Bring Back the OTA - Bring Back Evidence Based Government

The market and lobbyists should decide what is good science worthy of public policy funding. No?

This type of organization would duplicate the quality work being done by the private sector and presented to members of Congress by lobbyists.

1995? I wonder if demise of OTA had something to do with the changing winds after the contract on America. Maybe it was a priority to kill the bitch dead back in the day.

You know.. I keep reading this as bring back OTB?! I'm pretty sure Off track betting isn't going anywhere soon ;)

There's an interesting book out on how a new OTA might work.

"Science and Technology Advice for Congress"
M. Granger Morgan and Jon M. Peha, editors
RFF Press, 236 p.
hardcover ISBN 1-891853-75-9 (US$65.00)
paperback ISBN 1-891853-74-0 (US$26.95)

The elimination of the Office of Technology Assessment (OTA) in 1995 came during a storm of budget cutting and partisan conflict. Operationally, it left Congress without an institutional arrangement to bring expert scientific and technological advice into the process of legislative decisionmaking. This deficiency has become increasingly critical, as more and more of the decisions faced by Congress and society require judgments based on highly specialized technical information.

Offering perspectives from scholars and scientists with diverse academic backgrounds and extensive experience within the policy process, Science and Technology Advice for Congress breaks from the politics of the OTA and its contentious aftermath. Granger Morgan and Jon Peha begin with an overview of the use of technical information in framing policy issues, crafting legislation, and the overall process of governing. They note how, as nonexperts, legislators must make decisions in the face of scientific uncertainty and competing scientific claims from stakeholders. The contributors continue with a discussion of why OTA was created. They draw lessons from OTA's demise, and compare the use of science and technological information in Europe with the United States.

The second part of the book responds to requests from congressional leaders for practical solutions. Among the options discussed are expanded functions within existing agencies such as the General Accounting or Congressional Budget Offices; an independent, NGO- administrated analysis group; and a dedicated successor to OTA within Congress. The models emphasize flexibility--and the need to make political feasibility a core component of design.

I posted about it on my blog here.

Rep. Rush Holt has been pushing this for most of his tenure in Congress. Recreating the OTA was likely first advanced about 6 months after it was shuttered. The idea has not gotten off the ground, and the House Science Committee hearing on this topic last fall suggests the political will isn't there. My observations as to why:

- Some don't see the need. A small percentage literally don't see the need for that kind of analysis, other think that the National Academies, or private consultants, could provide the same service.

- OTA was insufficiently timely. This is a bit of a red herring, but the argument is advanced that reports were rarely done fast enough for the Congressional client.

The more likely scenario for a 'renewed OTA' is for some similar capacity to be grown within the Government Accountability Office. They've tried to grow this capacity for a while, as I posted about last month on Prometheus.

That's a good post on the topic David. I've noticed lots of people posting here and there on the topic over the last few months, and several articles over the years begging for it's return, but no real concerted effort.

One thing that I don't think can be discounted is the importance of having the offices be within the legislative branch. Having scientists not just writing reports but regularly accessible to the members would be of great value. It was my understanding that the OTA wasn't just a bunch of toilers in the basement, but people who cultivated relationships with the members and could be sought for routine advice beyond what was in the reports.

...and could be sought for routine advice beyond what was in the reports.

If Edwards wins, I think I know which ScienceBlogger gets the nod as Imperial Wizard.

But heck, couldn't the legislative branch (or executive branch for that matter) just host ad-hoc mashups to get diversity of views and opinions. Which, of course, would inevitably lead to the requisite atheism, religion, cherry picking, denialism and namecalling.

Re: Timeliness issue -- The OTA was fundamentally pre-Web 1.0 and we're already up to Web 2.0+. Why bring back an old bureaucracy when we've got all this interconnectedness and Gen-Y/Millenial zeitgeist vibe?

This is a great topic... I for one have actually given some significant thought to trying to doing the sort of advisory work the OTA did. It is very important, and actually interesting stuff to do.

