White House director of the office of science and technology policy Michael Kratsios has called for a restoration in American Innovation in the science and technology industry.
Kratsios, who was confirmed by the Senate in March, recently spoke at the Endless Frontiers Retreat in Austin, Texas on April 14. In his first public statement since the confirmation, Kratsios claimed the United States has grown complacent over the years in scientific and technological advancement and has made plans to overcome that.
“The Golden Age of American innovation is on our horizon, if we choose it,” Kratsios said in his remarks at the retreat.
In his remarks at the retreat, Kratsios said 50 years ago Americans looked forward to electricity “too cheap to meter.” By the end of 1972, the U.S. had 30 nuclear plants operational, 55 plants under construction and over 80 plants planned for or ordered.
However, in current times nuclear energy growth has seemed to stifle and the energy grid remains precarious, Kratsios said. He also said the Biden Administration led in the “spirit of fear rather than promise” claiming that the previous administration secured American technology poorly and failed to strengthen its leadership.
“Advances have not stopped, but something has gone wrong,” Kratsios said.
While Kratsios supported multiple ways to promote American leadership in innovation, he claimed a “regulatory regime opposed to innovation and development” has been the “greatest obstacle” to things such as energy and transportation, as he said.
To improve upon possible American technological innovation, he suggested for the U.S. government to form a “common sense, pro-innovation regulatory regime.”
“At a time defined by the desire to build in America again, we have to throw off the burden of bad regulations that weigh down our innovators, and use federal resources to test, to deploy, and to mature emerging technologies,” Kratsios said. “The time has come to review the rules on the books and to ask whom they really protect and what they really cost.”
Kratsios previously served as the U.S. chief technology officer during Trump’s first administration.
