Marisa Katz | Washington Post | October 30, 2009
The Washington Post is sponsoring “America’s Next Great Pundit Contest.” The Post received 4,800 entries from people who hoped to write better commentary than they had been reading. The Post selected ten entries to move to the next level of the competition. The winner of the contest will be hired to write a weekly column.
Among the ten finalists was the Nobel Prize -winning physicist, Burton Richter, who opined about the need for Congress to re-establish the Office of Technology Assessment. He pointed out that a 1974 OTA report, “Drug Bioequivalence,” is relevant in recent discussions of health care costs. He also recommended one of his favorite OTA reports, “Renewing Our Energy Future,” which discussed the potential of secondary sources for biofuels.
According to Richter, “A new OTA will not settle all the arguments because there are political dimensions to major technical issues, but at least it can help Congress arrive at a common starting point for complicated legislation.”
Kevin Drum of Mother Jones News kindly provided a summary of the columns at “Pundit Watch” for those wishing to save a little time.
Dan Vergano | USA Today | May 29, 2009
A column about measuring the size of underground nuclear blasts by their seismic waves refers to a 1988 OTA report, “Seismic Verification of Nuclear Testing Treaties,” that suggested that it might be difficult to detect a nucleat test smaller than 5 kilotons.
In the two decades since that report, verification has improved and now smaller blasts can be detected, the article says.
Rush Holt | Wired Science | April 29, 2009
In an op-ed article, Rep. Holt makes the case that it is time for Congress to restore an important science resource to its rightful place – referring, of course, to OTA. Holt points out that since very few members of Congress are scientists, they need their own source of science advice. He said:
While members of Congress do not suffer from a lack of information, we lack time and resources to assess the validity, credibility, and usefulness of the large amount of scientific information and advice we receive as it affects actual policy decisions. The purpose of the OTA was to assist members of Congress in this task. It both provided an important long-term perspective and alerted Congress to scientific and technological components of policy that might not be obvious.
Holt mentioned that OTA wrote comprehensive reports in the 1990s on issues that the Congress and the President are preparing to address today, for example: clinical preventive services, patient cost-sharing, health care in rural America, and health technologies. OTA also reported to Congress on energy efficiency, including how to save energy on transportation.
Gerald L. Epstein | Science Progress | March 31, 2009
An article gives a brief history of OTA and argues that the Congress needs technical support much more today than when OTA was orginally created. The article also points out that OTA is not just for scientists:
Ironically, the scientific community’s strong support for OTA may have created the false impression that OTA primarily served to support scientists. This is like saying that television weather announcers primarily serve to support professional meteorologists—which is, of course, precisely backwards. Meteorologists already know the weather. The role of television weather announcers is to take meteorological forecasts, turn them into language the rest of us can understand, and enable us all to make better plans. The scientific community supported OTA not because it benefitted scientists directly, but because it enabled members of Congress to make better decisions about policy issues with significant scientific and technological components.
By Mark Clayton | Christian Science Monitor | August 27, 2008
An article about nuclear power plants and laser isotope separation refers to a 1977 OTA report, Nuclear Proliferation and Safeguards Appendix Volume II Part 2.
By Kinchy, Abby J Kleinman, Daniel Lee; Autry, Robyn | Red Orbit | September 2, 2008
A blog post about globalization, neoliberalism and agricultural biotechnology policy refers to a 1991 OTA report, U.S. Dairy Industry at a Crossroads: Biotechnology and Policy Choices.
PDF 
