at Obama for creating the list of seven countries in his new travel ban.Moritz Pieper, Lecturer in International Relations, University of SalfordLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/716162017-01-19T23:12:54Z2017-01-19T23:12:54ZObama’s legacy: history will judge him more kindly than his critics think<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/153524/original/image-20170119-26573-ht60kg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption"></span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Reuters</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Standing on Washington’s Mall in January, 2009 on an ice-cold day, observing the 44th president of the United States of America being sworn into office by the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, much seemed possible.</p>
<p>We had arrived – so it seemed – at a moment of hope and change, or, as the historians put it, a hinge point in America’s continuing search for a perfect union.</p>
<p>Destiny had descended upon us.</p>
<p>Here was America’s first black president assuming office after the bleak days of George W Bush, who had bet his administration on a botched war in Iraq to get rid of non-existent weapons of mass destruction.</p>
<p>Five years after the invasion of Iraq, and in the midst of a global financial crisis, America was to have a new beginning with a new administration and a new president. All of this would be a salve to the country’s wounds and enable it to move on.</p>
<p>Eight years, or two presidential terms, after that day in 2009, America has arrived at a new “hinge point”. This time, the message being delivered by the latest resident of Pennsylvanian Avenue is less one of hope and change than that of America first and foremost.</p>
<p>No-one can predict how a Trump administration will evolve beyond the near certainty the world – and America in particular – is in for a bumpy ride, and possibly a disruptive one.</p>
<p>Trump supporters would say that disruption is what is needed after years of drift in which the president’s diffidence in the exercise of power contributed to a global vacuum filled by bad actors. This is notwithstanding that the right seemingly cannot make up its mind whether Russia’s Vladimir Putin is good or bad, or simply misunderstood.</p>
<p>What is needed, according to a consensus view on the right, is a reassertion of American power, leaving aside their candidate’s isolationist rhetoric on the campaign trail.</p>
<p>How this circle – between Trump’s isolationism and the assertiveness of his supporters – will be squared will be not the least of the consequential questions to be addressed in the months ahead.</p>
<p>Can America be both isolationist and great again? I doubt it.</p>
<p>In all of this, views on the Obama legacy, like the expectations of a Trump presidency, are all over the place. This reflects the uncertain times in which we live.</p>
<p>So, what is the fair judgement of the Obama presidency, and what might reasonable expectations be of Trump’s tenure?</p>
<p>First, Obama.</p>
<p>In Australia, a narrative has evolved that holds the outgoing president guilty of sins of omission and commission. His unwillingness to twist former Iraqi president Nouri al-Maliki’s arm and enable US troops to remain in Iraq after 2011 has contributed to the further unravelling of that country and the rise of IS.</p>
<p>According to this view, Mosul would not have fallen to IS if American forces had remained, and the spread of the caliphate would have been curtailed.</p>
<p>Left unanswered by the critics is to what extent America would have needed to re-engage to forestall the encroachment of IS from its strongholds in Syria across a porous frontier into Iraq.</p>
<p>Such criticism of Obama’s diffidence in Iraq would have more credibility if it was not evinced by those who displayed exceptionally poor judgement in their advocacy of the Iraq invasion in the first place.</p>
<p>In the case of Syria, critics are on firmer ground. Having drawn red lines around the use of chemical weapons by Syria’s Bashar al-Assad against his own people, Obama’s reticence in taking reprisals will almost certainly come to be regarded as a mistake.</p>
<p>By standing back, the administration allowed a vacuum to evolve and be exploited by Russia and Iran, among others. This is not to mention all the other consequences of an enormously disruptive civil war, whose fallout has spread beyond Syria’s borders to its immediate neighbourhood and into Europe.</p>
<p>Obama argues that a US response to Syria’s misbehaviour enabled agreement with the Russians to quarantine Assad’s chemical weapons. But this avoids bigger questions about what might have transpired if America had pursued a more assertive role, including establishment of a no-fly zone over northern Syria and safe havens for the displaced.</p>
<p>In fairness to Obama, he had staked his presidency on winding back America’s debilitating commitments on the ground in the Middle East, believing they were counterproductive. In that regard he has a point.</p>
<p>In the view of Australian critics, Obama’s “pivot” to Asia has yielded disappointing results, but he should be given credit for seeking to rebalance America’s strategic interests away from costly commitments in the Middle East, even if he might have pursued this goal with more vigour.</p>
<p>His efforts to promote a regional trading partnership should be noted.</p>
<p>On other contentious issues such as the Middle East peace process, Obama rates barely a pass. While it is true that circumstances on the ground could hardly be less auspicious, he could have done more to exert pressure on both the Israelis and Palestinians, and earlier.</p>
<p>Now, Trump:</p>
<p>In Australia, the new president’s arrival in the White House is being viewed with a mixture of alarm and expectation. Hawkish elements are looking forward to a more assertive approach towards China’s regional ambitions, while concerns are harboured inside and outside government about disruptions to a regional trading environment on which Australia relies.</p>
<p>No Australian government wants to find itself in a position where it is obliged to make a choice between its history - in the form of its alliance obligations - and its geography in a China-looming Asia-Pacific.</p>
<p>What we are seeing domestically is an overdue debate about the need for greater self-reliance in a new era in which American power may be receding, or at best no longer unchallenged.</p>
<p>Trump’s ascendancy is hastening this process.</p>
<p>Finally, the perennial question among historians and others as to how the Obama presidency will be judged historically, and whether in time he will be seen to having found his way into the ranks of better presidents.</p>
<p>On the basis of his having steadied the ship on assuming office during a financial crisis presided over by his predecessor, and restoring his country’s economic well-being in what has been a long slow recovery, he deserves more credit that is being accorded. History will judge him better than his critics anticipate.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/71616/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
As the Trump era begins, Australian are having an overdue debate about the need for greater self-reliance at a time when American power may be receding.Tony Walker, Vice-Chancellor's Fellow, La Trobe UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/710622017-01-19T21:31:18Z2017-01-19T21:31:18ZWill President Obama’s clean energy legacy endure?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/153504/original/image-20170119-26585-1uia7sd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Obama has prioritized development of wind and solar in a number of ways, including installation on military bases. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>In the closing days of President Obama’s second term, he and leaders in the Executive Branch worked feverishly to articulate their views of the administration’s legacy – and to cement that legacy as much as possible.</p>
<p>Nowhere is this more evident than in the areas of <a href="https://www.energy.gov/articles/us-department-energy-cabinet-exit-memo-0">energy, climate and environment</a>, where, as EPA Administrator Gina McCarty had said since well before the election, the plan was to “<a href="https://www.bna.com/mccarthy-nearing-second-n57982069906/">run through the tape</a>” at the end of this administration.</p>
<p>Ordinarily, one might examine how an incoming administration and Congress could set new priorities or undo the actions of the previous administration. But this is no ordinary transition. </p>
<p>Not only are we confronted by Donald Trump’s less-than-consistent pattern of sound bites and tweets, but also the transition period has seen a daily stream of Cabinet nominees disagreeing with Trump, the dismissal of political norms and constitutional limitations regarding presidential conflict of interest, and even questions about the ability of an unfriendly foreign power to influence U.S. policy. From the miasma, little is certain except that the Trump administration will seek a rapid reversal of course. </p>
<p>Ultimately, we must judge the legacy of the Obama administration by the tides of change set in motion by its actions. The Supreme Court may gut the Voting Rights Act, but the enduring impacts of its expansion of voting rights are not so easily erased. The 115th Congress may repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act, but it is difficult to see some of the linchpins of Obamacare, such as coverage for preexisting conditions, disappearing from the expectations of the American people.</p>
<p>What then about clean energy? What can survive a worst-case policy, legal and legislative onslaught? What if the <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/topics/epa-clean-power-plan-17859">Clean Power Plan</a>, the tougher fuel economy standards for our cars and trucks, the Paris climate accords, and other environmental achievements touted by the Obama administration go out the window?</p>
<p>The answer, from my perspective as the director of the University of Michigan’s Energy Institute, lies largely outside of Washington. It lies in the economic globalization from which Trump has profited as a businessman, yet railed against as a candidate. It lies in the ability of our states to act as the “laboratories of democracy” in ways that states-rights advocates have long extolled. Ironies abound.</p>
<h2>EPA in the crosshairs</h2>
<p>In his recent <a href="http://science.sciencemag.org/content/early/2017/01/06/science.aam6284.full">article</a> “The irreversible momentum of clean energy,” Obama notes that over the past eight years, CO2 emissions from the energy sector fell by 9.5 percent. While the growth of renewable energy from wind and solar has played a part, the dominant contributor to this trend has been the displacement of coal by natural gas as the single largest fuel source for electricity production in the U.S. </p>
<p>That shift has been enabled by the dramatic increase in U.S. oil and gas production from shale and other “tight” geologic formations. It’s resulted in cheap and abundant natural gas, made cheap gasoline the norm for the past two years and vaulted the U.S. to become the world’s top energy producer.</p>
<p>It’s still not clear whether the EPA Clean Power Plan – regulations designed to curb CO2 emissions from power generators now held up in the courts – will survive legal challenges or what the Trump administration will do with it. Regardless, the continuing reduction of emissions from the power sector is here to stay for the foreseeable future. The demise of coal is a <a href="https://theconversation.com/trump-may-dismantle-the-epa-clean-power-plan-but-its-targets-look-resilient-68460">matter of economics</a>, not policy or regulation.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
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<span class="caption">The Obama administration’s push around efficiency and clean energy coincided with a boom in natural gas and oil production thanks the spread of fracking.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">www.shutterstock.com</span></span>
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</figure>
<p>But if the goals of the Clean Power Plan are sailing with the favorable wind of domestic energy supplies, the Jan. 13 action of the EPA to lock in <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-automakers-idUSKBN14X1Q6">vehicle fuel efficiency standards through 2025</a> might be seen to be sailing against the same wind. Automakers, not surprisingly, complained and have already appealed to President-elect Trump to undo these. Consumers, enjoying cheap gasoline for the past two years, have continued to buy <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-should-america-do-with-its-2-per-gallon-gas-windfall-52258">larger and less fuel-efficient vehicles</a>. Why should we expect higher fuel economy standards to survive?</p>
<p>The reasons are threefold. The EPA’s determination, after a lengthy evaluation of technical and economic feasibility and appropriateness, is legally binding. Reversal by the next administration would require a similarly lengthy process to establish a different finding and appropriate regulatory response.</p>
<p>While dazzling electronic capabilities and more self-driving features capture most of the attention at auto and consumer electronics shows, there also has been a relentless advance in fuel-saving technologies and, most importantly, investment in their large-scale manufacture. Advances such as engine stop-start and higher efficiency internal combustion engines are now standard. </p>
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<p>Ford introduced the lighter-weight, aluminum body F-150 for the 2015 model year. GM has begun to deliver the electric Chevy Bolt. The progressive increases in fuel economy standards that have just been locked down to 2025 may stretch automakers, but there is no reason to expect the pace of technological innovation in more efficient and environmentally friendly vehicles to abate.</p>
