OTA: You Are Missed
Nearly a decade ago, Congress closed its Office of Technology Assessment. The president of the Federation of American Scientists, a former OTA employee, called the closing the “equivalent of a self-inflicted lobotomy.” Between 1974 and 1995 OTA produced 750 thorough reports about a wealth of scientific and technical studies.
Since then, the Congressional Research Service (thanks, CDT!) has been providing Congress with quick summaries of issues, but CRS doesn't have the deep technical expertise that OTA did, or the resources to do sustained studies. The National Academies have the time and the resources, but they take too long and they have too many constituents to serve.
In re-writing the Telecom Act and jumping into having the FCC regulate the internet, it would be good to have a neutral, expert, bipartisan group advising Congress about the consequences of their actions. As a UPI story noted last year:
The real-world practicality of having members of Congress figure [technology policy] out by making phone calls is questionable. Even if everyone could find the time to sit down with experts on spectrum interference — or virology or computer systems or other complicated topics — would they realistically be able to sort through all the conflicting information on all the topics Congress covers to find what is needed to make fast decisions? Not likely.
The OTA's job was not to make policy recommendations. Instead, they tried to advise Congress about the implications of various paths. Congress is not doing very well on other scientific and technical fronts, and some advice might be useful.
On the other hand, the communications industry spent $1.1 billion between 1998 and 2004 to lobby Congress and the FCC, so I'm sure everyone is well informed.
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The New Yorker has an extremely funny, if scary, Talk of the Town segment on the broad demise of actual science in public policy debates under the current administration. Slightly off topic, but clearly related.
yikes. Yup, we're not doing well on the scientific front.
[…] Clinton Blasts Bush’s War on Science - blog entry from today’s NY Times. It would certainly be a good idea to bring back the Office of Technology Assessment. Here’s an entry from this blog from more than two years ago. OTA: You Are Missed. […]