2020 Democratic Primary Debate 2 Part 2

In the first primary debate the second night had more discussion of technology than the first night. The same could be expected of tonight's debate. Unfortunately there was even less discussion of technology than last night's candidate slate. Nonetheless this blog will look at what was brought up in the debate.
The topic of climate change brought about the most discussion of technology in tonight's debate. Joe Biden proposed five hundred thousand charging stations would be built in his administration. The development of charging stations is meant to incentivize the changeover to electric vehicles. The problem with this proposal is that it is not the purview of the federal government to install charging stations. Even a proposal that would be within the powers of the federal government would need to be approved upon by a climate change denying Republican arm of congress. He would double the amount of offshore wind. Offshore wind consists of turbines that are built with posts that are set into the seabed. Power cables connect them to the grid back on solid ground.Offshore wind takes advantage of the reduced friction of the sea to get a very consistent quality wind to power the turbines. These wind turbines are typically built far enough offshore that even with diameters approaching 400 feet they are not visible from the coastline. Currently the only offshore wind in the United States is off Cape Cod. There has been interest and initial development of plans to build turbines off Long Island. Most of the regulatory hurdles that are associated with wind turbines are state and local laws. At the state level approval for these turbines typically is associated with regulations and laws controlling the power generation development. States with deregulated power markets may be easier since the power generation and distribution are separate businesses. Most of the opposition comes from people complaining about the view on their property being damaged by the wind turbines. The most likely action that Biden could take to accelerate the development of offshore wind would be to use existing federal laws to override state and local laws. This risks angering residents and there could be real backlash at the ballot box.
He also stated that his climate change plan would produce 10 million jobs. As stated in the last blog post the estimation of job creation is somewhat suspect as automation may end up doing the lion share of the work. In addition very little additional information was provided as to how the jobs will be created.
Kristen Gillibrand proposed putting a price on carbon. Pricing carbon is a very broad statement. Carbon pricing is considered a mechanism for forcing capitalist systems to move away from fossil fuel use. The risks with setting the price of carbon is setting an adequate price. If the price is too high then the economy could suffer from severe shock. This could result in citizens revolting against the governments policies. If the price of carbon is set too low then carbon emissions will not be reduced to the level that is intended. An even bigger problem with carbon pricing is that opponents of climate change will make it exceedingly difficult for the rate to increase to achieve greater reductions. In the current political climate passing a carbon pricing bill will be exceedingly difficult. Mechanisms that would allow for the price to increase would be opposed and firm price would be set and impossible to increase.
She also proposed that we get into a green energy race. We, the U.S., would compete with China and other countries to produce green technologies. The innovation spurred on by this race would achieve the necessary carbon net zero by 2050. The reality is that we are currently in a green energy race. China is currently the leader in solar panel development, electric car manufacturing, and many other green technologies. China's five year plan includes significant investment in developing technologies of the future. This includes electrification of cars, solar panels, and other green technologies. In reality the United States is behind in the green technology race. Gillibrand didn't propose any policy prescriptions for winning or even competing in the green energy race in her answer.
The other big technology point that was referenced during the debate was automation. Andrew Yang mentioned it several times in answers on a multitude of topics. This probably worked really well for a debate held in Detroit. Detroit was and is built primarily on the automotive industry that has suffered from plenty of job losses over the last 30 plus years. Andrew Yang in many ways made automation the bogey-man. He does have his freedom dividend proposal to counter the growth of automation in our economy.

2020 Democratic Primary Debate 2 Part 1

The current democratic primary debates are very interesting because of the 10 candidates on stage per night results in very limited amount of time for each candidate to speak. That being said it is important for this blog to report on technology topics that are brought up in these debates.
The only topic where technology was mentioned was about climate change. Climate change was delved into in blog posts about the first primary debate. It is important to note that there was barely a mention of the debate about the existence of climate change as man made, the scientific consensus is nearing absolute on humans impact. John Delaney was asked to explain why he didn't agree with the green new deal. He cited linking so many other issues into a policy that should work to achieve green house gas emissions reductions.