<p>The reason for that is the global marketplace. The U.S. market represents about 20 percent of the global car market, and that share will likely decline as populations and economies grow elsewhere. Increasing urbanization will increase the need for ever-cleaner transportation, a trend automakers have recognized. </p>
<p>On Jan. 3, Ford rolled out its plans for seven of the 13 new <a href="https://media.ford.com/content/fordmedia/fna/us/en/news/2017/01/03/ford-adding-electrified-f-150-mustang-transit-by-2020.html">electrified vehicles</a> it plans to introduce in the next five years. Today, <a href="http://www.theglobeandmail.com/globe-drive/news/industry-news/how-more-electric-cars-are-sold-in-china-than-the-rest-of-the-world-combined/article33615077/">more electric cars are being sold in China than in the rest of the world combined</a>. </p>
<p>Automakers complain that U.S. consumers are not willing to pay for better efficiency if it adds significant cost. However, consumer response to low energy prices suggests that vehicle size, not cost, has driven recent trends toward gas-guzzlers. So meeting U.S. efficiency and emissions standards by developing new technologies and products will continue to improve the global competitiveness of the auto industry. That isn’t going to change, no matter who occupies the White House. Unless, of course, that individual starts a trade war.</p>
<h2>Economic clout of renewables</h2>
<p>What about renewables for electricity generation? Can a Trump administration set back clean energy for a generation, as the <a href="https://psmag.com/how-ronald-reagan-turned-out-the-lights-on-solar-power-518e7e4e3695#.tgkx16g9t">Reagan administration did</a>? The answer is simply no. </p>
<p>They may slow it down a bit by removal of tax incentives and disinvestment in federally funded R&D (both of which will attract significant opposition from many Republicans in Congress in wind-friendly states, for instance), but here the Obama legacy will not be uprooted. The reason is that we are at a much different place on the experience curve, both technologically and societally. </p>
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<p>While wind and solar combined accounted for only 5.3 percent of <a href="https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.cfm?id=427&t=3">U.S. electricity generated in 2015</a>, costs for these renewable sources of electricity have been cut roughly in half since 2008; installed <a href="https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.cfm?id=427&t=3">solar capacity has increased 17-fold</a> and <a href="http://www.awea.org/wind-energy-facts-at-a-glance">wind capacity has increased three-fold</a>. Whether or not people install solar panels on their houses or support wind turbines in their own or somebody else’s backyard, these are no longer seen as exotic sources of energy. Just last month the nation’s <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/14/science/wind-power-block-island.html?_r=0">first off-shore wind farm</a> became operational, and given the proximity of 70 percent of America’s population to its coasts, this too may soon seem less exotic.</p>
<p>However, the real action on renewable power generation will likely be outside of Washington during the next administration. Twenty-nine states have Renewable Portfolio Standards, or mandates, for electricity generation in effect, with California’s “50 percent by 2050” being the most ambitious. </p>
<p>While the number of states with these renewable energy mandates has not changed much in the past eight years, the requirements in many of these have continued to be ratcheted up, <a href="https://www.osti.gov/scitech/biblio/1337612-prospective-analysis-costs-benefits-impacts-renewable-portfolio-standards">with demonstrable economic benefit</a>. Most notably in 2016, Michigan and Ohio successfully resisted attempts by Republican-controlled legislatures to eliminate their standards. </p>
<p>Part of the reason is that clean power is emerging as an important tool for economic development at the state level. The <a href="https://www.facebook.com/REbuyersalliance/photos/pb.1708091749463418.-2207520000.1484427562./1762304567375469/?type=3&theater">Renewable Energy Buyers Alliance</a> includes some of the country’s largest and most respected corporations, and states that wish to attract or retain these employers are moving to ensure their clean energy supply needs can be met. While failure by states to ensure access to clean energy supplies may not yet have the same negative impact on recruitment and retention of businesses as passing “bathroom bills,” the future direction is clear.</p>
<p>In the end, the enduring clean energy legacy of the Obama administration may be that it got us “over the hump” of thinking in terms of the false dichotomy of clean versus affordable energy. While the revolution in domestic production of gas and oil relieved many of the economic pressures, the strong emphasis on clean energy development and deployment from the very beginning, including <a href="https://theconversation.com/clinton-says-the-clean-energy-economy-will-create-millions-of-jobs-can-it-66111">US$90 billion in clean energy investments and tax credits</a> made under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, have ensured a cleaner energy trajectory for the nation. The pace may change, but the ultimate direction will not.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/71062/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Mark Barteau holds the DTE Energy Chair of Advanced Energy Research at the University of Michigan. He has direct oversight of research and capital projects in the University’s Energy Institute funded by the Sloan Foundation, The Ford Motor Co., and the Michigan Economic Development Corporation. Prior to joining the University of Michigan in 2012, his research was funded by the following U.S. agencies: NSF, DOE, NASA and AFOSR.</span></em></p>The Trump administration has the tools to slow the momentum Obama started on clean energy. Countering Trump are global market forces and state-level action.Mark Barteau, Director, University of Michigan Energy Institute, University of MichiganLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/706992017-01-13T02:04:18Z2017-01-13T02:04:18ZObama’s legacy in science, technology and innovation<p>As the <a href="http://quoteinvestigator.com/2013/10/20/no-predict/">old aphorism says</a>, it’s difficult to make predictions, especially about the future. Assessing the legacy of Barack Obama will be easier in a few decades when we can see the long-term consequences of his presidential decisions and initiatives.</p>
<p>An immediate analysis of his science and technology policies, however, reveals significant accomplishments in the promotion of science and technology, education, space exploitation, clean energy, climate change and the environment. While major endeavors like the <a href="http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2016-02-25/obama-precision-medicine-initiative-is-first-step-to-revolutionizing-medicine">Precision Medicine Initiative</a> and <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/oct/05/obama-paris-climate-deal-ratification">Paris climate agreement</a> received the headlines, they were part of a larger, mostly successful goal to “<a href="https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn16452-obama-to-restore-science-to-its-rightful-place/">restore science to its rightful place and wield technology’s wonders</a>” in forming and implementing government policy. </p>
<p>The administration’s shortcomings around science – some of which reflected Republican political pressures – included limited funding overall and travel restrictions for government workers, both of which reduced the effectiveness of positive science and tech policies.</p>
<h2>Psyched about science</h2>
<p>In office Obama was fundamentally an <a href="https://www.wired.com/2016/10/president-obama-guest-edits-wired-essay/">optimist about the potential</a> of science and technology to improve society and safely expand the economy. His most significant (and low profile) near-term <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/administration/eop/ostp/initiatives">initiatives</a> elevated and institutionalized the foundations of scientific research – exploration, data-based experimentation and policy, openness, transparency, and access to information – into routine government activities. These steps should accelerate the commercialization and diffusion of research.</p>
<p>Many changes were small but improved the efficiency of programs. For example, modifications made <a href="http://freakonomics.com/podcast/white-house-gets-nudge-business/">based on the outcomes of behavioral science experiments</a> increased military employees’ participation in the Thrift Saving Plan while cutting program costs.</p>
<p>One visible sign of the importance the Obama administration placed on making sure research results made it out of labs and into practice was the expansion of the phrase “science and technology” (S&T) to “<a href="http://issues.org/25-4/obama/">science, technology and innovation</a>” (ST&I) by president Obama. The creation of the new positions of federal <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2014/09/what-does-the-chief-technology-officer-of-a-country-do/379665/">Chief Technology Officer</a>, <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2016/09/08/announcing-first-federal-chief-information-security-officer">Chief Information Security Officer</a>, and <a href="http://www.govtech.com/data/Introducing-the-Chief-Data-Scientist.html">Chief Data Officer</a> was another indication of this integration.</p>
<p>Obama strongly supported science, technology, engineering and math – <a href="http://physicstoday.scitation.org/do/10.1063/PT.5.1071/full/">STEM – education</a>. Hosting science fairs at the White House garnered lots of media attention. But other initiatives within the administration’s <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/issues/education/k-12/educate-innovate">Educate to Innovate campaign</a> will prove more consequential in improving K-12 education in America. For instance, the <a href="https://100kin10.org">100Kin10 effort</a> aims to train 100,000 new science teachers by 2021, <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2016/06/21/impact-report-100-examples-president-obamas-leadership-science">STEM for All encourages active learning for the increasingly diverse student population, and SkillCommons creates</a> open-source online software for education. </p>
<p>Environmentally, Obama focused on slowing global warming by reducing greenhouse gas emissions, <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2017/01/president-obama-in-science-trump-renewables/512519/">promoting renewable energy and increasing the efficiency of energy use</a> domestically and internationally. The incoming Trump administration with <a href="http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2016/11/climate-deniers-trump-administration">its climate deniers</a> may try to reverse many of Obama’s policies, but the last eight years have significantly <a href="http://doi.org/10.1126/science.aam6284">reshaped the structure</a> of energy production and consumption worldwide. In 2015, <a href="http://fs-unep-centre.org/sites/default/files/attachments/16008nef_smallversionkomp.pdf">new electricity capacity</a> from renewables exceeded new capacity from fossil fuels for the first time.</p>
<p>In space, the Obama administration strongly <a href="http://www.ibtimes.com/nasa-2016-budget-big-leap-toward-manned-launches-commercialized-space-exploration-2230845">promoted commercialization</a>, directing NASA to pay private firms to launch supplies and, in 2018, astronauts to the International Space Station. This should reduce the high cost of reaching earth orbit and thus the exploration and exploitation of space.</p>
<p>While attracting fewer headlines, initiatives on <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2016/10/13/executive-order-coordinating-efforts-prepare-nation-space-weather-events">space weather</a> and the <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/microsites/ostp/NSTC/national_neo_preparedness_strategy_final.pdf">asteroids and comets that might strike our planet</a> may end up preserving civilization. In 1859, an extremely powerful solar storm disrupted Earth’s magnetic field. A similar “Carrington event” today would destroy satellites and much of the world’s electric power transmission grid. Worst-case scenarios (always good for pushing people to act) predict tens of millions of people dying because of the loss of electric power for years. A <a href="https://spaceguardcentre.com/what-are-neos/near-earth-objects-impact-effects/">large asteroid</a> striking Earth could devastate a large area, kill millions, and spark a new ice age. </p>
<p>Guarding against these rare but inevitable natural events will not excite voters, but demonstrates preventive stewardship. These initiatives coordinated government efforts across multiple departments to predict a dangerous event, provide warning, and equip satellites and terrestrial infrastructure to minimize harm and maximize resiliency. </p>
<h2>On the other hand, restricted travel</h2>
<p>One major negative effect on science from the Obama administration was its crippling of federal employees attending conferences.</p>
