Office of Technology Assessment, United States Congress, science, technology, policy
The Office of Technology Assessment Got it Right (Sort Of)
By Philip H. | The Intersection | September 2, 2008
This blog post mentioned the OTA Archive and discussed some ideas about how to communicate science to Congress. Referred to several OTA reports on issues that are still being debated: a 1990 report, Replacing Gasoline: Alternative Fuels for Light Duty Vehicles and Preparing for an Uncertain Climate Volume I and Volume II published in 1993.
The Office of Technology Assessment, like any successful organization, used regular self-evaluation to ensure that Congress got the most out of OTA reports. In response to suggestions from members of Congress and Hill staff, OTA created report briefs. These two to four page documents summarized the main points of a full report in simple, direct language. Today’s document is one of those report briefs, “The tragic loss of life from ‘friendly fire’ can be reduced”. It beings as follows:
The disturbing incidents of ‘friendly fire’ deaths suffered by the United States and its allies in the Persian Gulf War focused new attention on an old problem. U.S. forces shooting at their own units caused 24 percent of U.S. combat deaths in the war. The fraction of losses due to friendly fire, or fratricide, seemed extraordinarily high and caused considerable public concern and international friction. The OTA report, Who Goes There: Friend or Foe?, explores the causes of friendly fire and some of the remedies that might be found in new technology, training, and doctrine.
Click here to read the full 1993 OTA report, “Who goes there: friend or foe?”
More report briefs will be posted on this page in the coming days.
When we launched the OTA archive a few weeks ago we promised that new material not previously available to the public would be added to the archive. Today we’re happy to announce that some of this material is now available. Click here to read a copy of the press advisory that accompanied the release of this 1992 OTA report, “Genetic Tests and Health Insurance: Results of a Survey.”
The press release says:
The ongoing project to map human genes will almost certainly expand the number of DNA-based tests for genetic disorders by an order of magnitude over the next decade. How health insurers view such tests will affect their use, says the Congressional Office of Technology Assessment (OTA).
An OTA background paper issued today describes the results from a 1991 OTA survey of U.S. health insurers’ attitudes toward genetic tests and genetic information – both their attitudes towards genetic information in making determinations of insurability and how they might reimburse consumers for genetic tests.
This press advisory is one of eight newly available documents released in the summer and fall of 1992. Click here to check them out. We’d be happy to collect and scan similar documents if anyone has them.
By Karen Carnabucci | Lake House Racine Blog | August 18, 2008
This blog post discusses the benefits and drawbacks of paying for psychotherapy with employer-issued health insurance versus out of pocket funds. Ms. Carnabucci cites this 1991 OTA report, “Medical Monitoring and Screening in the Workplace: Results of a Survey“, which found that “almost a third of the employers that maintained employee medical records let their personnel departments read those records without notifying the employee.”
By Christopher Johnson, MD | Chris Johnson Blog | August 13, 2008
Dr. Johnson has a new blog post on children that are technology-dependent, or in other words they rely on technology in order to stay alive. He says:
“How many of these children are there in the community?…The only comprehensive data I could find for the USA are twenty years old, when a study (This 1987 OTA report, Technology Dependent Children: Hospital Vs. Home Care) from the federal Office of Technology Assessment estimated the total as 50,000 children (or about 5/100,000 persons) were technology-dependent, 2,000 of these needing ventilators.”
We conclude our weekly feature on OTA reports related to energy policy with these four reports. Two examine energy security related to a disruption in U.S oil imports, and the other two discuss oil and gas exploration in the arctic and off the coast of the continental U.S. Our posts from earlier in the week are available here, here, and here.
U.S. Vulnerability to an Oil Import Curtailment, September 1984
“This report responds to a request by the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations for an analysis of the U.S. oil replacement capability in the event of an oil supply shortfall of indefinite duration.”
Oil and Gas Technologies for the Arctic and Deepwater, May 1985
“This assessment addresses the technologies, the economics, and the operational and environmental factors affecting the exploration and development of energy resources in the deepwater and Arctic regions of the U.S. Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) and the 200-mile Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) established in March 1983.”
Oil Production in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge: The Technology and the Alaskan Oil Context, February 1989
“In deciding the future of the ANWR coastal plain, Congress must address a wide variety of issues ranging from the environmental impacts of oilfield exploration, development, and production in an Arctic environment to the economic and national security benefits of potential additional oil production in Alaska…This report presents the results of an assessment of a subset of these issues focusing in particular on: the oilfield technology being used to develop the Alaskan North Slope’s oil resources and the likely configuration of that technology as it might be applied in the future to the coastal plain; and the prospects for future North Slope oil production, especially the likelihood that the flow of oil through the Trans Alaskan Pipeline System will suffer a serious decline during the next decade.”
U.S. Oil Import Vulnerability: The Technical Replacement Capability, October 1991
“Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait in August 1990 triggered a long-dormant awareness of this Nation’s vulnerability to disruptions in foreign oil supplies. Amid heightened concern over the potential impacts on U.S. oil supplies of prolonged hostilities in the Middle East, the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources asked OTA to update the conclusions of our 1984 report, U.S. Vulnerability to an Oil Import Curtailment…The report’s conclusion that U.S. capability to replace lost oil imports is shrinking should be sobering to those who believe that there are quick and easy technological solutions, or that market forces alone will be sufficient to overcome the substantial economic and social dislocations that could result from a prolonged major oil disruption.”
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