His proposal is to tax carbon, really carbon dioxide emissions, and return the revenue as a dividend. Taxing carbon is an approach that has been proposed multiple times over the years. Carbon taxation is essentially a production based tax on emissions. This may seem rather simple implement and it is at a fundamental level. The issues with carbon taxes arise when trying to calculate what the tax should be. Setting a tax level that would realistically match the impact from CO2 emmissions might kill the economy and cause a backlash from citizens who are sufferring under this policy. If the tax rate is set too low then it will have a negligible impact on our emissions and fail as a policy prescription to resolve climate change. This balancing act is only further going to get muddled by the fact that in order to pass a law other politicians, some who don't believe in climate change, will have an opportunity to impact Delaney's proposal.
Additionallt he wants to increase the research funding in the Department of Energy on alternative energy five fold from current levels. The idea behind this part of Delaney's plan is to spur innovation to provide solutions to climate change. The move to a net carbon zero economy will require innovation by private industry to achieve this goal. A significant increase in funding for research and development money towards new technologies is nice, but the proposed amount of increase may be dwarfed by the scale of the problem. Department of Energy research and development funding is not a large sum such that Delaney's proposed five fold increase will not even come close to current Defense department research funding.
He directly endorsed direct air capture technology. Direct air capture technology is a system that seperates carbon dioxide from the air. Delaney is the first candidate to mention and/or endorse the use of this technology. The technologies end goal would be to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and store it underground in a carbon capture storage system. This is a system that is currently under development and has been proven at least at a prototype level. There are still questions as to whether it can be an important player in solving climate change. The current scientific knowledge about climate change is that to achieve a one degree celsius global average temperature increase we need carbon dioxide levels to be at 350 parts per billion. The latest readings are at or over 400 parts per billion. Fundamentally this means that not only do we need to achieve a net zero emissions, but we would need to actually reduce the atmospheric levels of carbon dioxide. Direct air capture technology could provide a way to do this. The other key potential benefit of direct air capture technology is that it can counter some of the excess emissions in the transition from our current fossil fuel dependent economy to a green economy, operating on net zero emissions. The transition, or scale up of new technologies, will not be instantaneous and may suffer from friction that will delay expected reductions in our emissions.
Delaney is also interested in a climate corps. Unfortunately due to the time limits in the debate this came across as a sound bite and not a solid policy. It would be nice to get a more concrete information in regards to what this corps would do and how this would tackle climate change.
Elizabeth Warren discussed her two trillion dollar green manufacturing plan. She wants to invest in manufacturing the green technologies of the future in America. This policy proposal is in many ways tailored to the midwest industrial manufacturing states like Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania. The current state of green manufacturing is that China is the leader in the development of electric cars, solar panels, and other technology which will be the backbone of the zero carbon economy. Warren's plan is ambitious in that she wants to use a significant government investment to spark manufacturing in America of these technologies. The risks are that any attempt to compete with China and other possible Asian countries may turn out to be un-profitable. Solyndra was an infamous attempt by the Obama administration to invest in green manufacturing, and the company would file for bankruptcy within 24 months of receiving a multi-million dollar loan. Solyndra's failure as a business was due to China's significant investment in solar panel production. They flooded the market and drove down the price to a point that Solyndra couldn't make a profit. This risks does exist in Warren's two trillion dollar plan. In addition she has stated that this investment will generate approximately one million jobs. In order for some companies to remain competitive they may decide to use automation and not hire nearly as many employees as expected.
John Hickenlooper stated that we have to work together with other countries to avert the worse of climate change. This is true, but currently the U.S. is the only country that is planning on leaving the Paris Agreement on climate change. He did in the previous debate state that he would return the U.S. to the Paris climate agreement. Unfortunately this is was also the extent of his remarks. This leaves many Americans who are interested in knowing concrete plans for dealing with climate change disappointed.
Tim Ryan reiterated his desire to dominate electric vehicle production in support of aspects of Elizabeth Warren's plan. He proposed to have a chief manufacturing officer who would help reinvigorate American manufacturing. The  chief manufacturing officer position as it was briefly described would help manufacturers grow and partner them with government programs. This is an interesting concept that hopefully Tim Ryan will be able to elucidate for the electorate to make a decision on this proposal. His last proposal to fight climate change was to promote regenerative agriculture whereby carbon is stored in the soil thru practices including cover crops and soil management. This may have been among the strongest moments of the debate for Tim Ryan. He showed a good command of his proposals and didn't repeat what had been stated multiple times by other candidates before him. He managed to link climate change, which has the strongest support in most urban areas, between the urban and industrial cities to the rural agrarian economy.