<p>In 2010, the General Services Administration, which supports federal agencies, held a <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/04/us/politics/gsa-las-vegas-trip-is-the-talk-of-washington.html">lavish conference</a> in Las Vegas. Congressional Republicans and Democrats attacked this very visible misuse of taxpayer dollars. In response, the Obama administration overreacted by sharply restricting federal spending on conferences and creating an elaborate, expensive bureaucratic process for government employees to get permission to attend a conference, workshop or other professional meetings. <a href="http://www.gao.gov/assets/670/668845.pdf">Reflecting these restrictions</a>, the number of defense scientists attending the Defense Security and Scanning conference of the International Society for Optics and Photonics dropped from 648 in 2012 to 206 in 2013, for example.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/152579/original/image-20170112-18318-179e8d5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/152579/original/image-20170112-18318-179e8d5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/152579/original/image-20170112-18318-179e8d5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/152579/original/image-20170112-18318-179e8d5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/152579/original/image-20170112-18318-179e8d5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/152579/original/image-20170112-18318-179e8d5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/152579/original/image-20170112-18318-179e8d5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/152579/original/image-20170112-18318-179e8d5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Serendipitous face to face interactions are a crucial part of scientific gatherings.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/ctbto/30256224650">CTBTO</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
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<p>The sharply curtailed government presence <a href="http://www.aaas.org/sites/default/files/SApprops%20S%26T%20Conference%20Travel%20Letter.pdf">frustrated scientific societies and researchers</a>, both federal employees and those in academia and the private sector. Despite the increasing ease of electronic communications, professional meetings remain <a href="https://hbr.org/2011/02/why-face-to-face-meetings-make">one of the most productive ways</a> for people to learn, exchange and debate ideas.</p>
<p>By decreasing opportunities for researchers to meet in person, the Obama administration hurt the creativity and productivity of the entire ST&I community, not just federal workers. This was an entirely self-inflicted wound.</p>
<h2>No real progress on cybersecurity</h2>
<p>Cybersecurity remains a <a href="http://www.worldpoliticsreview.com/articles/17468/sidetracked-obama-s-cybersecurity-legacy">weak area</a> for the Obama administration. The White House released a <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/assets/documents/Cyberspace_Policy_Review_final.pdf">policy review</a> in 2009, <a href="https://www.nist.gov/cyberframework">voluntary guidelines</a> for critical infrastructure in 2013 and its <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/docs/cybersecurity_report.pdf">cybersecurity report</a> last month. </p>
<p>But while Obama was in office, new cyber issues kept emerging. The <a href="https://www.wired.com/2016/12/obama-cybersecurity-plan/">theft of millions of records from the Office of Personnel Management by China</a>, the <a href="http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/12/how-russia-wins-an-election-214524">manipulation of the presidential election by Russia</a>, issues of <a href="https://epic.org/privacy/">privacy and surveillance</a>, <a href="https://www.ncsc.gov/publications/reports/fecie_all/Foreign_Economic_Collection_2011.pdf">economic cyberespionage</a> and the growing range of <a href="https://www.justice.gov/usao/priority-areas/cyber-crime">cybercrimes</a> all illustrate the axiom, “<a href="https://my.vanderbilt.edu/vanderbiltdivinity/2015/12/neither-good-nor-bad-nor-neutral/">Technology is neither good nor bad; nor is it neutral</a>.” </p>
<p>In fairness, cybersecurity was a fairly low priority throughout the country. There were seemingly few consequences to firms that fail to maintain adequate defenses. The burden of <a href="https://www.identitytheft.gov/Know-Your-Rights">identity theft</a>, for example, falls on the individual. The revelations of American cyberspying by <a href="http://www.newyorker.com/news/john-cassidy/snowdens-legacy-a-public-debate-about-online-privacy">Edward Snowden</a> and the deployment of the American-Israeli computer <a href="http://spectrum.ieee.org/telecom/security/the-real-story-of-stuxnet">Stuxnet virus</a> to destroy Iranian uranium centrifuges put the Obama administration on the defensive. Congressional and business skepticism, some partisan but mostly motivated by disagreement about what to do, resulted in <a href="http://www.cio.com/article/2390298/government/cybersecurity-stalls-in-senate--obama-could-issue-executive-order.html">little legislative action</a>. </p>
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<h2>And never enough funding</h2>
<p>Perhaps the most important shortcoming of the Obama administration’s science and technology agenda was its inability to increase S&T funding.</p>
<p>Partly this reflects the demographic trend of an aging U.S. population focused more on its retirement and medical costs than investing in research and development for the future. As more people retire and live longer, <a href="https://fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/RL33074.pdf">entitlements</a> – like Social Security and Medicare – increasingly crowd out the discretionary part of the federal budget.</p>
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<p>Coupled with budget battles with Congressional Republicans, including a costly <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/omb/reports/impacts-and-costs-of-october-2013-federal-government-shutdown-report.pdf">government shutdown in 2013</a> and <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/blog/fixgov/2014/03/13/4-ways-sequestration-cost-taxpayers-money/">sequestration</a>, the result has been near-stagnant ST&I budgets. That’s in contrast to the <a href="https://fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/R43580.pdf">long-term increases</a> proposed by the president in 2009 to expand public and private spending on research and development from 2.8 to 3.0 percent of GDP.</p>
<p>Consequently, many opportunities went unfunded or underfunded. Success rates for grants from the <a href="https://report.nih.gov/success_rates/">National Institutes of Health</a>, <a href="https://www.nsf.gov/nsb/publications/2015/nsb201514.pdf">National Science Foundation</a> and <a href="http://www.nature.com/news/us-astronomers-stuck-in-grant-rejection-cycle-1.18631">NASA</a> all decreased. Indeed, President Obama in 2010 and again in 2016 called for <a href="https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/blue-planet-red-planet-politics-obama-s-giant-leap-for-legacy/">sending astronauts to Mars</a> but did not try to convince Congress to fund that undertaking, the latest of a series of presidents to do so. </p>
<h2>Science’s rightful place?</h2>
<p>Unsurprisingly, the Obama administration’s rhetoric outpaced its resources and restrictions. Nonetheless, the 44th president left a <a href="https://theconversation.com/obama-administrations-big-science-and-tech-innovation-socially-engaged-policy-67113">strong legacy</a> of supporting ST&I not just for the goals of discovery and economic growth but to strengthen democracy and improve the processes of government.</p>
<p>If its campaign tweets, transition staff, and cabinet appointments are any indication, the <a href="https://www.aaas.org/election-transition">incoming Trump administration</a> will provide a <a href="http://www.newyorker.com/tech/elements/donald-trumps-war-on-science">very strong contrast</a>. With <a href="https://www.scientificamerican.com/report/science-and-the-trump-presidency/">top officials at odds with the data-based, open scientific approach</a> on many issues, science, technology, and innovation may take a beating.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/70699/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jonathan Coopersmith received funding from the National Science Foundation for his research on the history of the fax. Coopersmith is a Democrat. </span></em></p>How did an administration committed to restoring “science to its rightful place” actually do?Jonathan Coopersmith, Professor of History, Texas A&M UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/711312017-01-12T02:12:25Z2017-01-12T02:12:25ZIn racially divided times, Obama’s farewell address swings for the middle<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/152503/original/image-20170112-1581-3d0ukp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Obama arrives to give his presidential farewell address. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP Photo/Charles Rex Arbogast</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>On Jan. 10, President Barack Obama delivered a farewell address to the nation in his adopted hometown of Chicago. As he often did during his presidency, Obama struck a middle path, one that had moments of real power but ultimately fell short of a full-throated defense of Democratic Party policies. In a decidedly immoderate time, with his signature domestic achievement, the Affordable Care Act, on the chopping block, Obama’s speech was a model of moderation. In a season defined by <a href="http://www.cc.com/video-clips/ay9dkp/the-daily-show-with-trevor-noah-fallout-from-donald-trump-s-pussygate-scandal">Pussygate</a> and Russian hacking, and with an incoming billionaire’s cabinet poised to loot every entitlement and regulation not nailed down, Obama gave us the “Compromiser-in-Chief.”</p>
<p>In 2009, in response to Obama’s election, <a href="http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/14704129090080020405">I wrote</a> that Obama has always strategically framed his candidacy and presidency as evidence of the civil rights movement’s success. I argued then that Obama should use his bully pulpit to call attention to and reduce racial inequality. This farewell address was his final opportunity to plainly tell the nation why the electoral path just taken, one strewn with racism, Islamophobia and misogyny was the wrong one. </p>
<p>Instead, he argued yet again that racial groups are more alike than not. This argument came in a climate of sharp racial and class divides that must be acknowledged, rather than minimized by reflections on <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/01/my-president-was-black/508793/">Obama’s own biography,</a> which was characterized by a racially tolerant white family. Since Trump’s election, we have seen a sharp rise in white attacks on racial and religious minorities, and yet Obama squandered an opportunity to call out this white backlash, a response to his own presidency, by resorting to well-worn narratives that do not speak to the contemporary political and cultural moment. </p>
<h2>Threats to our fragile ‘solidarities’</h2>
<p>The address began with Obama listing his signature achievements. During his eight years in office, the economy created <a href="http://www.cnbc.com/2016/07/18/obamas-record-on-jobs-versus-five-other-presidents.html">16 million new jobs</a>, the Supreme Court protected gay marriage and 20 million uninsured people got health insurance. Navy Seals killed Osama Bin Laden and the U.S. normalized relations with Cuba and halted Iran’s nuclear arms program. </p>
<p>However, if the nation was in good shape, “the state of our democracy” and the fragile “solidarities” on which it was built were not, Obama asserted. Indeed, they were being threatened by “stark inequality,” the undermining of “science and reason,” and racism. On <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2016/09/obamas-war-on-inequality/501620/">inequality</a>, Obama stressed the need for widespread economic opportunity and a social safety net that protects all of our citizens, something he championed while in office. </p>
<p>As for the assault on facts and reason, a not-so-subtle jab at the president-elect, Obama argued that it “betrays the essential spirit of innovation and practical problem-solving that guided our Founders.” Admonishing those who live in self-selecting “bubbles,” where their beliefs go unchallenged, Obama quipped, “If you’re tired of arguing with strangers on the internet try to talk with one in real life.” </p>
<h2>An oft-played note</h2>
<p>On racism, Obama struck a familiar and oft-played note. He framed racism primarily as a matter of “hearts” changing through empathy and interaction. This was a variation on his 2008 “<a href="https://nplusonemag.com/issue-27/politics/the-obama-speeches/">A More Perfect Union</a>” speech on race where Obama famously compared his white grandmother’s fear of black men to Rev. Jeremiah Wright’s indictment of white America for its systemic racism, using his biography as a bridge between the two. </p>
<p>Similarly, in Obama’s farewell address, he urged racial minorities to tie their own struggles to other oppressed groups. Those included “the middle-aged white man who from outside may seem like he’s got all the advantages, but who’s seen his world upended by economic, cultural and technological change.” As he did in 2008, Obama created a false equivalency between whites who feel a sense of disadvantage and those who are truly disadvantaged. </p>
<p>True, working-class white men have seen <a href="http://money.cnn.com/2016/10/05/news/economy/working-class-men-income/">their earnings drop</a> since the 1990s, but the unemployment rate for black America is still twice that of white America and has been for the <a href="http://www.cnbc.com/2016/07/18/obamas-record-on-jobs-versus-five-other-presidents.html">last 40 years</a>. Black people are killed by police at <a href="http://ajph.aphapublications.org/doi/abs/10.2105/AJPH.2016.303575">three times the rate</a> of white people. No false equivalency between perceived and real disadvantage should mask those realities. </p>
<p>In watching Obama’s speech, I felt what I always feel – conflicted.
