TheMillerCircle.org

In 1972, well before the deluge, Congress approved and funded a legislative initiative known as the Office of Technology Assessment or OTA. The function of OTA was to provide Congress with a resource for  objective analysis on all kinds of scientific and technical issues so that they could keep up with scientific and technical matters related to legislative decisions. OTA was set up as a bipartisan organization with oversight from a bipartisan board. They would respond to requests made by congressional committees and generated reports on things as varied as climate change, education, energy, environmental protection, food production, health, national defense, telecommunications, terrorism and transportation. The wide-ranging scope of their reports was only limited by the demands asked of them by Congress: OTA became an integral part of the legislative demand for more information on technology assessment.  In time, the OTA acquired an international reputation for thoroughness, objectivity, balance, expertise and clarity in language. They researched their assigned topic in detail, used outside expertise and complied reports that were typically one of the few government publications that  “sold out” practically every publication.  The OTA provided the critical reports that legislators and the lay public needed to make judgments about highly technical issues. Their reports were all messages of clarity as they crystallized complex technical details into understandable lay language. The purpose of OTA was not to serve the scientific community, but rather to serve Congress and lay citizens worldwide on issues of complexity that could be understood by a non-expert audience.

But in the Newt Gingrich revolution of 1994, and the Republican domination of Congress, the OTA went unfunded and closed its doors. This allowed the Gingrich Republicans to begin their assault on science, unfettered by OTA and led to such anomalies as author Michael Crichton who was elevated as the Republican’s expert on global climate change (since Crichton’s death, he has been replaced by George Will).  The Republicans did away with OTA precisely because they wanted to invent their own creationist science, distort global climate change, bring back DDT and allow the manipulation of scientific facts to support their emerging right wing political, born-again fundamentalist views. Without OTA, it was possible for a legislator to denounce the existence of the atom, without significant repercussion.

Until the demise of OTA, the organization was the envy of the world for readable technological reports.  Many other countries dispatched their government representatives to visit the OTA and emulate its efficient and thorough analysis with a new duplicate agency in their own government. When OTA was shut down,  many other countries were shocked that such a beacon of clarity would be extinguished at a time when access to reliable technical analysis was increasingly  critical for almost every government decision. The Republicans wanted to label OTA biased, but in reality the bias they were talking about was the bias OTA consistently committed to objective analysis. In fact,  OTA did not make legislative suggestions, but merely tried to point out the implications of going down one road or another on a specific legislative or technological  issue. The OTA oversight board (Technology Assessment Board; TAB) was populated by an even number of Republicans and Democrats, with board majority based on the majority party at the time. That board structure helped keep the OTA from being politicized and biased towards a narrow legislative view.

I have read many OTA reports over the years and have always found them to be excellent in detail, easy to read and non-biased in their approach to complex issues. The Federation of American Scientists has archived OTA reports at their website where you can read them by browsing through their archives, and use their handy  search engine.
The following is a note that I wrote at their website in trying to encourage the return of the OTA:

“The OTA proved to be a vital function for Congress and it served as a model for the world to emulate. As I recall, the OTA publications were very often one the few government publications that all got distributed rather than lying around in a large archived pile. The reports that came out of OTA were remarkable for their clarity and utility; they achieved their objective of being politically neutral and unbiased in their content. The trouble OTA had was the new Republican right didn’t want objective data, because their emergent constituency wanted to create their own science. So the Newt Gingrich Republicans did away with an office that was the envy of the world. Many countries who had tried to emulate OTA were shocked to see that the United States had gutted such a useful model. Bringing OTA back would go a long way to restoring our capacity to create objective reports at a time when Congress badly needs information that is reliable and accurate. It was tragic when OTA was cutoff, it would be wonderful to see it return.”

To give you some idea about the value of the OTA reports, when 9/11 hit, immediately followed by the anthrax letters, members of Congress (and many others) found that the most informative information on anthrax was contained in the 1993 OTA reports on “Proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction, and Technology of WMD.“  Although dated well before 9/11, these reports provided a definitive level of background information on how easy it would be to fashion weapons grade anthrax and how powerful it could be as a terrorist weapon.

The Congress and the American Public badly need a return of the OTA, to restore a sense of objectivity about science and technology and some good practical advice that can help not only our legislators who must deal with these complex issues, but also the general public, as these reports are now more accessible than ever before, through the web. If you read a single OTA report, you will ask yourself  “how in God’s name did we let this organization go?” If you really want to know why, send Newt Gingrich a letter!
RFM