Steve Bullock was the only candidate to mention the Republican denial of climate change. His stated remedy for this was to fight corruption. It is correct that the oil and gas industry spend significant sums lobbying in congress and also provide large donations to candidates thru political action committees. Unfortunately we didn't hear a plan that touched on how to reduced greenhouse gas emissions from our economy, which according to climate scientists is vital to avoiding the worst effects of climate change. Bullock did manage to point to the correlation between an expanded fire season and climate change. He also managed to make a great point about the workers who have spent their entire working life powering America who would stand to lose their jobs. Bullock is the governor of Montana, a state with significant coal mining operations, and it would be expected for him to have a plan to fight climate change that included how to deal with coal miners, coal plant operators, and other fossil fuel workers who could be displaced.

2020 Democratic Primary Debate Part 2

Thursday night's debate was quite different from Wednesday's debate. This was the loaded debate with just about all the front runners in the polls. This slate of candidates discussed technology far more than the previous night's candidates. You can get the fact checking here if that is what you are interested in. This post will look into the technology topics that were brought up during the debate.
Andrew Yang was asked about his Universal Basic Income (UBI) plan as the first question directed to him in the debate. He proceeded to describe his proposal and mentioned that part of the reason Donald Trump was elected in 2016 was that 4 million jobs had been automated away. He also stated that the following jobs were going to be eliminated due to automation: fast food workers, truck d rivers, and retail jobs. Automation is the process where by a task that is done by a human is done by an electronic system, often called robots, without error. Automation equipment leverages the ability of small microprocessor systems to control hydraulic actuators, welding tools, conveyor belts, and other automated actions. Early automation focused on creating devices that could do repetitive tasks on assembly lines. The automotive industry has implemented robots that weld car bodies with more reliability than a human. As automation technology developed automation devices could not only perform the operation, but do a visual inspection of work and identify defects. In the last ten years or so automation has begun a new phase of development. Automation had largely been restricted to the plant floor. The capabilities of microprocessors, miniaturization of sensors, and development of advanced identification, tracking, and control algorithms is leading to automation of more advanced tasks.  Uber, Lyft, and Tesla are working on developing self driving cars and trucks. Amazon is working on drones that will deliver packages. Home Depot has had self checkout counters and similar systems are popping up in other retail businesses. These are just a sample of the new industry disrupting ideas that will use automation.
 Automation in some industries has displaced many blue collar jobs that were based on completing the same task repetitively for hours on end. This is particularly true of the industrial cities in the Midwestern states of Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, and Wisconsin. The semiconductor industry that is fueling many new technologies is wholly dependent on automated systems to process the die to create the chips running your cell phone, tablet, and computer. The processes for the manufacturer of integrated circuit chips requires the use of clean rooms, areas with extremely low particulate matter in the air. These assembly lines are run with almost no human manufacturing actions required. In many ways automation is typical of many technologies in that it has improved our lives in many ways, but it also has eliminated jobs that people depended on to live. It has been titled creative destruction and has typically resulted in the creation of as many if not more new jobs along the way.These innovations are a threat to the livelihoods of many millions of Americans. This is why Yang would like to impose a value added tax to fund a $1000 a month stipend to help people pay for their living expenses.