On the one hand, he is a gifted intellect and orator, a deeply principled man who carried the office of the President lightly on his shoulders with grace and sometimes deep empathy. Recall his <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/04/arts/obamas-eulogy-which-found-its-place-in-history.html?_r=0">moving eulogy</a> for Rev. Clementa C. Pinckney, one of nine killed by racist Dylan Roof, during which Obama sang the opening verse of “Amazing Grace.” </p>
<p>On the other hand, rather than squarely confronting the systemic and deeply embedded racism and state violence that plagues black and brown communities, Obama has too often criticized racism’s victims, rather than its perpetrators. In 2013, he chastised Morehouse graduates for the allegedly unique propensity young black men have to “<a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2013/05/how-the-obama-administration-talks-to-black-america/276015/">make bad choices</a>.” He has been too quick to appease conservative whites and chastise black activists – most recently, the Black Lives Matter Movement – for not acknowledging the racial progress that has been made. </p>
<p>As we enter <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/jeff-sessions-voting-rights-act_us_587520a2e4b099cdb0ffc2c1">the Trump era</a> with a white supremacist chief strategist and an Attorney General nominee who thinks the Voting Rights Act is “intrusive,” I think we need a full-throated rebuttal to the nativism, Islamophobia, racism and misogyny that characterized the president-elect’s campaign. </p>
<p>Instead, Obama counseled his audience to “presume” a “reservoir of goodness in others,” words that ring hollow in this political climate. While Obama asked the American people to “lace up their shoes” and organize, he didn’t do the same. Instead, he praised the wisdom of our Founding Fathers, to whom the nativism and racism on display during the presidential campaign would have been familiar. He resorted to tired comparisons of inner cities and rural communities, missing an opportunity to organize his supporters, most of whom are not in rural America, for four years of resistance. </p>
<p>Glossing over the hard battles ahead, Obama’s farewell address seemed like a preview of the 2020 Democratic appeal to white workers. It was not a sorely needed battle cry to his black, brown, Asian and white liberal base. As he often did during his presidency, Obama missed an opportunity to swing for the fences, preferring instead to hit a line drive down the middle of our racially divided democracy.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/71131/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Cynthia A. Young does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The nation needed a full-throated rebuttal to the nativism, racism and misogyny that characterized the president-elect’s campaign. Obama failed to deliver.Cynthia A. Young, Department Head and Associate Professor of African American Studies, Penn StateLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/659282017-01-10T08:54:33Z2017-01-10T08:54:33ZObama’s Iran legacy is noble, complicated – and endangered<p>When Barack Obama became US president, his principal foreign policy was clear: to maintain the US’s global leadership role while simultaneously scaling back on the interventionist excesses of George W. Bush. And few issues pulled those priorities together as neatly as did the dispute over Iran’s nuclear programme. </p>
<p>Iranian-Western relations had nosedived during the younger Bush’s presidency, during which the possibility of military action against the Islamic Republic was a <a href="http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2006/04/17/the-iran-plans">recurring theme</a>. Obama had made <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/01/us/politics/02obama-transcript.html?pagewanted=3">sitting down to talk</a> with the Iranians a part of his presidential campaign, advocating direct diplomacy, while also maintaining the threat to tighten economic sanctions with international co-operation.</p>
<p>During its first term, the Obama administration took a tough line on Iran, successively ratcheting up the economic sanctions regime already in place. But when Hassan Rouhani was elected Iranian president in 2013, Tehran started to open up to the possibility of a diplomatic resolution. </p>
<p>After 20 months of negotiations, framework agreements, extensions and the most intensive diplomatic engagement between the US and Iran since the establishment of the Islamic Republic, the <a href="http://collections.internetmemory.org/haeu/content/20160313172652/http:/eeas.europa.eu/statements-eeas/2015/150714_01_en.htm">Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action</a> (JCPOA) was agreed in July 2015.</p>
<p>As has been <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-iran-nuclear-framework-deal-could-mean-for-the-region-and-the-world-39730">highlighted before</a>, when the deal was struck, the negotiations depended heavily on what became a frank and respectful working relationship between the lead negotiators, US Secretary of State John Kerry and Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad-Javad Zarif. Their evident personal chemistry was further enhanced by the <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/29/world/middleeast/no-2-negotiators-in-iran-talks-argue-physics-behind-politics.html?_r=2">connection</a> between the number two negotiators, Ernest Moniz and Ali Akbar Salehi, who unbeknownst to each other had studied at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology at the same time. </p>
<p>The development of the working relationship through such intense negotiations shows the importance of having skilled, worldly politicians engaging with one another. While the final key decision-makers may have been Obama and not just Rouhani but the <a href="http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2015/10/iran-supreme-leader-endorses-nuclear-deal-caveats-151021111716656.html">Iranian Supreme Leader</a> himself, each with their own red lines to protect their respective national interests, Kerry and Zarif were arguably the most important players.</p>
<p>A <a href="https://www.state.gov/e/eb/tfs/spi/iran/jcpoa/">complex, highly technical agreement</a> running to some 159 pages, the deal saw Iran agree to roll back its nuclear programme and acquiesce to a rigorous international inspections regime in exchange for relief from some of the punitive economic sanctions that stymied its economic development for more than three decades.</p>
<p>Once the JCPOA was passed, key milestones were put in place to ensure that all sides were adhering to the agreements. In October 2015, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) <a href="https://www.iaea.org/newscenter/news/iaea-statement-iran-0">confirmed</a> that its activities as set out in the “Road-map for the clarification of past and present outstanding issues regarding Iran’s nuclear program” were completed, and in January 2016, the sanctions previously agreed by world powers over the nuclear programme were lifted. </p>
<p>Despite all these achievements, which once seemed almost impossible, the sense of a breakthrough moment has given way to more frustrated and complex times. Untangling the web of sanctions and unfreezing the billions of dollars of Iranian assets held abroad has been a slow process, though the US also recently sent Iran <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/us-treasury-says-17-billion-transfer-to-iran-was-all-cash/2016/09/06/e9918216-7499-11e6-9781-49e591781754_story.html">US$1.7 billion</a> – money, with interest, owed to the Islamic Republic from a failed arms deal agreed before the 1979 revolution. </p>
<p>Iran has also benefited from being reintegrated into global oil and gas markets, and after the nuclear deal was struck, a slew of agreements were signed by European companies and governments keen to invest there.</p>
<h2>Suspicion lingers</h2>
<p>Despite the early positive noises, over a year on from the diplomatic success of the JCPOA the spectre of mistrust between Iran and the US looms large once again. </p>
<p>For some in the US, there are concerns that Iran has breached the terms of the JCPOA through its <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2016/05/20/is-iran-already-violating-the-nuclear-deal-by-illegally-testing-ballistic-missiles/?utm_term=.ab8044333a3b">missile development programme</a>. On the Iranian side, various sticking points have led many to question the US government’s commitment to fully implementing the promised sanctions relief. </p>
<p>In the banking field in particular, Iranian officials have <a href="http://www.tasnimnews.com/en/news/2016/09/27/1197326/jcpoa-durability-hinges-on-other-side-s-full-implementation-salehi">complained</a> that the US has not given international banks enough of a green light to be confident in doing business with Iran. This makes the numerous deals signed in the post-JCPOA gold rush rather impractical: if international banks are too worried about being punished by the US to do business with Iran, it’ll be difficult to find the financing to make new deals work. </p>
<p>Iran has also <a href="http://www.presstv.ir/Detail/2016/06/15/470630/Iran-US-seizure">filed a lawsuit</a> with the International Court of Justice over the US Supreme Court-mandated seizure of US$2 billion in Iranian assets, which it will use to compensate the families of victims of the 1983 <a href="http://edition.cnn.com/2013/06/13/world/meast/beirut-marine-barracks-bombing-fast-facts/">Beirut Marine barracks bombings</a>. This case alleges Iranian complicity in the bombings which killed 241 US service personnel – a claim Tehran has long denied.</p>
<p>In his much-publicised <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/remarks-president-cairo-university-6-04-09">“New Beginning” speech</a> addressing the Muslim world in Cairo at the beginning of his presidency, Obama made a point of declaring that he was ready to negotiate, and that Iran should have the right to retain nuclear power. Both of these have been honoured; he can rightfully claim the JCPOA as one of his administration’s most significant successes. </p>
<p>The Iranian-American relationship is now as critically important as ever. Iran has become a potentially vital partner for the US; the two have a common aim in preserving and strengthening the current Iraqi political order, and in defeating the so-called Islamic State. The US has come to tacitly accept that Iran is a key regional player – much to the chagrin of longtime American client Saudi Arabia. </p>
<p>Iran’s position in the region has been strengthened not only through the JCPOA, but also through the actions of the US itself. Post-9/11 American interventions removed two of the most worrisome regional threats to Iranian security: first the Taliban government in Afghanistan, then Saddam Hussein’s government in Iraq. And as the US finds itself <a href="https://theconversation.com/obamas-legacy-will-be-forever-tarnished-by-his-inaction-in-syria-67030">increasingly marginalised</a> in efforts to stop or slow the Syrian conflict, Iran’s role there has been boosted by a renewed <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-russia-turkey-and-iran-are-natural-allies-70819">alliance with Russia and Turkey</a>.</p>
<p>As Donald Trump and his team calibrate the next administration’s approach to the rest of the world, they will need to use all the diplomatic nous they can muster to promote some sort of détente between Iran and Saudi Arabia. That is a priority not just for US interests there, but also for the sake of the people of the region, and possibly beyond. Whether Trump values what’s been achieved in the last eight years, of course, is another matter altogether.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/65928/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Edward Wastnidge does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>What the Obama administration achieved with Iran deserves great credit. But can it endure?Edward Wastnidge, Lecturer in Politics and International Studies, The Open UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/699532017-01-04T03:37:16Z2017-01-04T03:37:16ZHow does a US president settle on his science policy?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/151660/original/image-20170103-18647-u5pgl1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C4266%2C3458&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A president's science advisor is traditionally a close confidant.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Obama/bc5f47b6fa0d4618b49c83853d0e2ebd/10/0">AP Photo/Charles Dharapak</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>One of the president’s most important responsibilities is fostering science, technology and innovation in the U.S. economy. The relationship between science and policy runs in two directions: Scientific knowledge can inform policy decisions, and conversely, policies affect the course of science, technology and innovation.</p>
<p>Historically, government spending on science has been good for the economy. Innovation is estimated to drive approximately <a href="http://doi.org/10.2307/1926047">85 percent of economic growth</a>. Not only does it provide a means for “<a href="https://notendur.hi.is/%7Elobbi/ut1/a_a/SCUMPETER.pdf">creative destruction</a>” within the economy, it also results in reduced costs for products and services that consumers demand. The United States prides itself as the <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/strategy_for_american_innovation_october_2015.pdf">most innovative country</a> in the world, but how did it get that way?</p>
<p>Many famously disruptive technologies were invented in the United States – <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/is-war-necessary-for-economic-growth-9780195188042?cc=us&lang=en&">the internet</a>, <a href="http://thebreakthrough.org/images/pdfs/Lessons_from_the_Shale_Revolution.pdf">shale gas fracking</a> and <a href="https://spinoff.nasa.gov/Spinoff2008/tech_benefits.html">solar photovoltaics</a> are three examples – and subsequently led to the growth of major American industries and associated jobs. Such inventions are the fruits of investments and effort made both by the private sector and the U.S. government (usually at different points in time).</p>
<p>President-elect Trump has made clear he <a href="https://www.donaldjtrump.com/policies/economy">intends to boost the economy’s growth rate</a> and supporting science and technology should be a vital part of his plan. So how does an American president settle on research priorities for the country? And once he has a science and innovation agenda, how does he move it forward to eventually seed new industries that have the potential to generate jobs and improve the country’s competitiveness?</p>
<h2>Where does the president get scientific advice?</h2>
<p>Every president since World War II has maintained a personal science advisor in the White House to inform key decisions about domestic and foreign policy, although some presidents proved more attentive than others.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/151458/original/image-20161223-17321-17yvp21.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/151458/original/image-20161223-17321-17yvp21.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/151458/original/image-20161223-17321-17yvp21.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=553&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/151458/original/image-20161223-17321-17yvp21.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=553&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/151458/original/image-20161223-17321-17yvp21.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=553&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/151458/original/image-20161223-17321-17yvp21.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=694&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/151458/original/image-20161223-17321-17yvp21.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=694&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/151458/original/image-20161223-17321-17yvp21.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=694&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Vannevar Bush had the ear of President Truman.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Vannevar_Bush_%26_Truman_1948.jpg">Abbie Rowe - US National Park Service</a></span>
