Internal Problems Confront OTA In Wake Of John Gibbons's Move To Key Position In White House

Observers see organizational and budgetary challenges as potential impediments to office's effectiveness A year after former director John H. Gibbons's departure to become White House science adviser, the congressional Office of Technology Assessment (OTA) is going through a difficult period of transition, reorganization, and budgetary belt- tightening. Editor's Note: Office of Technology Assessment director Roger Herdman discussed a variety of issues facing the agency during an extensive interview last month with Barton Reppert, a contributing editor of The Scientist. Following are excerpts from the interview: On OTA's mission: "It's up to us to bring to the attention of Congress data, conclusions, and options--not recommendations, but options.... We're not a blue-sky think tank.... We need to provide practical information. And we want to be ahead. But we certainly can't afford to be looking ahead 10 or 20 years." On OTA's priorities: "I'm keenly aware that my priorities are the priorities of my [Technology Assessment] board and the congressional committees. Although we provide some feedback, and we carry on discussions and negotiations with the committees, the fact of the matter is that what OTA works on is what the congressional committees identify as their priorities, and what our board approves." On national information infrastructure: "We've had continuing emphasis on the national information infrastructure [the NII].... We have, right now, two major studies which look at ways in which [the NII] can help various sectors of our economy. One, we're looking at the way that the wireless technologies can be melded into the NII.... Secondly, we're looking at the ways that the NII can relate to the health sector." On technology, health care, and computer networks: "There are a lot of pie-in-the-sky, very optimistic, not very well- defined scenarios. Let me take the health area, which I, of course, as a physician and former health person at OTA, am intimately familiar with. They talk about computerized medical records--what a wonderful thing. Well, that's 10 years away, quite frankly. Take telemedicine. I'm not so sure that the guy in Podunk needs to see on a gigabit network the actual MRI, where he could probably do just as well with somebody saying, `Look, it's normal.' ... I think it remains to be seen.... We're looking at it from the bottom up--at small projects which have been running around the country. We're actually looking at how they're financed and so on, to see what is really is working." On computers in public education: OTA's project team has been "focusing rather narrowly on ... information technologies actually in the classroom. How do teachers use computers--they don't use them very well, and why not? How many schools have got computers, where are they, and how are they being used? How do people teach teachers--train them to get the most out of information technologies? What are information technologies really doing for kids?" On defense industry conversion: "Defense has been a tough one for OTA recently. It's still a priority, but it's one which I think we're wrestling with. Because clearly it's a different world. What we have been focusing on . . . is the defense conversion situation--dual-use technologies, retraining, how to use the national labs for other than defense purposes, how to help industry." On nuclear weapons dismantlement and cleanup: "We have a series of studies on cleaning up contamination from [Department of Energy] facilities, looking at dismantling nuclear weapons--the problems that we as a nation are having with where to store all this plutonium and highly enriched uranium which is left to us as a result of all these weapons.... Those environmental problems are not only problems in this country--they're problems for the countries of the former Soviet Union. And we're actually exploring some of the issues over there, in terms of helping them-- looking at the nuclear contamination and the dismantling problem." On hiring and keeping talent at OTA: "The government doesn't compete with industry salaries for top people. That's totally out of the question. You look around OTA and, yes, there are some people with gray hair here. But our staff is basically young people.... Whatever the price we have to pay, we're going to continue to pay, so that at least we're competitive within federal service." On maintaining OTA's assessment process: "OTA will always be accused of taking too long, and the issue has passed us by. There's nothing that I even want to do about that, to the extent that our people are going to get it right.... If it's going to be a 150-page book, it's got to be right, we can't make a mistake." The congressional agency--which marked its 20th anniversary last year--researches and prepares evaluations and analyses that Congress relies upon heavily in making science and technology funding and policy decisions. The information in its highly regarded reports and briefing papers is also used extensively by scientists, the media, and the general public. OTA's new director, Roger C. Herdman--a physician and public health expert who for nine years headed the office's Health and Life Sciences Division--is striving to deal with budget constraints by trimming OTA's senior management, while at the same aiming to preserve its project teams of policy analysts. Herdman also has had to cope with replacing a number of senior staff members who left OTA last year either to work under Gibbons at the Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) or to assume new positions here in the Clinton administration. Nonetheless, several OTA-watchers interviewed by The Scientist say they feel that, in view of the circumstances, the changeover from Gibbons--who in his 14-year tenure at the office is generally credited with building its prestige and influence--to Herdman has for the most part proceeded with fluency. According to Neil E. Harl, a member of OTA's Technology Assessment Advisory Council and a professor of economics at Iowa State University, Ames, "things have gone fairly smoothly. It's been a difficult time, because of budget constraints and the fact that the demands on the agency continue to be increasing .... But I think Dr. Herdman has done quite a good job of moving into Jack's [Gibbons's] position." At the same time, some observers voice concern that the ability of OTA--which was established by Congress in 1972 and began operations in 1973--to continue producing solid, carefully researched reports on a broad range of technology- related issues and policy options may be impaired by staff turnover and downsizing, the continuing budget squeeze, and other problems. Rep. George E. Brown, Jr. (D-Calif.), chairman of the House Science, Space, and Technology Committee and a member of OTA's 12-member bipartisan congressional board since establishment of the agency, indicates that he has mixed views about how well OTA has been living up to its mandate and reputation. "OTA has been really marvelously productive in looking at a wide range of subjects, and providing what I think is the best, the most objective analysis," says Brown, who is widely regarded as Congress' leading expert on science and technology issues. However, Brown adds: "I have been a little disappointed in OTA, not in the sense of the quantity or quality of its work, but [because] I have felt that it could have done--and I wanted it to do--a little larger job of making specific policy recommendations. OTA has stayed away from that pretty much. It gives choices, but it doesn't make recommendations." OTA's staff changes over the past year, Brown says, have resulted in a temporary period of "turbulence" within the agency. "The net results are going to be a short-term deterioration in both output and, possibly, quality of the product at OTA. When you lose a substantial portion of your top staff, that's what happens," he says. Brown says of OTA's overall performance: "On balance, I think it has not yet achieved the peak of its potential. It does face a problem of continually renewing itself and scrutinizing its operations to maintain the quality" of its staff and output. OTA In Transition Daryl C. Chubin, a former OTA senior associate who now heads the office of research, evaluation, and dissemination in the education directorate of the National Science Foundation, comments that "the agency is in a period of flux and reorganization, internally. It's going to get smaller, it's going to get more streamlined. Whether that means leaner and meaner remains to be seen." Shortly after Gibbons was named to the presidential science adviser post, he reportedly told a gathering of agency staff members that he had no intention of hiring away OTA managers and analysts for the White House science and technology operation. But that's not how things turned out. "Jack, in going to OSTP, hired a lot of our senior people. He staffed OSTP with OTA," Herdman observes, adding, "I think Jack told me 25 percent of his staff was from OTA." This turnover has seen the departure of two OTA assistant directors--Lionel S. Johns, who left to become OSTP associate director for technology, and John Andelin, who retired. Along with Johns, five other senior OTA staff members departed to work at OSTP. In addition, over the past year several OTA analysts have decided to leave for new jobs here in the executive branch or with other organizations around Washington. However, Herdman contends that the changes in senior staff at OTA may prove to be beneficial by allowing him to put in place a new management team and providing "considerable flexibility" to implement an ongoing reorganization effort. In an extensive interview with The Scientist (see story on page 7), Herdman explained his overall approach to revamping OTA--so that the agency can operate within a tight budget climate, but still maintain its reputation for thorough, high-quality research and policy analysis. "I don't want to whittle us down any more than I have to," he says. "The idea is to take a series of steps which allow us to generate savings, while at the same time preserving our working teams--the project director and the analysts--as much as possible, so that we can still continue to turn out the quantity and quality of reports that we traditionally have." For the 1994 fiscal year, OTA had sought a budget of $22.925 million, an increase of $1.9 million from its 1993 appropriation of $21.025 million. However, congressional appropriations committees directed that its budget be cut to $20.815 million. Over the last several years, OTA's staff has declined from a peak of 230 employees to a current level of 205. That number is to inch down further to 202 staffers in the next budget year. "If they keep cutting us, we're just going to lose productivity--we won't be able to do the same amount of work. At some point, things are going to have to give," Herdman says. In addition to its own staff, OTA makes extensive use of expert advisory panels and outside contractors to gather data and sound out the views of "stakeholders" on various sides of the issues it is dealing with. The advisory panels currently involve about 1,600 participants a year. Herdman's reorganization effort so far has included changing its structure from three divisions to two: the Industry, Commerce, and International Security Division, headed by assistant director Peter Blair; and the Health and Environmental Sciences Division, headed by assistant director Clyde Behney. Blair previously had been in charge of OTA's energy and materials program, while Behney was promoted from his former position in charge of the health program. The next step in the reorganization plan will be consolidating OTA's program structure, reducing the number of programs from the current nine probably down to six, in order to achieve further savings on management costs. According to agency officials, this move is expected to be carried out within the next couple of months. The New Director Herdman, 60, came to OTA in 1984 from Memorial Sloan- Kettering Cancer Center in New York, where he was a vice president. Previously, he had served as director of public health for the New York State Department of Health, and as a professor of pediatrics specializing in children's kidney diseases and transplantation at Albany Medical College in New York. In response to the question of whether his professional background makes it likely that OTA will devote increased attention to health-related issues, Herdman says: "I suppose it's fair to say that maybe in the minds of some it has a little greater salience--just like when Jack Gibbons was here, energy policy might have had a little greater salience because . . . he was an energy-policy guy. I am what I am. I'm a doctor, and I did health--I'm a health-policy guy. Now we have an assistant director who's an energy-policy guy, so we've sort of switched." Gibbons and Herdman also present a contrast in personal styles. According to Chubin, "Jack has wonderful interpersonal skills--his charm comes through. Rog-er is more retiring and taciturn, if you will.... But I can tell you that, one-on-one, Roger's quite effective, and even with small groups I think he's effective. If you put him in front of an audience, that's not his best setting." When Gibbons left in January 1993, Herdman became acting director of OTA. But he was not named permanent director until May, when the initial choice of a search committee under the auspices of OTA's congressional board, advanced materials expert Maxine Savitz of Morristown, N.J.-based Allied-Signal Inc., changed her mind and decided against taking the job. After Savitz's withdrawal, says Rep. Amo Houghton (R-N.Y.), a member of the congressional board, "all of a sudden we realized that we had this guy here who's darn good. We had thought it would be a fine idea to reach out and get somebody who had a little different perspective--from the outside. But Roger has done a great job here." Houghton adds that he is "not unhappy at all" with the outcome. According to Houghton, a member of the powerful House Ways and Means Committee, "They [at OTA] do an awful lot with not that much [funding]. I know what research budgets and what consulting budgets are. They get the last ounce of blood out of the stone. If the budget continues to shrink, then, obviously, they'll just have to cut back on their scope-- hopefully not on the quality." Doing A Lot With A Little In terms of staff and budget, OTA is considerably smaller than either of Congress' other main support agencies--the Congressional Research Service and the General Accounting Office. But it has become known as a highly productive operation, turning out reports that often have a wider audience among the research community, the news media, and the general public. OTA's current publications catalog lists 540 reports and briefer "background papers"--dealing with such diverse issues as Alzheimer's disease, global biotechnology research, genetic monitoring and screening, medical technology, health insurance, high-performance computing and communications, restructuring of the defense industry, disposal of chemical weapons, international technology transfer, oversight of federally funded research programs, and aviation safety. Marcel C. LaFollette, a science policy analyst at George Washington University's Center for International Science and Technology Policy, says that while OTA is primarily intended to serve the needs of Congress, its secondary function of disseminating information more widely is also important. "They are there to serve their clients [congressional committees]," LaFollette says. "But what they also do is to produce reports that are extremely valuable to educating the rest of the American public on these issues.... That's really a great deal of help if you're a legislator in South Dakota, or a citizen advocate in Montana or someplace, and you want to get up to speed in a neutral and objective way, and to see the issues laid out on both sides." OTA reports are the end product of an assessment process that can take as long as two years--including conducting background research, convening advisory panels of experts to sound out a diversity of viewpoints, using outside consultants to prepare contractor reports, writing the report by OTA staff members, then having several drafts reviewed both internally and outside the agency--before the final report is released. According to some science and policy analysts, in certain cases this drawn-out process at OTA means that the agency's reports are not timely enough, and that key decisions involved with the issue in question have already been made before an OTA study is finally issued. "Their whole process for deciding they were doing to do a report, physically doing it, and then going through an infinite number of reviews seems to get the process so protracted," says John Pike, director of the space policy project at the Federation of American Scientists in Washington, D.C. On the other hand, Pike adds, some OTA reports hit the mark in terms of both comprehensiveness and timely release. He cites a 199-page report issued last July dealing in part with the developing convergence of U.S. civilian and military weather satellite programs. The report, "The Future of Remote Sensing from Space," was prepared by an OTA team headed by project director Ray A. Williamson. Pike calls the report "really a stand-out in the sense that this is a big policy debate that is going on right now. And I think that the OTA study is really about the only piece of paper that I can point to.... It's a hot, breaking issue where they're basically the one-stop shop." Barton Reppert is a freelance science writer based in Gaithersburg, Md.

Internal Problems Confront OTA In Wake Of John Gibbons's Move To Key Position In White House

Feb 20, 1994

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