The debate moderators immediately posed a question about automation and jobs to Eric Swallwell after Yang had finished explaining his UBI proposal. This had the potential to be very interesting since Swallwell represents a district in the San Francisco Bay area. He briefly mentioned that technology has created more jobs than it destroyed. He was quite clear that it must happen this way. All of this sounds good, but it showed a clear lack of thought about the risks of automation to permanently dislocate workers from the economy. The potential of automation to disrupt such a broad set of industries and eliminate jobs is real. Swallwell did mention that he would modernize schools, invest in communities, and value teachers and including those who work in poor neighborhoods. Unfortunately the debate format did not allow for Swallwell to go more in depth on his policies. I will delve into these broad stroke statements anyways. Modernizing schools and valuing teachers are important for forming the foundation of our future economy. There are notorious problems with teacher retention in this country that are based on pay and burn out due to stress. Improving the pool of teachers and retaining them in our schools will improve the education quality of the future workforce. Improving conditions for teachers is only half the solution. Modernizing our schools is vital so that students have the right skills for our modern economy. There is a massive need to update and add skills to the current K-12 curriculum. Our economy is in many ways being fueled by coding whether it be software or embedded programming that runs a plethora of devices. Machine Learning, Artificial Intelligence, Automation, the e-commerce systems that are disrupting traditional industries work on a backbone of people developing code. I would think that the policy wonks on both sides of the political spectrum fully understand this as an important issue, but clearly the current President has taken no overt publicly seen action to endorse this. More can and may be learned in future debates about what Eric Swallwell would like to implement if he is elected President.
Marianne Williamson in her answer to a question on healthcare called the current system sickness-care and then mentioned chronic diseases and chemical regulations. Her response may have sounded kooky and snake oil spiritualist, but it was not. Calling our healthcare system sickness-care is a topic that this blog post doesn't intend to delve into. This really should be discussed by people with real expertise in our current healthcare system. I do want to look at whether chemical and environmental regulations are impacting our rates of chronic disease. In the last ten years the U.S. has suffered from contaminated water in Flint, Hoosick Falls, and Parkersburg. There are chemicals which we know are carcinogens that have contaminated the environment in plenty of locations. These are typically associated with increased rates of cancer. After doing some research I did not find an article that clearly claims an association with chemicals and chronic diseases. There were articles discussing how to look into this issue in research that is being done. This doesn't mean that exposure to man made chemicals doesn't have an impact on chronic diseases. Chemical safety regulation is a complicated series of overlapping authorities in the federal government. Food, drugs, and medicines are regulated by the FDA. Chemicals in our environment are the responsibility of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). There are several other agencies who play minor roles in dealing with chemicals and potential pollution. Both the EPA and the FDA have been under continuous attack by the Trump administration in an effort to reduce and overturn regulations. Technology in general and the chemical industry are focused on developing products that solve a problem or provide a new service to their customer. We, our representative government, have passed laws to protect certain environmental factors that we have defined as important to our well being. The results are that the chemical industry in particular is limited in what it new products by the clean water and clean air act. These laws don't directly ban the production of any specific chemicals, but instead provide legal mechanisms for the government to regulate chemicals that are found to be dangerous in the environment. The relationship between profitable operation of chemical manufacturing and the responsible stewardship of the environment are an adversarial balancing act. Typically the EPA is the entity trying to rein in potential or known hazardous substances and enforce existing regulations. That Marianne Williamson brought up this small lesser issue in the breadth of the healthcare debate is important because the regulations that protect the general public's exposure to known hazards is being unraveled by the current administration's efforts. Additionally the EPA is being weakened by attacks on it's staff of scientists and scientific advisory bodies. This is intended to create the EPA is a weaker adversary to industry. I look forward to hearing the candidates for President elucidating their policies on this issue in future debates.
The issue of Chinese intellectual property theft was brought up in the debate. Intellectual Property, patents and trademarks, is a system that gives companies a limited period monopoly on a technology. This monopoly is what gives technology manufacturers a key advantage against rivals and maintains their profitability. Companies can take two different routes to monetizing their intellectual property. Companies can leverage the intellectual property to manufacture a product that they sell to their customer. The other alternative is that a company will license the intellectual property to other manufacturers for their products. Chinese firms have been known to build products that are the same or nearly equivalent to products that have been developed by American firms. This would be fine if the Chinese manufacturer were paying the American company to use the technology. Unfortunately this is not often the case. Additionally China has required American companies who want to sell their product to partner with Chinese firms in joint-ventures and share the intellectual property which is then stolen and the market for the American product is undercut by a multitude of Chinese manufacturers.