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<p>The very first science advisor, Vannevar Bush, demonstrated his value during World War II as head of the U.S. Office of Scientific Research and Development (OSRD). <a href="https://www.loc.gov/rr/scitech/trs/trsosrd.html">OSRD’s mission</a> was to marshal and coordinate civilian and military scientists to develop and deploy new technology in wartime. OSRD helped to establish the Manhattan Project and was the origin of the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Vannevar-Bush">military-industrial complex</a>. (Perhaps unsurprisingly, Bush later founded the Raytheon Corporation.) Bush also pushed for the <a href="https://www.nsf.gov/about/history/overview-50.jsp">creation of the National Science Foundation</a>. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/microsites/ostp/ostp_organic_statute.pdf">Congress established the Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP)</a> in 1976 to provide the president and others with scientific and technological expertise related to domestic and international affairs. It’s part of the Executive Office of the President, and its director (and associate directors) must be confirmed by the Senate.</p>
<p>Although the director does not have cabinet rank (as does, for example, the chairman of the Council of Economic Advisors), OSTP works alongside the other offices in the White House, including the Domestic Policy Council, the Council on Environmental Quality and the National Security Council. The 1976 act also authorized OSTP to lead interagency efforts to develop and implement sound science and technology policies and budgets.</p>
<p>Typically, the director of OSTP also has a separate appointment as special assistant to the president in order to serve as his private science advisor.</p>
<p>Many people in Washington seek the president’s ear, ranging from cabinet secretaries, senators and congressional representatives to lobbyists. But the president usually relies most heavily on his own personal staff within the Executive Office of the President. The Office of Science and Technology Policy thus is enormously influential in clarifying and implementing the president’s science, technology and innovation priorities.</p>
<h2>Budget is a big part of it</h2>
<p>Once a president determines his science and innovation priorities, his main tool to influence the country’s research agenda is the federal budget. His priorities may spring from concern about U.S. competitiveness in certain industries or sectors, or from a sense of opportunity about where new science or innovation could contribute to the public interest or national good. Of course, the <a href="http://budget.house.gov/budgetprocess/">president’s budget request must be approved by Congress</a> in order for the spending priorities to be fulfilled.</p>
<p>Innovation research is an uncertain and risky investment, which is why the government has traditionally shouldered the burden for pre- or noncommercial science and technology research and <a href="http://www.aaas.org/sites/default/files/BasicPerf-1.png">why universities do most of this type of research</a>. Federal funding for basic research is a crucial long-term investment in the nation’s future, and has traditionally garnered bipartisan support since businesses tend to focus on already proven technologies that are close to commercialization.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/151462/original/image-20161223-17282-hq429j.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/151462/original/image-20161223-17282-hq429j.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/151462/original/image-20161223-17282-hq429j.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=361&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/151462/original/image-20161223-17282-hq429j.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=361&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/151462/original/image-20161223-17282-hq429j.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=361&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/151462/original/image-20161223-17282-hq429j.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=454&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/151462/original/image-20161223-17282-hq429j.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=454&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/151462/original/image-20161223-17282-hq429j.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=454&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:U.S._research_funding.png">United States Office of Science and Technology Policy.</a></span>
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</figure>
<p>The Department of Defense manages the largest portion of the <a href="http://www.aaas.org/news/guide-presidents-budget-research-and-development-fy-2017">federal R&D budget</a> (US$78 billion in the FY17 budget) compared with all other nondefense R&D combined, at $68 billion. The National Institutes of Health comes in second at 0.77 percent with $30.9 billion. The Department of Energy and NASA have far fewer resources, with R&D funds of about $14 billion and only $12 billion, respectively.</p>
<p>These research dollars go to our world-renowned national laboratories, to the private sector and to support the research of professors and graduate students in American universities.</p>
<p>Some of these investments will directly bear fruit for the economy, and others will do so indirectly through spillovers. The skills of the U.S. workforce are created in part through investments in STEM education and through their work experience over time. Those doing the research accumulate knowledge and expertise that can contribute to improved understanding and problem-solving. These people can then take their skills to commercial companies which create economic value, or they continue to innovate in nonprofit research institutes or universities to address problems in the public interest, such as how to reduce air pollution or improve lifesaving treatments for diseases ignored by private firms.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/151459/original/image-20161223-17282-yx9s0l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/151459/original/image-20161223-17282-yx9s0l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/151459/original/image-20161223-17282-yx9s0l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=429&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/151459/original/image-20161223-17282-yx9s0l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=429&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/151459/original/image-20161223-17282-yx9s0l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=429&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/151459/original/image-20161223-17282-yx9s0l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=539&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/151459/original/image-20161223-17282-yx9s0l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=539&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/151459/original/image-20161223-17282-yx9s0l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=539&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Brookhaven National Laboratory’s Accelerator Test Facility provides researchers with high-brightness electron and laser beams.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/brookhavenlab/22033329588">Brookhaven National Laboratory</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Of course, high-risk research sometimes yields high-value rewards, especially when the government partners with the private sector.</p>
<p>The internet was originally invented by researchers associated with the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, shale gas fracking from both Defense and DOE investments at Los Alamos National Lab and research on the <a href="https://www.nih.gov/about-nih/what-we-do/nih-almanac/national-human-genome-research-institute-nhgri">human genome</a> from NIH. Private firms like Microsoft and Google, Mitchell Energy and Pfizer capitalized upon taxpayer investments in science and technology to develop these industries.</p>
<h2>Case study: Obama’s OSTP</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/administration/eop/ostp/about/leadershipstaff/director">President Obama’s science advisor, John P. Holdren</a>, has provided advice on advanced manufacturing, national security, STEM education, space policy, climate change, energy policy, cybersecurity <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/administration/eop/ostp/initiatives">and more</a>. So during the Obama administration, the Office of Science and Technology Policy indeed worked with agencies to clarify science and technology priorities consistent with the president’s wishes, but it <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2016/06/21/impact-report-100-examples-president-obamas-leadership-science">accomplished much more than that</a>.</p>
<p>The OSTP worked to make more than <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2016/06/30/fact-sheet-new-steps-toward-ensuring-openness-and-transparency">180,000 federal datasets</a> and collections available to students, entrepreneurs and the public. It produced the first-ever <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/innovation/strategy/executive-summary">U.S. innovation strategy</a>, launched the <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/precision-medicine">Precision Medicine Initiative</a> (providing more than $200 million to accelerate a new era of personalized medicine), embarked on a <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/CancerMoonshot">Cancer Moonshot</a> initiative and launched the <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/BRAIN">BRAIN initiative</a> that resulted in a doubling of research funding for Alzheimer’s research at NIH between 2012 and 2017.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/151460/original/image-20161223-17310-3vz3y2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/151460/original/image-20161223-17310-3vz3y2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/151460/original/image-20161223-17310-3vz3y2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=396&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/151460/original/image-20161223-17310-3vz3y2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=396&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/151460/original/image-20161223-17310-3vz3y2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=396&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/151460/original/image-20161223-17310-3vz3y2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=498&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/151460/original/image-20161223-17310-3vz3y2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=498&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/151460/original/image-20161223-17310-3vz3y2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=498&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">National Solar Thermal Test Facility generates experimental engineering data.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/sandialabs/5058559942">Sandia Labs/Randy Montoya</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Initiatives like these are a hopeful down payment on results that usually bear fruit years later. Through the efforts of the <a href="https://energy.gov/eere/sunshot/sunshot-initiative">SunShot</a> and <a href="https://energy.gov/eere/wind/wind-energy-technologies-office">wind R&D</a> programs at DOE and private firms, for example, the United States now generates more than <a href="https://www.eia.gov/energy_in_brief/article/wind_power.cfm">three times as much electricity from wind</a> and <a href="http://www.eia.gov/renewable/">four times as much from solar</a> as it did in 2008. That’s because the cost for renewables has come down rapidly – <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-04-06/wind-and-solar-are-crushing-fossil-fuels">solar costs 1/150th what it did in the 1970s</a>.</p>
<p>One example of a problem that we understand much better than we did 30 years ago as a result of governmental scientific investments is global climate change. Due to sustained federal investments in Earth observations, geophysical research and global circulation modeling, we now know <a href="https://www.nasa.gov/feature/jpl/study-sheds-new-insights-into-global-warming-trends">how much the world has warmed</a>, how rapidly mountain glaciers and <a href="http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/2016/12/arctic-and-antarctic-at-record-low-levels/">Arctic ice are retreating</a>, how much and where <a href="https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/bams">precipitation is changing, how much soil moisture is reducing</a> and <a href="http://doi.org/10.1038/nclimate2888">what it would take to avoid significant global climate disruption</a>. Long-term, depoliticized investments in this kind of measurement science are crucial to understanding global change and the fate of the planet. </p>
<h2>Science opportunities for President Trump</h2>
<p>Although President-elect Trump seems to <a href="https://theconversation.com/in-a-post-truth-election-clicks-trump-facts-67274">find little value in facts</a>, he clearly wishes to reinvigorate the U.S. economy. He cannot do so without improving access to high-quality STEM education and accelerating U.S. investments in science, technology and innovation.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/151661/original/image-20170103-18665-bv3rdi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/151661/original/image-20170103-18665-bv3rdi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/151661/original/image-20170103-18665-bv3rdi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=407&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/151661/original/image-20170103-18665-bv3rdi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=407&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/151661/original/image-20170103-18665-bv3rdi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=407&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/151661/original/image-20170103-18665-bv3rdi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=511&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/151661/original/image-20170103-18665-bv3rdi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=511&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/151661/original/image-20170103-18665-bv3rdi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=511&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Science advances can provide the boost in manufacturing Trump and Pence are after.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Trump/6af5a1e14529463c829fb41f5e173b31/2/0">AP Photo/Evan Vucci</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Scientific advice could also provide President-elect Trump with some good ideas for revitalizing manufacturing in the United States, which <a href="https://www.donaldjtrump.com/policies/trade">he’s pledged to do</a>. Indeed, the current President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST) produced an excellent report on <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/microsites/ostp/PCAST/amp20_report_final.pdf">accelerating U.S. advanced manufacturing</a> in 2014.</p>
