This is big news for science. Yesterday, the Obama campaign released their most detailed plan to date for how he will manage US government science and science policy. The 11 page plan (pdf) is a significant improvement on the previous “fact sheet” that they had up, which was severely lacking in detail. Somehow this story got buried by the letter from 61 Nobel Laureates endorsing Obama. (The timing of the two was clearly planned.)

There is a lot of information in the plan, but right off the bat I noticed that he has now committed to appointing “a highly qualified Assistant to the President for Science and Technology who will report directly to him and serve as Director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy.” That is a complete reversal of the Bush Administration role for the Director of OSTP, which was, shall we say, diminished.

In addition, Obama is committing to issuing “an Executive Order establishing clear guidelines for the review and release of federal and federally-sponsored research, guaranteeing that results are released in a timely manner and are not distorted by ideological biases.” (Insert crowd cheer here)

As for science funding, there is a subtle, but significant clarification. Whereas before the campaign had been stating that they would double the basic science research budget for science agencies across the government, now they are saying that they will “double (the) budgets of key science agencies such as the National Institutes of Health, the National Science Foundation, the Department of Energy’s Office of Science, and the National Institute of Standards and Technology over the next ten years.” (Nice!)

Here are the basic bullet points for the plan. I encourage you all to read the whole plan and comment on it here.

• Restoring integrity to U.S. science policy to ensure that decisions that can be informed by science are made on the basis of the strongest possible evidence.

• Doubling over a 10 year period the federal investment in basic research by key science agencies, with a special emphasis on supporting young researchers at the beginning of their careers, and backing high-risk, high-return research.

• Making a national commitment to science education and training by recruiting some of America’s best minds to teach K-12 math and science and by tripling the number of the National Science Foundation’s Graduate Research Fellowships.

• Encouraging American innovation to flourish by making the R&D tax credit permanent, streamlining our patent system, eliminating the capital gains tax on start-ups and small businesses, and promoting the deployment of next-generation broadband networks.

• Addressing the “grand challenges” of the 21st century through accelerating the transition to a low carbon, oil-free economy, enabling all Americans to live longer and healthier lives, and protecting our country from emerging threats to our national security.

On another note: the McCain campaign has been tight lipped on who their science advisors are or if they are going to release a larger plan for science. Who knows, maybe they can top this plan…