The candidates' responses were interesting in regards to this issue. Andrew Yang mentioned that this was a serious issue, but that the current tariffs levied by the Trump administration were hurting American manufacturers and farmers. Peter Buttiegieg when responding on this issue mentioned that the issue of intellectual property theft goes to a much deeper problem which is that China is developing technology for perfecting dictatorship. This is very interesting since in the second half of the 20th century America was clearly the most dominant player in advanced technology development, and it was used as an advantage in intelligence gathering. Buttiegieg also mentioned that if we don't get our act together they will run circles around us on artificial Intelligence. Artificial Intelligence and the Chinese intellectual property theft are worthy of independent blog posts discussing each issue in more depth. Overall the two candidates who did discuss this issue showed an understanding of the issue, but there ability to articulate clear policies was limited by the debate format.
The one technology related issue that does seem to be on the minds of many voters is climate change. Among the candidates who were asked about this issue there was broad agreement to that re-entering the Paris climate agreement was an action they would take on day one. Kamala Harris specifically called it a climate crisis and mentioned her support of the green new deal. The green new deal is a broad set of plans for reducing emissions of green house gases, racial and social justice programs, and a federal jobs guarantee. The green new deal has been specifically crafted to meet the urgent emissions requirements outlined in recent UN reports on climate change. This set of policies faces many hurdles due to the extreme disruptive nature of the solutions that would be implemented. The governmental imposition of technologies and lifestyle changes will be resented by many who are recalcitrant to that sort of decision making. The most difficult part of the green new deal will be getting all the laws that will be required to pass both the House and Senate. The oil and gas industries that have the most to lose will put up a strong fight to this law which will imperil their future.
Pete Buttiegieg put forth that he has dealt with a 500 year and 1000 year floods in the last few years as mayor of South Bend. He proposed a carbon tax and rebate system to fight climate change. This type of system has been discussed for many years, but has never been implemented to my knowledge. The rebate effect solves the potential risk of angering many working class people who would be subject to the increased taxes, specifically on the gas they use to fuel their cars. One of the big problems with a carbon tax system is what should be the rate of the tax. Defining the price of carbon or a tax rate for carbon is exceedingly difficult without knowing how much carbon dioxide, the biggest green house gas,  will cause the most draconian of impacts. Setting a rate that would meet the UN climate reports and the Paris agreement levels would likely lead to major problems for the economy. This is probably best understood by the efforts California has taken using a cap and trade system. I found it particularly interesting that Buttiegieg would mention that soil management by farmers could be part of the solution. Buttiegieg proposed a Pittsburgh summit that would bring in local and state leaders as stakeholders in this issue. The summit proposal is a great tongue and check dig at Trump. The summit itself would be a very good idea since in the Trump administration states and cities have taken the lead in fighting climate change.
John Hickenlooper is proposing to take a more cooperative method to dealing with climate change. He proudly shared the achievements of his time as governor of Colorado. Colorado closed coal plants and replaced them with renewable sources. Coal fueled power plants have been economically unsustainable for the last several years due to the price of renewable sources and natural gas dropping significantly. Colorado also has a favourable renewable energy capabilities that they are now cheaper than coal power plants. Hickenlooper also talked up the electric vehicle recharging network that was created in Colorado. Hickenlooper clearly has a grasp on the biggest players as he stated that the three biggest emitters are U.S., China, and concrete exhalation. His biggest proposal to fight climate change is to bring people together to work on solving the problem. To support his view he discussed his successful effort to impose the first methane emission regulations. In order to achieve this he brought the oil and gas industry and environmentalists together to achieve a compromise. The compromise between stakeholders scenario sounds great but has several potential pitfalls. Gas producers have a vested interest in reducing methane leaks because they can then sell the methane to increase their profits. The latest UN report on climate change states that we need to reduce our emissions by half in the next 12 years and achieve net zero by 2050. I have trouble seeing the oil and gas industry willingly sitting down with environmentalists to discussing climate change regulations when their very existence is in peril. Getting a deal is easy to do when both sides are able to gain from compromise. The latest scientific assessments are telling law makers that we need to eliminate CO2 emissions rapidly. The most likely outcome of an attempt at a grand bargain will obstruction and delay by the fossil fuel industry with the hope of maintaining their profitability as long as possible. I would like to thank Hickenlooper for bringing up the fact that no one is discussing plans to replace the emissions of heavy industries. Unfortunately he left this specific part of climate change as a query rather than proposing a solution.
Joe Biden opted to answer the climate change question by claiming that the Obama-Biden administration drove down the price of wind and solar. This broad statement sounds good, but there was no actual policy or policies that he cited to back up this statement. It should be pointed out that in the Obama administration timeline the cost of solar power did drop, but this was mostly fueled by the investment China made in manufacturing solar panels and their subsequent flooding of the market. Biden did propose building 500000 recharging stations for electric vehicles. This would be a great step as long as there is an equivalent increase in renewable energy to meet the energy demand from each of these stations. At best this will help allow for market penetration of electric vehicles. He also proposed 400 million dollars in research and development money for green technology. More research and development funding will allow the advancement of green technology, but this seems like a low value of funding when compared to Elizabeth Warren's proposal. A good question is to consider how much should we be spending on research and development to avert the worst of climate change.
The second night of debate did discuss technology more often, but the debate format was not conducive to a quality discussion of candidates policies. Hopefully future debates will allow for the voters to learn more about each candidates position. Any links to a candidates website are not an endorsement, but provided for the reader to learn more.

2020 First Democratic Presidential Debate Part I

After 24 candidates have announced their candidacy since the beginning of the year and multiple candidate forums we have finally gotten to the first primary debate. With so many candidates the Democratic party limited those on the stage to 20 candidates split over two nights. This blog is not a fact checking source, but one that focuses on analyzing policies, policy proposals, and the politics involved. I will leave the fact checking to media organizations with more capabilities than I do. Now let's get to what was actually discussed by the candidates.
The debate was allocated two hours including advertising breaks. If we assume one hour and a half of actual debate time divided by 10 candidates means we have limited opportunities for each candidate to pitch their policy proposals. The debate also is setup with a wide open variety of topics to be discussed limiting the amount of time on each. It also means that candidates are likely to try to get the one sound bite that resonates to break out from the pack. The results of this format showed up Wednesday night.
There was very little in the way of discussion of policies in regards to technology due to the limitations in the debate format previously mentioned. Technology policy also affects everyone in a more subtle way than most people perceive. This leads to other issues, healthcare, economy or jobs, and foreign policy, being more important to average voters. I happen to agree that these are important issues that are most pertinent, but a singular or limited topic debate would allow the viewer to better understand each contenders policies.
The one topic that did come up in the debate was climate change. Elizabeth Warren mentioned that her policy proposal includes a ten fold increase in research and development funding for green technology. This plan would fuel the 23 Trillion market for green products that she claimed. Several other candidates, in particular Tim Ryan, talked about the need to manufacture electric vehicles and other green technologies as part of the economic future they envision. This all sounds good to the average lay person, but the reality is more complicated. We have several companies that have developed technology for electric vehicles and other green technology but since the US is a capitalist economy if there is little consumer interest then the companies go out of business. Tesla has been building electric cars for several years and developed an extensive patent portfolio, but it is suffering from a slowdown in sales that could imperil its sustainability. China is making significant efforts to develop green technology, in particular electric vehicles, as part of its plan to be a dominant player in future technology. The U.S. applies patent protections and patent laws consistently and therefore the promise of the green technology to produce significant jobs and wealth may end up being a pipe dream.
Washington governor Jay Inslee was specifically asked about his climate change plan by the debate moderators. Other than the awkward smiling and hand motions prior to the question he mentioned the need to go to 100% clean electricity. 100% clean electricity is a great sound bite, but most likely will be very difficult to achieve. The idea is that the electric grid can be run without fossil fuel based electricity generation. Jay Inslee is basing his campaign on fighting climate change, or as he calls it the climate crisis, and he has done in depth interviews discussing the issue and his policy proposals. Unfortunately we had very little substance added that makes a true analysis impossible of the policy proposals of the candidates on the stage. To learn more about each candidates climate change policy proposals check out this amazing resume from Vox.
