Congressional Decision To Disband OTA Prompts Dire Warnings From Supporters

STRONG WORDS: OSTP's Skip Johns blasts Congress for its "shortsighted act". Only a presidential veto--or a last-minute change of heart--could have stopped the Republican-led Congress from abolishing its only in-house source of science-policy analysis, the 23-year-old Office of Technology Assessment. But a threatened veto is now unlikely to come, and Congress has voted and moved on to other matters. OTA is history. On July 27, House and Senate conferees sealed the agency's fate in H.R. 104-21

Steve Sternberg

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OTA is history.

On July 27, House and Senate conferees sealed the agency's fate in H.R. 104-212, the Legislative Branch Appropriations bill for fiscal 1996. It is a compromise measure that sets funding limits for Congress and its agencies, including the Library of Congress and the Congressional Budget Office. It is also the first such bill in nearly a quarter of a century to omit funding for OTA.

OTA director Roger Herdman calls the vote "unfortunate" for the agency, Congress, and the United States.

"In 1972," he observes, "when OTA was established, Congress understood that if it relied on the executive branch or the private sector it would get advice that would reflect the agendas of the executive branch or private agencies. I still don't think they're going to be able to get what OTA gave them in any other way than from OTA."

Herdman says that the committee provided ...

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