<p>President Trump can use science and innovation to achieve his goal to restore American greatness, whether it is through launching a new “moonshot”-type initiative or creating advanced manufacturing jobs. With history as a guide, appointing a respected science advisor and director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy will help him accomplish his goals.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/69953/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Kelly Sims Gallagher previously received funding from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and recently was awarded a new grant from the U.S. Department of Defense. She previously worked as a Senior Policy Advisor in the Office of Science and Technology Policy.</span></em></p>Innovation is a huge part of economic growth – and the White House needs to be well-informed on science and tech issues when setting goals and budgets. Here’s how presidents get up to speed.Kelly Sims Gallagher, Professor of Energy and Environmental Policy and Director of Center for International Environment and Resource Policy at The Fletcher School, Tufts UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/671132016-12-19T02:22:31Z2016-12-19T02:22:31ZObama administration’s big science and tech innovation: Socially engaged policy<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/150616/original/image-20161218-26137-6n65ta.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Obama annually welcomed students to the White House with their Science Fair projects.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Obama-Science/cdaa4cbaea9e4d03b9c54f898d9da404/2/0">AP Photo/Susan Walsh</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>When President Barack Obama gave his <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2009/01/21/president-barack-obamas-inaugural-address">inaugural address</a> in 2009, he promised to “restore science to its rightful place and wield technology’s wonders to raise health care’s quality and lower its cost.” For the previous eight years, scientists had protested that the Bush administration <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/08/31/AR2005083101271.html">ignored</a> their expertise and <a href="http://www.livescience.com/9574-scientists-bush-stifles-science-lets-global-leadership-slip.html">restricted</a> research freedoms. So they were heartened when the new president <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/removing-barriers-responsible-scientific-research-involving-human-stem-cells">removed barriers</a> to federal funding for human embryonic stem cell research and <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-record/climate">took serious steps</a> to mitigate climate change. </p>
<p>But President Obama should be remembered – and praised – for much more than his renewed support for science. As a scholar of science and technology policy, it is clear to me that this president and his advisers recognized that policy could be carefully crafted to maximize the social and economic benefits of research and innovation. </p>
<p>They designed intellectual property policies, for example, that enhance scientific collaboration and in turn accelerate research progress, and also improve the availability of important technologies. And by including average citizens in developing research projects and priorities, they increased the usefulness and public legitimacy of science and technology. </p>
<h2>Modernizing patents’ power</h2>
<p>For decades, the United States government had <a href="http://www.press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/P/bo25338584.html">largely accepted</a> the idea that patents were a necessary incentive for innovation. With the promise of a temporary monopoly if they were successful, inventors would work hard to develop new, transformative technologies. The potential benefits were significant: access to technologies that could transform societies for the better. Ultimately new industries, new jobs and economic growth would result.</p>
<p>Over time, though, it became clear that patents can <a href="http://science.sciencemag.org/content/280/5364/698">stifle research</a> and make important new technologies <a href="https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/building-genetic-medicine">prohibitively expensive</a>. The Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) and its traditional stakeholders, such as patent lawyers, <a href="https://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/com/sol/comments/utilguide/index.html">dismissed</a> such problems as minor and temporary, suggesting that only those who misunderstood how the system worked were concerned.</p>
<p>But in 2010, the Obama administration took the unprecedented step of breaking with its own PTO to side with physicians and scientists, as well as civil liberties and patient advocacy groups, who raised these issues in the context of patents covering human genes. A case brought in federal courts focused on whether genes were products of nature, but the plaintiffs <a href="https://www.aclu.org/legal-document/brca-complaint">were clearly motivated</a> by concerns that patents on human genes were stifling important research and limiting access to potentially lifesaving genetic testing.</p>
<p>The Obama administration argued alongside these plaintiffs publicly when the Supreme Court heard the case in 2013. And in a unanimous decision, the Supreme Court agreed with the plaintiffs and the administration. Today, isolated human genes are not patentable. </p>
<p>As a result, there is greater competition in the genetic testing market; more tests are <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/21/business/more-accurate-affordable-tests-for-detecting-breast-cancer-genes.html?_r=0">available</a> for common diseases including breast cancer, and at lower costs.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/150617/original/image-20161218-28140-gfw353.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/150617/original/image-20161218-28140-gfw353.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/150617/original/image-20161218-28140-gfw353.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=411&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/150617/original/image-20161218-28140-gfw353.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=411&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/150617/original/image-20161218-28140-gfw353.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=411&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/150617/original/image-20161218-28140-gfw353.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=517&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/150617/original/image-20161218-28140-gfw353.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=517&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/150617/original/image-20161218-28140-gfw353.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=517&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Announcing the Precision Medicine Initiative, Obama shares the podium with a model of DNA.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Obama-Budget-Precision-Medicine/d3d0e8db587843fb82f29d2fcab56563/11/0">AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Removing IP roadblocks</h2>
<p>The Obama administration’s concern that intellectual property could be hurting biomedicine and ultimately patients is also clear in the research programs it established.</p>
<p>Both the <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/share/brain-initiative">Brain Initiative</a>, designed to develop a more dynamic understanding of brain function, and the <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/precision-medicine">Precision Medicine Initiative</a>, focused on designing individually tailored treatment and prevention strategies, <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2015/01/30/fact-sheet-president-obama-s-precision-medicine-initiative">emphasize</a> data sharing and collaboration. While previous efforts viewed competition among individuals and proprietary interests as central to the development of biomedicine, the Obama administration has come to see these as potential obstacles. </p>
<p>This <a href="https://medium.com/cancer-moonshot/report-of-the-cancer-moonshot-task-force-executive-summary-e711f1845ec#.xc01cmmi8">skepticism</a> is perhaps clearest in the 2016 <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/CancerMoonshot">Cancer Moonshot</a> initiative. </p>
<p>Decades of significant government expenditures for cancer research – from President Nixon’s <a href="https://dtp.cancer.gov/timeline/flash/milestones/M4_Nixon.htm">War on Cancer</a> to an <a href="http://www.healthline.com/health/breast-cancer/state-of-awareness-and-research#3">over 2,000 percent increase</a> in yearly breast cancer research funding since the 1980s – have improved scientists’ understanding of the disease and reduced <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.3322/caac.21254/full">cancer deaths</a>. But cancer incidence <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.3322/caac.21254/full">remains high</a>, and there are still significant disparities in <a href="http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10903-014-9991-0">diagnosis</a> and <a href="http://jnci.oxfordjournals.org/content/94/5/334.short">treatment.</a> </p>
<p>The Cancer Moonshot aims to address these problems through increased data sharing. </p>
<p>For example, it includes a first-of-its-kind, open access, public data platform, the <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2016/06/06/fact-sheet-vice-president-biden-launches-open-access-data-resource-part">Genomic Data Commons</a>. This allows researchers not just to store and analyze the genomes of cancer tumors, linking that information to data about how the disease appears and spreads in the body, but also to share all of this information with colleagues. The platform also provides privacy and security protections for patients and researchers. </p>
<p>Before 2008, policymakers seemed to assume that the competitive ethos and monopoly incentives provoked by patent policies were the most likely to stimulate important scientific research. But the Obama administration’s nuanced approach to patents and investment in data-sharing initiatives have created a legacy that emphasizes openness and collaboration as the best avenue for producing scientific progress.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/150618/original/image-20161218-26089-1ympjzi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/150618/original/image-20161218-26089-1ympjzi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/150618/original/image-20161218-26089-1ympjzi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=394&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/150618/original/image-20161218-26089-1ympjzi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=394&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/150618/original/image-20161218-26089-1ympjzi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=394&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/150618/original/image-20161218-26089-1ympjzi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=495&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/150618/original/image-20161218-26089-1ympjzi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=495&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/150618/original/image-20161218-26089-1ympjzi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=495&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Protocols for patient consent were ripe for an update.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Informing-Patients/e6d3408332164573b4969bdafc0abe7d/8/0">AP Photo/Brian Kersey</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>More voices in the research conversation</h2>
<p>The Obama administration also took important steps toward including citizen perspectives in science and technology development.</p>
<p>The Precision Medicine Initiative – which aims to gather data (genomic, medical, metabolic, microbial, environmental and lifestyle) from at least one million Americans to produce better medical diagnostics and therapies – emphasizes transparency, citizen representation and patient autonomy in its core principles. It is dedicated to keeping participants informed throughout the research process, and emphasizes the importance of culturally appropriate interactions.</p>
<p>It has created <a href="https://www.nih.gov/precision-medicine-initiative-cohort-program/infographics">a new model of research</a> that treats informed consent as ongoing and interactive, and gives research subjects the option to withdraw at any time.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.nature.com.proxy.lib.umich.edu/nature/journal/v478/n7369/full/478312a.html">Customarily</a>, participants in similar research projects provide consent only once, at the beginning. This traditional approach has become controversial in recent years because blood and tissue samples are often <a href="https://theconversation.com/if-we-dont-own-our-genes-what-protects-study-subjects-in-genetic-research-56003">used for a variety of projects</a>, and citizens <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/22/us/22dna.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0">want more control</a> over how their samples are used. </p>
<p>The PMI also includes “<a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/precision-medicine">substantial participant representation</a>” in all aspects of the process, including program design and implementation. This means research subjects will serve on the policy committees that develop data-sharing, privacy and recruitment guidelines, among others, and also help to determine research priorities. Previous scientific research initiatives have <a href="http://www.lancaster.ac.uk/fss/journals/gsp/docs/volume1number3/mlgspvol1no32005.pdf">included</a> citizen perspectives occasionally in the research process, either in funding decisions or identifying overarching goals. But the PMI approach is more ambitious and systematic. </p>
<p>The Obama administration’s enthusiasm for considering citizen perspectives is not limited to scientific research. We’ve seen this approach in its energy policy as well, including in decisions on the <a href="http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2015/2/9/how-climate-activists-turned-a-pipeline-into-a-green-movement.html">Keystone XL</a> and <a href="http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-dakota-access-deadline-20161204-story.html">Dakota Access</a> pipeline.</p>
<p>After massive protests and millions of citizens <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0BdjszfbIDw#t=19">submitting</a> public comments, President Obama <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/video/multimedia/100000004023322/obama-rejects-keystone-pipeline.html">rejected</a> the Keystone XL. Similarly, months of protests in Standing Rock, North Dakota, led the Army Corps of Engineers to halt development of the Dakota Access pipeline and <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2016/12/the-historic-victory-at-standing-rock/509558/">request an environmental impact statement</a> that would assess the environmental and social implications of the project and provide extensive additional opportunity for public input. </p>
<p>At this moment, when there is great concern that the priorities of scientists and engineers do not align with those of the public, and there is growing <a href="https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2016/10/09/the-rise-biorights-donors-are-demanding-control-and-sometimes-cash-exchange-for-genetic-samples/jCbaQ2E5t6c0Qs1kcITMRM/story.html">desire</a> among citizens to be treated as “partners” rather than “subjects” in research, these kinds of initiatives are particularly important. They can lead to the development of science and technology that is more directly beneficial to the population – and also enhance the legitimacy of scientific and technological establishment.</p>
<h2>Will Trump build on the groundwork laid by Obama?</h2>
<p>There is a great deal of <a href="http://www.nature.com/news/the-ultimate-experiment-how-trump-will-handle-science-1.20971">uncertainty</a> about President-elect Trump’s approach to science and technology policy, and so far his cabinet appointments <a href="http://www.freep.com/story/opinion/columnists/stephen-henderson/2016/12/10/betsy-devos-trouble-data/95207844/">do not provide</a> much reassurance to the scientific community. Some of these appointments have <a href="http://www.newyorker.com/tech/elements/donald-trumps-war-on-science">even explicitly denied</a> the scientific consensus on climate change.</p>
<p>But there is a path forward that could allow Trump to remain true to those who voted him into office while building upon President Obama’s approach. Pundits tell us Trump’s victory is largely the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/a-rancorous-campaign-begets-huge-problems-for-the-winner/2016/11/08/0fcea580-a20d-11e6-8d63-3e0a660f1f04_story.html?utm_term=.0b0d12e81ec4">result</a> of a populist wave and deep frustration toward elites; many Americans feel that policymakers do not adequately consider the realities of their everyday lives.</p>
<p>President-elect Trump could address these concerns by bringing the needs and perspectives of rural and working-class Americans explicitly into the development of science and technology policies. His administration could consider <a href="http://delinkage.org/">new kinds of policy frameworks</a>, including intellectual property regimes, that could help to lower drug prices. It could bring these “forgotten” Americans directly into policy discussions about how to tackle the unemployment triggered by <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/united-tech-ceo-says-trump-deal-will-lead-to-more-automation-fewer-jobs-2016-12">increasing automation</a>. And it could <a href="http://www.bmj.com/content/316/7129/463?variant=full-text">include them</a> in discussions about biomedical research priorities, perhaps leading to increased funding for practical solutions to the <a href="http://aese.psu.edu/directory/smm67/Election16.pdf">opioid epidemic</a>. </p>
<p>Such efforts could ultimately strengthen the legitimacy of the new administration among both the scientific community and the public, while continuing the work towards a socially engaged science and technology policy.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/67113/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Shobita Parthasarathy sits on the Board of Directors for Breast Cancer Action, a health justice advocacy group.</span></em></p>The outgoing president leaves behind some solid accomplishments in the world of science, tech and medicine. But the biggest departure from his predecessors might have been in his approach.Shobita Parthasarathy, Associate Professor of Public Policy and Women's Studies, University of MichiganLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/670302016-11-25T11:42:41Z2016-11-25T11:42:41ZObama’s legacy will be forever tarnished by his inaction in Syria<p>As his administration winds down, Barack Obama has plenty to be proud of. He can point to international breakthroughs that seemed unthinkable when he took office, from the <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-the-iran-nuclear-deal-means-and-what-it-doesnt-44685">nuclear agreement with Iran</a> to the <a href="https://theconversation.com/after-a-tense-50-years-obama-and-castro-announce-us-cuba-thaw-35635">reopening of diplomatic relations with Cuba</a> after almost 60 years. He can cite the concerted international action to stave off economic catastrophe, a more constructive US approach to Latin America, and a solid if cautious relationship with China.</p>
<p>But as far as Obama’s legacy goes, few of these noble achievements will stick to the wall after he gives his farewell speech in January 2017. Instead, he will always be associated with the fate of one country: Syria.</p>
<p>At his inaguration in January 2009, Obama <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2009/01/21/president-barack-obamas-inaugural-address">declared</a> that Americans “reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals”. At the time, neither he nor anyone else thought those words would apply to Syria. Back then, neighbouring Iraq was the ultimate exemplar of American hubris and failure, with Afghanistan coming in second. But nearly eight years later, Syria is at the centre of a destabilised and fractured Middle East. </p>
<p>The president, who infamously reduced his philosophy of global American power to “<a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2014/08/hillary-clinton-failure-to-help-syrian-rebels-led-to-the-rise-of-isis/375832/">don’t do stupid shit</a>”, apparently never grasped that the consequences of inaction could be far worse than stupid.</p>
<p>When the protests of the so-called Arab Awakening <a href="http://www.aljazeera.com/news/middleeast/2011/04/201142212452973755.html">hit Damascus</a> in 2011, Obama hoped that the Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad, would respond to the protesters’ demands for reform with something rather than beatings, detention, and torture. By that August, those hopes were dashed, and Obama <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2011/08/18/president-obama-future-syria-must-be-determined-its-people-president-bashar-al-assad">made his feelings clear</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>We have consistently said that President Assad must lead a democratic transition or get out of the way. He has not led. For the sake of the Syrian people, the time has come for President Assad to step aside.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Assad was not swayed. With his army reeling, he turned to his warplanes. <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-15625642">Homs</a>, Syria’s third-largest city, was decimated by months of bombing, with thousands perishing and more fleeing, until the opposition capitulated in all but a few districts in spring 2012. The tenor of this scorched-earth war had been set.</p>
<p>Obama did little. Economic sanctions were imposed on the Damascus government, but Assad and his inner circle were propped up with billions from Iran and Russia. The CIA eventually set up training camps for some rebels, notably in <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-31511376">Turkey</a>, and got Eastern European arms to some others, but the process was cumbersome and its impact puny.</p>
<p>Crucially, there were no anti-aircraft weapons to check Assad’s bombing, and no protected areas. In Obama’s first term, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and CIA Director David Petraeus <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/03/us/politics/in-behind-scene-blows-and-triumphs-sense-of-clinton-future.html">pressed for stronger measures</a>, but the president vetoed all proposals. Meanwhile, in stark comparison with the small number of rebels who made it through CIA vetting, Iran began <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/mar/14/iran-hezbollah-force-syrian-regime">establishing a 50,000-strong militia</a> to bolster the weakened Syrian Army, while <a href="https://english.alarabiya.net/articles/2013/02/17/266843.html">Hezbollah</a> put in several thousand of its own fighters.</p>
<p>Assad’s warplanes kept bombing. When they ran short of conventional munitions, they turned to barrel bombs, drums filled with explosive and dropped out of helicopters. When these were not enough, the Syrian military began experimenting with chemical weapons. And on August 21 2013, the regime <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-23927399">unleashed sarin nerve agent</a> on multiple locations near Damascus. Conservative reports from reliable outlets say more than 1,400 people were killed, many of them were first responders and medics who tried to treat the suffocating. </p>
<h2>Poisoned air</h2>
<p>Once again, Obama did little. The president’s top advisers – among them his second-term Secretary of State John Kerry, who was <a href="http://nypost.com/2013/09/01/john-kerry-says-assad-is-the-new-hitler/">comparing Assad with Hitler</a> – were gathered for the decision to intervene, finally setting up protected areas and trying to ground the Syrian Air Force. But returning from a stroll in the Rose Garden, Obama surprised them with a “no”. Instead, he would defer any decision and consult Congress.</p>
<p>A few days later, the US found an alternative. Russia, scrambling to save its troublesome ally, suggested that Assad could be pressed to <a href="https://theconversation.com/explainer-how-will-syrias-chemical-weapons-be-destroyed-18174">give up</a> his chemical stocks and equipment. Obama <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2013/09/10/remarks-president-address-nation-syria">accepted</a>. “With modest effort and risk, we can stop children from being gassed to death, and thereby make our own children safer over the long run,” he said.</p>
<p>Damascus did give up almost all of the chemicals, but it retained its conventional weapons, which had already killed tens of thousands of civilians. And it could and did keep filling its barrel bombs with <a href="https://theconversation.com/syria-chlorine-attack-claims-what-this-chemical-is-and-how-it-became-a-weapon-65068">chlorine</a>, which is not banned by chemical weapons conventions. </p>
<p>The course of Obama’s action, or inaction, had been set. The US proceeded with its version of the “political process”, which from the outset was more myth than reality. Assad will never step down for a “<a href="https://www.chathamhouse.org/EXPERT/COMMENT/SHIFT-SYRIAN-CONSTITUTION-COULD-HELP-ASSAD-SURVIVE">transitional governing authority</a>”, and the opposition and rebels will never accept Assad. But the Russians bought time, and Obama bought into the illusion that he was doggedly avoiding any “stupid shit”.</p>
<p>When pro-Assad forces imposed their “surrender or starve” sieges, Obama stood aside. When Russia intervened with its bombers and military “advisers” in September 2015 to save Assad and his depleted military, Obama watched. As the Russians and regime targeted hospitals and clinics, destroying scores of them, as they hit schools, markets, fuel depots, and water and power facilities, he was passive.</p>
<p>The president could always invoke the “political process”. And, from September 2014, he could use the diversion of the War Against the Islamic State, who controlled parts of Syria in a war with rebels and with Kurdish forces.</p>
<h2>Leaving the disaster</h2>
<p>Today, the war grinds on and the civilian deaths mount. International attention has been galvanised by the Russian-regime attempt to bomb and besiege opposition areas of <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/us-mideast-crisis-syria-aleppo-un-idUSKBN13J18V">Aleppo</a>, Syria’s largest city, into submission. In her bid to succeed Obama, Clinton revived the idea of protecting areas of the country and exerting leverage against the Russians, rather than walking a step behind them – but she failed, and Donald Trump will soon take the helm.</p>
<p>Still, the president’s view of the Syrian conflict certainly has its adherents. There are more than enough pundits in Washington, many of them former Obama officials who counselled against action, to wring hands about the danger of entanglement with “extremists”, of a Russian response, of the logistics of more engagement. </p>
<p>Obama can even count on Trump, who cautioned Americans that if they listened to Clinton they’d “end up with <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-elections/hillary-clinton-world-war-three-donald-trump-claim-syria-plan-a7380721.html">World War III</a>”. And, of course, he can count on the Russians, whose propaganda machine easily matches their political and military commitment to the Assad regime’s deadly rule.</p>
<p>In the <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2013/09/10/remarks-president-address-nation-syria">speech</a> justifying his inaction after the August 2013 chemical attacks, Obama proclaimed:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Our ideals and principles, as well as our national security, are at stake in Syria, along with our leadership of a world where we seek to ensure that the worst weapons will never be used.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The “worst weapons” – bunker-buster bombs, incendiary munitions, thermobaric explosives, and occasionally chemical substances – are still being used. Hundreds of civilians, almost all of them killed by Russian and the Assad regime, are dying each week. Millions are unlikely to ever return home. </p>
<p>But <a href="https://theconversation.com/obama-blithely-sells-out-his-allies-and-millions-of-syrians-in-legacy-interview-56224">asked</a> about his administration’s failure to intervene, even after those “worst weapons” were first used near Damascus, the president said: “I’m very proud of this moment.”</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/67030/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Scott Lucas does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The most disastrous conflict to break out in the Obama years is still nowhere near its end. It could have been very different.Scott Lucas, Professor of International Politics, University of BirminghamLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/658232016-11-18T10:03:23Z2016-11-18T10:03:23ZHow the Israeli-Palestinian conflict resisted Obama’s efforts<p>One of the few things that Israelis and Palestinians have agreed on in the last eight years is that Barack Obama let them down. In the US as well, both Democrats and Republicans have criticised the administration for leaning <a href="http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2015/03/obama-being-too-hard-on-netanyahu.html">too hard</a> on Israel, while simultaneously parroting that the US president is “<a href="http://www.cnsnews.com/commentary/ken-blackwell/israels-desperate-hour-obama-leads-behind">leading from behind</a>” in the Middle East.</p>
<p>But is all this really fair? Yes, the Obama administration made a number of missteps in Israel-Palestine. But they say less about Obama’s leadership on the issue and more about the local, regional and political constraints that stood in his way – and which the Trump administration will face in turn.</p>
<p>Obama began his first term boldly and optimistically on all fronts – and the Middle East was no exception. In a still-remembered June 2009 <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/remarks-president-cairo-university-6-04-09">speech</a> at Cairo University, he addressed the Israel-Palestine conflict directly, calling on Palestinians to abandon violence and develop stable governing institutions, while calling on Israel to halt the construction of settlements and respect Palestinian rights and aspirations. He noted that while the US could not impose peace, it would align itself with those working towards a two-state solution.</p>
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<p>The Cairo speech was well-received at the time, but it ended up backfiring. By doubling down on the new administration’s call for a settlement freeze, the speech simultaneously rubbed the Israeli leadership the wrong way and prematurely raised Palestinians’ hopes.</p>
<p>In the days before and after the speech, the call for the freeze was openly defied by the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu. The blowback prevented the administration from making any further bold moves on Israel-Palestine policy in Obama’s first term – and when the administration <a href="http://edition.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/09/22/us.mideast/">dropped</a> its call for the settlement freeze just three months later, it disillusioned all those who expected Obama to take US policy in another direction.</p>
<p>This theme of optimism frustrated by political reality came to define the administration’s efforts. </p>
<h2>Falling short</h2>
<p><a href="http://content.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1873532,00.html">George Mitchell</a>, a diplomatic veteran who helped broker Northern Ireland’s peace agreement, served briefly as Obama’s Middle East envoy, but <a href="http://www.nybooks.com/articles/2014/11/06/why-did-george-mitchell-resign/">resigned</a> after two years with little progress made. </p>
<p>Meanwhile, in February 2011, Palestinian disillusionment regarding Obama’s commitment gave way to cynicism when, despite the rhetoric against settlements, the US vetoed a UN Security Council resolution condemning Israeli settlements as illegal. (Indeed, the Obama administration was the first since 1967 to <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/12/opinion/international/israels-unsung-protector-obama.html">block all UN Security Council resolutions</a> that specifically criticised Israel.)</p>
<p>Obama’s second term followed a similar pattern, this time starting with a <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2013/03/21/remarks-president-barack-obama-people-israel">speech</a> in Jerusalem in March 2013 calling on both parties to make compromises for a “just peace”, followed by a hard push for negotiations led by Obama’s second secretary of state, John Kerry. But after months of shuttle diplomacy and direct negotiations between top-level officials, these talks finally <a href="https://newrepublic.com/article/118751/how-israel-palestine-peace-deal-died">failed</a> in March 2014. </p>
<p>When Israel’s Operation Protective Edge resulted in the deaths of more than 2,100 Palestinians in Gaza in July and August that summer, the US continued to resupply the Israeli military with ammunition – even as administration officials bemoaned their lack of diplomatic leverage with Israel to halt the operation. In September 2016, the longstanding military aid agreement was <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-israel-statement-idUSKCN11K2CI">renewed</a> at its highest level ever, committing the US to $38 billion in military assistance to Israel over the next decade.</p>