Overall there was very little of the debate that dealt with technology and the political implications of it. The debate did ask some questions about climate change, but there was little digging into the details of the plans proposed by the different candidates. Elizabeth Warren did mention breaking up big technology companies which is a fascinating proposal that should be looked at in a separate blog post in the future, but she mentioned this in her view of the economy that is corrupt and not working for the working class. I hope that night two of the debate will include more debate questions discussing and showing the candidates' knowledge of technology and the political implications related to technology. I am cautiously optimistic that this will occur due to the candidates on the stage tonight, including Andrew Yang.

2019 State of the Union

The State of the Union speech is typically described as an opportunity for the President to present their administrations priorities for the year. This usually means a discussion of the status of the country, typically a positive statement even if far from true. There is a sizable chunk of the speech devoted to foreign policy and administration policies. The last major part of most State of the Union speeches is an enumeration and often times discussion of additional funding requests that the President will have in his budget. This portion of the speech typically has the potential for the most impact on technology and more specifically the intersection of technology and government policy. I will focus on those items that were brought up by the President in his State of the Union speech.
President Trump proudly stated that the United States is a net exporter of energy. The President supported this statement by stating that the U.S. has the most oil and gas production in 65 years. I will not take the time to fact check whether this claim is true, but it should be taken with a grain of salt. The growth of the oil and gas industry in the U.S. to its current state has been fueled by hydraulic fracturing. Hydraulic fracturing is the use of pressurized water, sand, and chemicals to open cracks in shale to allow trapped natural gas and oil to be released. Hydraulic fracturing has been combined with horizontal drilling to achieve significant oil and gas production in areas like the Bakken and Marcelius shale. The complex advanced technology used to procure unconventional oil and gas deposits have been developed with support from the U.S. government research laboratories. In addition to the subsidies provided directly to the oil and gas industry the research and development done at national research laboratories has supported the countries increased oil and gas production. This is a very clear case of policy directly supporting a specific industry.
Notable absent from the President's speech was any reference to Climate Change. This would seem amazing as just last December the IPCC report in time for the COP 24 climate conference. The analysis was grim in regards to meeting the stated goal of the Paris Agreement. In addition there was the additional report released by climate scientists that stated that in order to avoid a two degree Celsius increase in global average temperature the World needed to reduce CO2 emissions by 45% eleven years.Oil, coal, and gas have relied on direct subsidies to producers in addition to federal funding of research and development activities at national research laboratories. In the face of the obvious looming disaster it would seem that the President would want to present solutions that would lead the United States to a safe and sustainable future. To not mention or tackle climate change would be professional malpractice in my opinion. The President unfortunately continues to act as if climate change is unfounded science or denies the impact of humans on the climate. Climate change may not have been directly mentioned during the state of the Union there were some thinly veiled comments made in regard to it by President Trump's ardent defense of capitalism and attack on socialism. This is probably due to the fear of the Green New Deal becoming popular.
Infrastructure investments seem to be a very popular topic for politicians to discuss in the last few years.  The ASCE, American Society of Civil Engineers, has rated in its 2017 report card the state of American infrastructure a D+ so this topic is definitely worthy of action by politicians. President Trump took time to mention that he wants to work on an infrastructure bill. Unfortunately he didn't propose an amount that he envisioned being appropriated and the goals of any such bill should be. I would think that with the number of times the Trump administration has declared that it is infrastructure week there would be an extremely detailed plan to upgrade the deteriorating American infrastructure. It appears that President Trump threw out a line about infrastructure to check off a box rather than to give America, and the citizens listening, a direction to improving our society. This was a great topic which was thin on substance and is normal for the Trump administration.
