Washington Insider discussed the amendments to the 2012 Legislative Branch Appropriations Bill  including one submitted by Rep. Rush Holt (D-NJ)  to re-establish OTA:

AMENDMENT TO H.R. 2551:
SEC. 211. There is appropriated, for salaries and expenses of the Office of Technology Assessment as authorized by the Technology Assessment Act of 1972 (2 U.S.C.471 et seq.),  hereby derived from the amount provided in this Act for the payment to the House Historic Buildings  Revitalization Trust Fund, $2,500,000.

According to Climate Science Watch blog   Michael Halpern of the Union of Concerned Scientists, as well as a number of other scientific,  transparency, public health, and public interest groups, urged members to support Holt’s amendment.

The ASBMB Policy Blotter  blog post pointed out that that OTA “was a leader in practicing and encouraging delivery of public services in innovative and inexpensive ways.”

The amendment was voted down 176 to 235.  The results of the roll call vote can be seen here.

Prof. Leschine recently spoke about the disastrous oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico at a hearing of the Energy and Environment Subcommittee of the House Energy and Commerce Committee.

In his testimony, Leschine said that inadequate risk assessment and underfunding of technologies for prevention and response have added to the problem.  Leschine directs the School of Marine Affairs at the College of Environment of the University of Washington.

Massive amounts of dispersants have been injected into the oil plume  with very little understanding about their effect on the environment,  Leschine added.

In his testimony Leschine pointed to an OTA report saying:

In 1990, shortly after the Exxon Valdez spill, the U.S. Office of Technology Assessment prepared at the request of the Congress a Background Paper, Coping with An Oiled Sea: An Analysis of Oil Spill Response Technologies. The report, strongly influenced by events then still unfolding in Prince William Sound, warned that future spills could easily overwhelm the technologies we had. It also cautioned that we can’t prepare for every contingency. The risk will never be zero. It found that industry had focused its efforts on preparing for small, relatively easily controllable spills in harbors and sheltered areas, and that it had likely oversold its ability to respond to major spills. Major spills in open water had up to that point seen recovery rates of no more than 10% of oil spilled, 6-8% in the case of Exxon Valdez, despite billions spent on response. I believe that this picture has not changed much today.

The OTA report found that the relative rarity of major spills was a major impediment to a sustained effort that would yield a higher-impact technology development program. The good news, perhaps, it also found the problem to be less a matter of needing dramatic engineering breakthroughs and more one requiring simply good engineering and sustained attention. It highlighted the need for good design and maintenance, training in deployment and use, and pre-positioning of response equipment in adequate quantities and types to deal with the really big events, like now. The report focused on technology to be sure, but also on decision-making, logistics, and training. Soft technologies, in other words.

In my view, OTA’s findings remain largely valid today, twenty years later. In many ways we are better prepared, but progress has been in fits and starts, issue attention cycle at work in my view. A robust approach to filling the tool kit, with the right hard and soft technologies, is needed.

According to a blog post, “Congressional staffers need access to timely and top quality science advice on the issues before their Members.”

To achieve this, U.S. Representative Rush Holt (D-NJ), a Science Debate co-chair, is working with the Union of Concerned Scientists(UCS)  to re-instate OTA.  UCS has written a letter from scientists ready for your signature.

“Many moons ago, Congress relied on facts, science, and other evidence to guide its thinking and make decisions,” according to this blog.  One source that provided  sound information to Congress was OTA, Madia said.

The Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) is pushing to reinstate OTA in the 2011 budget. Information about their effort is available at UCS’s website. UCS’s  letter to Congress supporting reinstatment of OTA has been signed by dozens of organizations interested in good government.  UCS  has also drafted a letter for scientists to send to their representatives in support of  OTA’s renewal.

A blog post discusses a push by scientists, engineers and  Rush Holt (D-NJ), to “resuscitate” OTA.  Francesca Grifo from the Union of Concerned Scientists, testifying before the House Legislative Branch Appropriations Subcommittee, said that having sound technical advice can save money by improving policy decisionmaking. Grifo’s testimony is available here.

According to Tech Insider:

Grifo’s organization estimates that the office cost Congress about $20 million annually but, since its extinction, the federal government has squandered billions of dollars on failed systems, including virtual fences to guard the U.S-Mexico border and baggage screening equipment.

Grifo points out in her testimony that other agencies that advise the Congress – the National Academies, the Congressional Research Service, and the Government Accountability Office – have important and related missions but “they cannot meet these needs and replace what the OTA was able to do.”

Rush Holt (D- N.J.) testified at a hearing of the House Legislative Branch Subcommittee on Appropriations according to this blog post.   Holt pushed to re-fund OTA because  Congress needs  science and technology advice now more than ever, according to The Hill.

The Subcommittee  chair, Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.) said, “I want there to be more clear bipartisan support from the subcommittee, so we’re a long way from getting there, and we have to make sure that leadership is supportive of it,”  Yager reported.

Rep. Rush Holt testified at the House Legislative Branch Appropriations hearing Tuesday, asking the subcommittee to reinstate OTA in the 2010 budget.

“It was part of Congress. It spoke our language,” Holt was quoted as saying in the  Roll Call article. “It understood our peculiarities — how Members worked and our schedule.”

The Science Cheerleader recently met with Rep. Holt and Congressional Fellow Will O’Neal to talk about reopening OTA. She discusses their meeting in her blog post.  The Science Cheerleader points out, “The Executive Branch (Obama) has no shortage of science and engineering advice on policy issues as well as programs to open bidirectional conversations with the public on key policy issues. Why shouldn’t Congress have the same resources available to them?”

A blog post about the failure of the Congress to reinstate OTA says, “While the OTA may have died on the altar of partisan ideology in 1995, its revival today seems to be inhibited by a bipartisan failure to understand why it’s needed.”

Read more about Rep. Rush Holt’s (D-NJ) recent efforts to reinstate OTA here.

“This month, the Alzheimer’s Association issued a new report, 2008 Alzheimer’s Disease Facts and Figures, which contains powerful data about the disease. As reported, 5.2 million Americans live with Alzheimer’s and an estimated 10 million baby boomers – one out of eight – will develop the disease. It is the seventh leading cause of death in the U.S.

Alzheimer’s is a tragic and devastating disease that touches us all in some way. Congress and the President should ensure that the National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health have the funding they need to advance research into the disease.

More than 20 years ago, the Office of Technology Assessment (OTA) – a support agency created to provide Congress with objective and authoritative analysis of complex scientific and technical issues to aid in policymaking – issued “Losing a Million Minds: Confronting the Tragedy of Alzheimer’s Disease and Other Dementias.” This comprehensive and valuable report remains an important resource about the disease and what we need to do to combat it. It is also a good example of why Congress needs to restore funding for the OTA, which was defunded in 1994.”

Sincerely,

RUSH HOLT
Member of Congress