<p>To understand the administration’s “failure” to make meaningful progress on Israel-Palestine, we have to look beyond Obama himself and recognise that there are far stronger forces at work than the president’s own views and impulses. American Middle East policy is not formed in a vacuum; it’s inevitably hostage to politics, both at home and abroad.</p>
<h2>A friend in need</h2>
<p>In the Cairo speech, Obama correctly noted that the US could not impose peace, and challenged the Middle East’s leaders to take a more active, engaged role. But in the end they seem to have disappointed him – Netanyahu especially. As the journalist <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2016/04/the-obama-doctrine/471525/">Jeffrey Goldberg</a> writes: “Obama has long believed that Netanyahu could bring about a two-state solution … but is too fearful and politically paralysed to do so.” </p>
<p>The Obama team’s attempts to placate Netanyahu only alienated Palestinian leaders, especially in the 2013-2014 negotiations, and the US’s image as a biased broker serving Israel’s interests was ultimately reinforced. </p>
<p>There was yet another complicating factor: at the same time as the failed Israeli-Palestinian negotiations, the administration was pursuing the <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-the-iran-nuclear-deal-means-and-what-it-doesnt-44685">nuclear deal with Iran</a>, which only deepened the rift between Netanyahu and Obama. In March 2015, a few months before the deal was finally struck, Netanyahu circumvented the White House to deliver a controversial <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-31685220">speech to the Republican-controlled US Congress</a> arguing against the deal in March 2015. </p>
<p>Beyond Iran, the balance of interests in the Middle East shifted enormously during Obama’s tenure as other crises emerged to take precedent. Most notably, when the <a href="https://theconversation.com/five-years-on-the-spirit-of-tahrir-square-has-been-all-but-crushed-53461">Arab uprisings</a> shook the Middle East in 2011, both American and Israeli priorities shifted away from Palestine to the stability of the region as a whole. </p>
<p>In particular, the ousting of Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak and the shortlived reign of the Muslim Brotherhood reset US and Israeli focus on preserving the <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/israel/8766724/Egypt-declares-Camp-David-accords-with-Israel-not-a-sacred-thing.html">Camp David Accords</a> that had kept the peace between Israel and Egypt since 1979, constraining the Brotherhood’s influence in Hamas-controlled Gaza and maintaining order in the <a href="http://theconversation.com/why-the-sinai-peninsula-is-so-dangerous-and-why-the-rest-of-us-should-care-50148">Sinai</a>. </p>
<p>The imperative to cooperate with Israeli and Egyptian security and intelligence only increased in Obama’s second term, as the US sought to contain Sinai-based groups who <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-29993183">pledged allegiance</a> to the so-called Islamic State. The administration’s leverage as a peace broker in Israel-Palestine never fully recovered.</p>
<p>At the same time, Obama was also constrained by domestic US politics. Almost anything designed to put pressure on Israel was rejected by <a href="http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2016-04-29/obama-and-congress-hurtle-toward-showdown-over-israel-missile-defense">Congress</a>. His only real domestic victory on Israel policy came with a military aid package that he managed to keep smaller than Netanyahu wanted – and which included a <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/josh-rogin/wp/2016/09/14/obama-and-israel-cut-congress-out-of-the-aid-game/">controversial measure</a> that limits Israeli lobbying in Washington.</p>
<p>So all in all, what sort of legacy does he leave? There has been <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/23/world/middleeast/netanyahu-abbas-un-general-assembly.html?_r=1">speculation</a> that in the last months of his term, Obama might propose a Security Council resolution laying out the parameters for a two-state solution to the conflict. If such a resolution were passed, it could potentially reset the peace process, and open up new opportunities for more intense American engagement.</p>
<p>But Donald Trump has yet to lay out his Middle Eastern priorities in any detail. Whatever they might be, he and his administration will still face the same local, regional and political constraints as Obama. And all the while, the Israel-Palestine conflict itself will only become more intractable.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/65823/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Julie M Norman does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>A Middle East in meltdown forced the Obama administration to give up crucial leverage.Julie M Norman, Research Fellow in Global Peace, Security, & Justice, Queen's University BelfastLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/675662016-10-27T07:57:06Z2016-10-27T07:57:06ZObama’s Nobel-winning vision of ‘world without nuclear weapons’ is still distant<p>Even now, Barack Obama is being <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/richard-j-rosendall/barack-obama-transformer_b_10206262.html">hailed</a> as a transformer for <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/remarks-president-barack-obama-prague-delivered">the vision</a> of a “world without nuclear weapons” he articulated during his first year in office. The 44th US president has left an indelible mark on the nuclear debate, but his policies have failed to live up to the hope he has inspired. </p>
<p>Obama established nuclear disarmament as a key foreign policy objective in April 2009. Speaking at Hradčany Square in Prague, he <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/remarks-president-barack-obama-prague-delivered">rejected</a> the logic of deterrence as a form of fatalism and committed the US to seeking the “peace and security of a world” where nuclear weapons were obsolete.</p>
<p>It was a watershed moment. As has <a href="https://books.google.co.jp/books?id=DXkqAAAAQBAJ&pg=PA19&lpg=PA19&dq=obsolete+relic+of+the+past+obama&source=bl&ots=W9b9px1zyR&sig=S-uvOznoyh7p8oCpluXrYOZz8Dg&hl=ja&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwipprzEqfjPAhVQOrwKHYcnD_EQ6AEIIjAB#v=snippet&q=an%20obsolete%20relic&f=false">been noted</a> elsewhere, Obama’s predecessors had spoken of pursuing nuclear disarmament, but none had made “global zero” a strategic objective.</p>
<p>The contrast with the George W Bush years was particularly stark. Seeing arms-control treaties as a constraint on US foreign policy and difficult to enforce in practice, Obama’s predecessor <a href="https://books.google.co.jp/books?id=_RKpAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA156&lpg=PA156&dq=bush+proposes+bunker+buster+missile&source=bl&ots=0uKgAlmgb8&sig=ms2y9kjnr7ENabdrG1K0k199IQQ&hl=ja&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjGv-m7wPjPAhWBfLwKHakoC78Q6AEIMzAD#v=onepage&q=bush%20proposes%20bunker%20buster%20missile&f=false">did little</a> to promote disarmament. Indeed, his administration explored expanding the role of nuclear warfare in US foreign policy: <a href="https://www.armscontrol.org/act/2002_07-08/abmjul_aug02">pulling out</a> of the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty to pursue a missile defence system and <a href="http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v428/n6982/full/428455a.html">proposing</a> a nuclear bunker-buster weapon.</p>
<p>In this context, the Prague address was radical. Global zero would “not be reached quickly – perhaps not even in my lifetime,” <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/remarks-president-barack-obama-prague-delivered">he conceded</a>, but it could be achieved through international cooperation. The first step was to “ignore the voices who tell us the world cannot change” and insist “Yes, we can”. Ten months later, Obama was <a href="http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/laureates/2009/press.html">awarded</a> the Nobel Peace Prize.</p>
<h2>Visions and policy gaps</h2>
<p>Since that first speech, Obama has sought to keep his vision alive. In September 2009 <a href="https://www.c-span.org/video/?289121-1/secretary-clinton-remarks-nucleartest-ban-treaty-conference">he sent</a> Hillary Clinton to the UN’s Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) conference. It was both the first time the US had participated in ten years and the first time it had sent a secretary of state as its delegate. Ten months later, the US established a new forum for international discussion, <a href="http://www.state.gov/t/isn/nuclearsecuritysummit/2010/">hosting</a> the first Nuclear Security Summit. Acts like these were largely symbolic but underlined the depth of Obama’s conviction.</p>
<p>Obama made his most memorable gesture of all on May 27 of this year when he became the first serving US president to visit Hiroshima. Despite <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2016/05/27/sarah-palin-assails-obama-for-hiroshima-visit/">domestic</a> and <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/b3657836-20b7-11e6-aa98-db1e01fabc0c">international</a> opposition, he reaffirmed his commitment to disarmament in <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/barack-obama-calls-for-world-to-reduce-nuclear-weapons-stockpiles-during-historic-visit-to-hiroshima-a7051561.html">a speech</a> at the city’s <a href="http://visithiroshima.net/world_heritage/a-bomb_dome.html">Peace Memorial Park</a> and reflected on the horror of nuclear war. </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Why do we come to this place, to Hiroshima? We come to ponder a terrible force unleashed in the not-so-distant past. </p>
<p>We come to mourn the dead … their souls speak to us, they ask us to look inward, take stock of who we are and what we might become.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Yet for all this rhetoric, the president has struggled to implement change. His longstanding plan to <a href="http://www.rollcall.com/news/world_grows_impatient_for_senate_to_ratify_test_ban_treaty-245729-1.html">persuade the Senate</a> to ratify the CTBT and a more recent <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/06/science/obama-unlikely-to-vow-no-first-use-of-nuclear-weapons.html">initiative</a> to commit the US to a “no first use” policy, to name but two examples, were ultimately abandoned in the face of opposition. </p>
<p>This is not to claim that Obama has had no success. He <a href="https://www.armscontrol.org/blog/ArmsControlNow/2016-01-17/The-Nonproliferation-Impact-of-Iran-Nuclear-Deal-Implementation-Day">closed</a> a controversial non-proliferation deal with Iran and signed the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START) <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/blog/order-from-chaos/2016/02/04/new-start-turns-five/">with Russia</a>, which committed both nations to a limit of 1,550 deployed strategic nuclear weapons. </p>
<p>Since signing the New START treaty in 2010, the US <a href="https://fas.org/issues/nuclear-weapons/status-world-nuclear-forces/">has also</a> reduced its total stockpile of operational warheads from 5,066 to 4,571: down roughly 10%. This is a worthy achievement but does not amount to setting a new political trajectory. The US nuclear arsenal has grown smaller under every president since Nixon (see graphic). And US stockpiles have shrunk less under Obama than any other administration since the end of the Cold War. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/142905/original/image-20161024-28380-cwl0zx.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/142905/original/image-20161024-28380-cwl0zx.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/142905/original/image-20161024-28380-cwl0zx.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=634&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/142905/original/image-20161024-28380-cwl0zx.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=634&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/142905/original/image-20161024-28380-cwl0zx.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=634&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/142905/original/image-20161024-28380-cwl0zx.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=797&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/142905/original/image-20161024-28380-cwl0zx.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=797&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/142905/original/image-20161024-28380-cwl0zx.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=797&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Such modest progress has also been bought at great cost. The political price of ratifying New START was a <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/14bcff98-f753-11e5-96db-fc683b5e52db">commitment</a> to renovating existing warheads and modernising the “nuclear triad” of delivery systems: planes, submarines, and inter-continental missiles. This will likely <a href="https://www.armscontrol.org/factsheets/USNuclearModernization">require</a> an investment of $1 trillion (£817 billion) over the next 30 years. In an era of budgetary constraints, this <a href="https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/americas/2016-08-01/rethinking-nuclear-policy">could mean</a> cuts to conventional forces.</p>
<p>Policy advocates argue this is necessary to ensure the reliability and safety of the arsenal. But the former secretary and assistant secretary of defence, William J Perry and Andy Weber, have <a href="http://www.wjperryproject.org/notes-from-the-brink/kill-the-cruise-missile">countered that</a> the investment exceeds the US’s deterrence needs and may increase the likelihood of nuclear conflict. This is a return to “Cold War thinking, and it is dangerous”, they argue.</p>
<p>Their concern is shared by the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, <a href="http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2015/01/bulletin-atomic-scientists-moves-doomsday-clock-2-minutes-closer-midnight">who last year moved</a> the hands of the Doomsday Clock two minutes closer to midnight. It is now 11:57, meaning the world is judged closer to catastrophe than at any point since 1983, when Cold War relations “were at their iciest”. In justifying the assessment, the Bulletin cited the “extraordinary and undeniable” threat posed by “the nuclear arms race resulting from the modernisation of huge arsenals”.</p>
<h2>Legacy</h2>
<p>The true consequences of nuclear modernisation remain to be seen. It seems clear, however, that Obama has not radically altered the US’s nuclear posture. At best, investing in a smaller, more modern nuclear arsenal will preserve the status quo. At worst, it could spark a costly new arms race. Neither outcome fulfils Obama’s <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/remarks-president-barack-obama-prague-delivered">promise</a> to “reduce the role of nuclear weapons” in US foreign policy. </p>
<p><a href="http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/05/25/obama-in-hiroshima-a-case-study-in-hypocrisy/">Claims of hypocrisy</a>, however, are largely spurious. Obama was <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/remarks-president-barack-obama-prague-delivered">always clear</a> that progress would be slow. And Russian aggression, Chinese sabre-rattling and North Korean nuclear ambitions have raised new concerns about global security, galvanising resistance to his plans in both the Senate and the international community. </p>
<p>Regardless, the president is running out of time to realise his rhetoric. The gap between hope and political change remains noticeably wide. For all his great ambition, Obama’s legacy on nuclear weapons may amount to little more than symbolism.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/67566/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Makoto Takahashi receives funding from the ESRC. </span></em></p>With a $1 trillion modernisation programme signed off and atomic scientists deeply worried about the future, American policy on nuclear weapons is pretty much business as usual.Makoto Takahashi, Pre-doctoral researcher, University of CambridgeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.