However, I don't actually see how the OTA (or any other non-partisan advisory capacity) could be built up again in today's environment. Trying to staff a new office in the OMB or a new OTA would be a political nightmare I think. Even if the Dems in charge of the task were honest about staying non-partisan, the GOP would wail like banshees about every new hire since at this point objective scientific consensus (and competence) is incompatible with many of their deeply held views. The new office would be tarred as 'liberal' even before they gave any advice or wrote a single report. That would kill much of the point of it in the first place.

A quick question as well. Why can't the NAS fill this role? I don't know much about how the NAS is actually structured and I'm actually really curious.

Be careful with the term "evidence based". I've heard the term used to support things like homeopathy and aromatherapy. In this case, "evidence" means any "anecdotal evidence". If someone claimed they were helped by it, then that's "evidence based".

I'm not sure what you'd replace it with. I like "science based", with all the (in my mind) positive baggage that "science" brings with it.

A quick question as well. Why can't the NAS fill this role? I don't know much about how the NAS is actually structured and I'm actually really curious.

I think the NAS is inadequate for the role. We need an office within the legislative branch so that scientists and legislators are working closely together. The NAS has been good for when someone needs a report commissioned, but doesn't provide the kind of policy analysis that the OTA used to.

It's conceivable that the NAS could do something like this, but it's current role is much more limited - more like an independent contractor.

Be careful with the term "evidence based". I've heard the term used to support things like homeopathy and aromatherapy. In this case, "evidence" means any "anecdotal evidence". If someone claimed they were helped by it, then that's "evidence based".

Hey, it's not our fault alties steal our language. But that doesn't mean we have to change it each time they do. It's a scary day when "evidence-based" makes people think of quackery though.

I've blogged about this here. This is a good idea and we should try to get as many people to contact their representatives as we can.

I would but I'm not American. I wish you the best of luck.

A quick question as well. Why can't the NAS fill this role? I don't know much about how the NAS is actually structured and I'm actually really curious.

I think the NAS is inadequate for the role. We need an office within the legislative branch so that scientists and legislators are working closely together. The NAS has been good for when someone needs a report commissioned, but doesn't provide the kind of policy analysis that the OTA used to.

It's conceivable that the NAS could do something like this, but it's current role is much more limited - more like an independent contractor.

Exactly right. The NAS is outside the federal government and works for a number of branches of government--often on long-term issues, for example determining whether there's a scientific consensus on a controversial issue. That's a completely different function from the very focused analysis that OTA used to provide.

The NAS and GAO scenarios are discussed in the Morgan and Peha book I mentioned above. There's also a fascinating older book--sorry, I'm drawing a blank on the name--that looks at the creation of the OTA. Essentially, the OTA provides Congress with analysis of specific key policy items like the federal budget. Before the OTA, the Congress had to accept whatever analysis was provided by the President's staff. Part of the impetus for creating the OTA was the revelation that the President's budget was (gasp) misleading and even provided numbers that were wrong by orders of magnitude. Congress needed a specific, focused, dedicated organization providing policy analysis that was oriented toward their needs. In my view, neither the NAS nor the GAO does that at the pace or specificity required to replace to OTA. A closer analog might be the Congressional Research Service.

Okay, I've linked from here now. I'll probably do another few posts on related topics in the near future, too.

What IS, incidentally, the functional difference between what was the Office of Technology Assessment and the Congressional Research Service's "Resources, Science, and Industry" group? (A question I ask in the post, because I'm really not sure...feel free to comment there on my blog as well. Yes, this IS also a sleazy attempt to invite more readers, I'll admit it...)

I'm convinced, I just fired off a letter to my representative, Jo Ann Davis. Next Jim Webb and John Warner.

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There's a good case for bringing back the OTA in M. Granger Morgan's "The U.S. Congress Needs Advice about Science and Technology" in the August 15, 2004 issue of Environmental Science & Technology, a journal of the American Chemical Society. Morgan's a member of the National Academy of Sciences and engineering prof. at Carnegie Mellon.