President Trump followed up his brief remarks on infrastructure by stating that the government is making investments in cutting edge technologies. Unfortunately this was not followed up by any substantive support. As is the Trump administration's motus operandi a big announcement followed by very little to no detail. It is really difficult to understand why this line was even in the State of the Union as it can be easily argued that the Trump administration is not interested in cutting edge technologies based on its regulatory decisions. The FCC repealed net neutrality rules thereby allowing Interent Service Providers, ISPs, to slow down internet data speeds. This action essentially has allowed the ISPs to pick the winners and losers in the battles for users between rival internet based application technology. It can be argued that the repeal of these rules are a major barrier to the development of new technologies. The administration's fervent support for coal, oil, and gas has defined its decisions on regulatory issues. Rolling back the planned increases in vehicle fuel efficiency standards will slow down the development of new fuel efficiency technologies. Technology is typically developed based on a need by the customer or supplier to meet certain requirements. If the fuel efficiency requirements are stalled or slowed down then more efficient engines and electrification of cars will be delayed. The electricity generation sector is still primarily powered by fossil fuels. There has been a significant reduction on coal usage due to the lower price and cleaner emissions of natural gas. The new clean energy technology will be slowed down by the reversal of Obama era policies such as the Clean Power Plan. If as mentioned previously we are going to reduce CO2 emissions to avoid achieving dangerous levels of global temperature rise then a key cog will be new technology that has not been developed or scaled up at this time. Time will only tell if the Trump administration will help spurn new technologies to be developed or continue to support archaic technologies developed in the 19th and early 20th century.
President Trump proposed eliminating the HIV epidemic in the United States. This is a noble goal that I fully endorse, but once again like a broken record Trump was thin on substance. The efforts over the last 30 plus years has turned HIV from an uncontrolled epidemic with a death sentence prognosis to a disease that people can live full lives for decades. The great strides include the development of anti-retro viral medications that enable people to live and Prep. Prep is a medication that reduces dramatically the transmission of HIV when taken. For more information on the HIV epidemic check out this link on the history of HIV . The biotechnology that has developed these life saving medical treatments has not been cheap for the federal government. In this type of research and development typically there is partial funding from the government and private industry due to the risks associated with development of potential solutions. At this point there are currently treatments that are successful for people with HIV/AIDS and to reduce the risk of transmission in people at most risk.  It was particularly disappointing to hear the President not articulate a clear plan since from what I can gather we are at a point where the technology, medical treatments, have been developed and they need to implemented. President Trump could have used the bully pulpit of the Presidency to advance the effort.
There have been several different people who have written about what it would take to end the HIV epidemic so I won't repeat their statements again. The history of the Republican party in regards to the key ways to stop the spread of HIV is dubious at best. It is generally accepted that one vein of transmission is the use of dirty needles by illegal drug users. Needle exchange programs have routinely been on the funding cutting block with Republicans in charge. In fact, Vice President Mike Pence while governor of Indiana had an HIV epidemic in his state due to the lack of needle exchange programs. The other major vector for new HIV infections is unprotected sex, particularly in at risk populations. Republican politicians have usually been reticent to implement policies that would encourage protected sex. This is probably due to a fear that the religious right, which is a significant part of their base, would revolt at anything other than abstinence. This is one place where one could hope that President Trump, who is proud to talk about his supposed sexual prowess, could lead by mentioning its importance from the Presidential podium.  The two policies that historically Republicans have not backed wholeheartedly would have more impact on the HIV epidemic than any additionally investment in technology in the short run.
President also proposed spending 500 Billion dollars over the next ten years to fight childhood cancer. This line of the speech is very much in line with President Obama's moonshot on cancer. I appreciate the proposal to work on childhood cancer as they are more likely not to receive the publicity and charitable funding other cancers receive. We are in a period where medical research is fundamentally altering the way we treat cancer. This is a lofty statement from President Trump, but the devil will be in the details. I must admit there was an actual budget line value attached to this proposal in the State of the Union. It should be pointed out that human produced carcinogens and neurotoxins are still in our environment. They affect adults and children who ingest them in the food and water that they consume. In children the impacts maybe more acute than adults depending on the toxin. The Trump administration has continued to take a lax approach to environmental and chemical regulation. The fight against cancer in general, and in particular childhood cancer, should include a strong dose of mitigation by strongly enforcing our environmental regulations. This could lead to a boom in toxin removal technology that will provide enhanced benefits to society.
I listened to Stacy Abrams democratic response and she did not mention any items that had an implication on technology. This is understandable since her speech focused on values rather than direct economic or political proposals. She is also a private citizen and therefore not in a decision making role. In general President Trump's State of the Union was light on proposals that would impact technology, and missing substance when mentioned.