Committee Moves Cabinet-level OSTP Director Nominee to Full Senate

The Senate committee focused on scientific advancement voted to advance the nomination of renowned geneticist Eric Lander to be President Joe Biden’s chief scientific adviser, a position which—for the first time—will be part of the Cabinet.

Before taking office, Biden tapped Lander to be director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy, a White House position created in 1976. After a hearing before the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation in April, the committee held a vote Thursday to report Lander’s nomination favorably to the full Senate for consideration.

The vote passed with full support from Democratic members, as well as some Republicans, including Committee Ranking Member Roger Wicker, R-Miss.

“Dr. Lander is a visionary scientist and thinker and will serve with distinction,” said Ed Markey, a senator from Massachusetts, where Lander works as a researcher and professor at MIT, Harvard and as president and founding director of the Broad Institute.

“He represents the kind of new American pioneer—one committed to exploring horizons defined not by the boundaries of lands and shores, but of genes and genomes. A pioneer who sees unanswered questions as, not barriers, but as an expanse of possibility,” he said. “His breadth of knowledge, unparalleled experience and innovative spirit make him uniquely suited to lead.”

But Lander is not without controversy.

In 2016, he wrote an essay, published in the journal Cell, that offered an incomplete history of CRISPR, a gene-editing technology.

“The essay, other scientists said, got several key facts wrong, and Lander later added what he called clarifications,” Sharon Begley wrote in a 2016 article in STAT. “Stirring the greatest anger, critics charged that rather than writing an objective history he downplayed the role of two key CRISPR scientists who happen to be women.”

While not addressing that incident directly, Committee Chair Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., said she wants to ensure diversity in OSTP and asked for biannual reports on the matter.

“While I appreciate the president has added diversity at various Cabinet positions, I would have loved to see a woman here in this position,” she said. “But, no doubt, Mr. Lander and the president have surrounded the Office of Science and Technology Policy and these positions within the Cabinet with a variety of women who I expect to play very key leadership roles.”

Cantwell said she secured a promise from Lander that a primary focus of his tenure will be getting more diversity—gender and minority—in the sciences.

“He and I will be working aggressively on that. We hope to be able to give the committee and all our colleagues … an update every six months on where we are in this process,” she said.

While Wicker voted in favor of advancing Lander’s nomination, five of his colleagues voted against.

Sen. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., voted “no,” and Wicker recorded four more votes against, including Ted Cruz, R-Texas, Mike Lee, R-Utah, Ron Johnson, R-Wisc., and Cynthia Lummis, R-Wyo.

If confirmed by the full Senate, Lander should have a good idea of the tasks ahead of him.

Prior to inauguration, then-President-elect Biden sent Lander an open letter enumerating five focus areas for OSTP and its incoming leadership in the form of five questions:

• What can we learn from the pandemic about what is possible—or what ought to be possible—to address the widest range of needs related to our public health?
• How can breakthroughs in science and technology create powerful new solutions to address climate change—propelling market-driven change, jump-starting economic growth, improving health, and growing jobs, especially in communities that have been left behind?
• How can the United States ensure that it is the world leader in the technologies and industries of the future that will be critical to our economic prosperity and national security, especially in competition with China?
• How can we guarantee that the fruits of science and technology are fully shared across America and among all Americans?
• How can we ensure the long-term health of science and technology in our nation?