The Origins, