OTA, Fighting For Its Life In Congress, Draws From Both Sides Of The Aisle

vote with bipartisan backing, but the true test is yet to come. ON SHAKY GROUND: Director Rodger Herman notes that the House plan to save OTA can still be undone in the Senate. Even as the United States House of Representatives moved toward what many viewed as inevitable - a vote to abolish the 23-year-old Office of Technology Assessment (OTA) - the agency's director, Roger Herdman, headed for the office of Sen. Arlen Specter (R- Pa.). Herdman hoped the presidential aspirant would help halt the anti-OTA juggernaut in the Senate. To Herdman's surprise, late last month the House narrowly approved a compromise - contained in an amendment to the House's $1.7 billion Legislative Branch Appropriations Bill - that would spare the embattled agency, trim its $22 million budget by about one-third, and move OTA into the Library of Congress. Nevertheless, Herdman points out, that compromise still can be undone in the Senate, which later this summer must vote on its own appropriations measure detailing spending limits for Congress. After that, it must also survive conference-committee budget wrangling between the two houses. So Herdman, well-versed in intergovernmental politics, used his visit to Specter's office on June 21 - the day of the first of several House votes on the issue - in part to assure the senator's staffers that OTA stands ready to help its boss assess the scientific issues that most concern him. "We discussed ways OTA could be helpful to the senator, given his particular interests," Herdman recalls. "We know he is interested in terrorism and telecommunications. In fact, OTA briefed him on terrorism a couple of weeks ago, pursuant to the Oklahoma situation." Terrorism and telecommunications - if nothing the agency's ability to handle two such vastly different concerns illustrates the broad scope of OTA, one of the tiniest agencies in the federal government and the only congressional agency designed to evaluate thorny issues in science and science policy. Before OTA was established in October 1972, the sitting administration supplied Congress with its own, sometimes self- serving analysis of scientific issues. With the founding of OTA, Congress could produce its own thorough studies of some of the most complex issues to come before any legislative body. Over the past five years, OTA has completed analysis of fusion research, energy efficiency, power sources in the remote Arctic, aging nuclear power plants, automobile fuel economy, reductions in defense spending, U.S.-Mexico trade, the future of remote sensing from space, and police body-armor standards and testing. "My personal feeling," Herdman comments, "is that OTA is a superb and unmatched asset that does outstanding work, providing analysis to Congress on issues that are very tough. From a scientific standpoint, our process - with 5,000 outside advisers who do peer review and serve on expert panels - is unmatched in the legislative branch." Rep. Vic Fazio (D-Calif.), in a defense of OTA during discussion by the legislative branch subcommittee of the House Appropriations Committee in June, agreed with Herdman's assessment. OTA, he told his colleagues on the subcommittee, is the "one agency that helps us sort out the fact from fiction over increasingly technical and complex policy questions." Researchers have also expressed misgivings about the move to eliminate OTA. Joel B. Snyder, chairman of United States activities for the 240,000-member, Washington-based Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, for example, wrote Rep. Ron Packard (R-Calif.), chairman of the legislative branch appropriations subcommittee, to say that his organization was "distressed over the possibility that Congress may abolish one of its most valuable assets, the Office of Technology Assessment. . "Since its inception," he wrote, his organization has recognized "the efforts of OTA as critical to the education of Congress in many disciplines relevant to electrical engineers. Any attempt to eliminate OTA, we believe, is shortsighted." Nevertheless, Packard and other members of the new Republican majority have sworn to cut OTA, in part, to reduce the size of government - and to eliminate agencies perceived as the wellsprings of regulation. CONCERNED: Alden Meyer of the Union of Concerned Scientist fears the GOP has "singled out for elimination agencies advocating regulation. Alden Meyer, director of government relations for the Union of Concerned Scientists, also of Washington, says the GOP has, for political reasons, begun "targeting science programs that generate data analysis or results that reinforce public concerns about such issues as the environment." The Republicans, he observes, have "singled out for elimination or massive reductions" any agency or program that they fear "will drive future government regulatory programs or fan the flames of public concern about an issue." The uncertainty over OTA's future arose last December, when the Senate Republican caucus - saying that "budget cutting, like charity, begins at home" - called for sweeping reductions in the congressional budget. The caucus demanded that $200 million be trimmed from the $2.3 billion budget, and cited OTA, the General Accounting Office (GAO), and several joint committees as ripe for cutbacks. OTA, with only 143 staffers, is a particularly juicy target, according to political observers, because the GOP could eliminate an entire agency without the furor that would result from the abolition of a larger or Cabinet-level agency. At the time, OTA was particularly vulnerable to such a move, agency officials note. When voters stripped Democrats of their power, they also stripped OTA of many powerful backers in both houses by turning out the Democratic committee chairmen who decided when to call upon OTA's expertise and who were dedicated readers of OTA reports. The committee members who have replaced them do not have long- standing relationships with OTA - and most regard their ascendancy as a mandate from voters to cut the size of government. In February, OTA, fearful that inaction would doom the agency, responded to the new majority's budget-cutting fervor by offering to do some slicing of its own. Herdman announced that OTA would trim its fiscal 1996 budget request from $23 million to $15 million, cutting approximately 30 percent from the agency's expenditures. Herdman told the Senate appropriations subcommittee on the legislative branch in May that OTA is prepared to take on new challenges to satisfy the "agendas and interests of the 104th Congress, based largely on many interactions with members and staff." Herdman says that he has assured legislators that he recognizes that the House members have interests that differ from the "interests of the previous majority." "We know what some of those interests are," he comments. "We're prepared to respond to some of the new issues the new majority has discussed, including risk assessment, restructuring [the Food and Drug Administration], and so on, all of which would be within OTA's purview." That doesn't mean OTA will craft its analysis to suit the new majority, Herdman asserts. Quite the contrary, in fact. The Republican majority can expect the same balanced reports OTA has delivered to Democratic committee chairmen, he vows. A key reason for OTA's evenhandedness is that it is enforced by a bipartisan board of directors made up of members of both the House and Senate. Now shorthanded because of the loss of three members in the last election (and likely to stay that way at least until OTA's fate has been decided), the 12-member board votes on what studies to undertake and reviews analyses once they are complete. A report that shows an ideological bias is unlikely to receive board approval, according to officials. HIGH REGARD: Former OTA staffer Daryl Chubbin says the agency is viewed as "the best center for policy analysis." Daryl Chubin, a former OTA study supervisor who is now division director for re-search, evaluation, and dissemination at the National Science Foundation, says OTA has spent years building a reputation for evenhandedness after what was perceived as a partisan beginning because of strong initial support from Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.). At that time, Chubin notes, OTA was considered "Kennedy's baby" because he had campaigned so fervently to establish the agency. Director Russell Peterson, who served briefly in the late 1970s, took a significant step toward establishing the agency's independence by banishing the staff of congressional board members from OTA offices. The agency was again buffeted by politics - and threatened with extinction - in cost-cutting maneuvers during the Reagan administration in the early 1980s. "We kept a fairly low profile and just did our work," says Jean McDonald, the agency's spokeswoman. "We went through a pretty good period until now." But the agency's efforts haven't mollified OTA critics. Senate Appropriations Committee legislative branch chairman Sen. Connie Mack (R-Fla.), who is regarded by OTA staffers as one of the agency's staunchest detractors, told Herdman at the May 26 hearing: "I am not here attacking the quality of the work or the people you have in your organization." His concern, he said, is that the office had regularly issued reports that duplicated the work of other federal agencies and the policy think tanks that have sprung up all over Washington. In the House, Packard, the legislative subcommittee's chairman, echoed this concern during the June 22 floor debate over OTA's survival. "We have found duplication, serious duplication" in the work of OTA, he declared. "We have several agencies that are doing very much the same thing in terms of studies and reports." He characterized the Congressional Research Service (CRS) and GAO as other agencies with the resources to unravel science-related issues that come before Congress. OTA, however, is not without its supporters on both sides of the aisle, as the close House vote indicates. "So much of the work of this place now goes on in a second language, the language of science and technology, whether it is space issues or research issues or environmental issues," Rep. David E. Skaggs (D-Colo.) told committee members. OTA is a "necessity that we would be very foolish to try to do without," Skaggs said. "The idea that there is play or leeway in the budgets of any of the other support agencies, GAO or CRS, is simply not true. Those budgets are being held static. There is no place to put these functions. We need to keep them alive and well in OTA." Rep. Amo Houghton (R-N.Y.), a steadfast OTA advocate and board member, pointed out that the agency's role is unique in the legislative branch. He said a House that includes just three scientists among its 435 members may not fully recognize OTA's value, much less the complexity of the issues OTA threshes out in its policy papers and summaries. Chubin, the former OTA analyst now with NSF, says, "One of the reasons the agency is in the pickle it's in is because it is a support agency. It works behind the scene, letting [congressional] members take credit." He believes the suggestion that other agencies could simply take over for OTA is misguided. "The Congressional Budget Office is made up of economists and finance people. The GAO only investigates things that have come to the attention of Congress because they've gone wrong. That's a very different premise than going in and doing a study. "What worries me most about the demise of this agency is that it took a long time to develop expertise at OTA. You don't re-create this kind of capability overnight. To suggest the [partisan] Heritage Foundation, American Enterprise Institute, or Brookings Institution can produce the same analysis as an OTA report is just plain silly." An independent assessment from the Carnegie Commission on Science, Technology and Government urged in 1991 that Congress not only continue to support OTA but also beef up the agency, increase its staff by 10 percent, and enhance the agency's ability to attract and retain top-notch analysts from the ranks of talented scientists. Budget constraints during the Bush administration made it virtually impossible for OTA to comply with the commission's recommendations. The Washington, D.C.-based American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) - taking its cue from a recommendation by the Carnegie Commission - has established a program called "The AAAS Center for Science, Technology and the Congress" to provide congressional staff with guidance in their search for background on science issues. The first meeting of the center's advisory board took place last month. NEW PROGRAM: AAAS's Albert Teich heads a new center to aid congressional staff in getting information, but does not have OTA's budget. But Albert H. Teich, the center's director; Bonnie Cassidy, its organizer and staffer; and virtually everyone interviewed at AAAS familiar with the debate hasten to dispel the notion that AAAS will take up where OTA left off. "OTA's budget is $20 million a year," Cassidy says. "We're at half a million over two years. If OTA's abolished, there's going to be a void, and this center is not going to be able to step in and fill it." She adds that AAAS opposes the elimination of OTA because it will limit Congress' ability to get scientific information. Without OTA, Cassidy remarks, members will be forced to turn to the administration or think tanks, on whom they likely cannot depend for accurate and genuinely unbiased analysis. An internal study commissioned by former OTA director John Gibbons, now President Clinton's chief science adviser, found that congressional staff of both parties, independent scientific advisers with extensive experience working with OTA, and former OTA staff regard the agency as the "best center for policy analysis in Washington," according to Chubin, who worked on the study, which was completed in 1993 but never released. Now, two years later, OTA is fighting for its survival. On June 22 - the date of the final House vote - the budget cutters nearly triumphed in the House. An amendment that would spare OTA, sponsored by Houghton and Fazio, was voted down after tumultuous floor debate, near-Byzantine procedural maneuvering, and partisan wrangling over a disputed roll-call vote. Had that vote been endorsed by House Republican leadership, the agency-saving compromise would have been rejected 214 to 213. But Democrats objected that the Republican presiding officer, Rep. John Linder (R.-Ga.), had cut off voting early and denied two Democratic members the right to vote. A rebellion among GOP supporters of OTA and threatened disruptions by Democrats prompted the House Republican leadership to allow the vote to be retaken. This time, the measure was approved, 220 to 204. Herdman says OTA's fate will not be decided for some months yet. "It's premature to say that's what's going to happen until we know what the Senate is going to do, and until the two houses go to conference" to reconcile their different versions of the legislative appropriations bill, he states. For his part, Packard says he regards the House-Senate conference as a new opportunity to kill the agency. "I'm going to fight to shut it down," he recently told reporters. Herdman does not plan to sit idly by awaiting that outcome, however. Although federal regulations prohibit Herdman or other OTA staffers from lobbying Congress on his agency's behalf, he plans to use the appropriations process to educate the new House leadership about how the relatively obscure agency could serve the members in their new jobs. "Although we cannot lobby, we can make every effort to make our case within the appropriations process, to show what OTA can do to be helpful by way of providing analysis of science and tech issues before Congress. "We have an added incentive when there's a question as to whether that is a function that Congress wants." Steve Sternberg is a freelance science writer based in Alexandria, Va. (The Scientist, Vol:9, #15, pg.1 , July 24, 1995) (Copyright © The Scientist, Inc.) garfield@aurora.cis.upenn.edu

OTA, Fighting For Its Life In Congress, Draws From Both Sides Of The Aisle

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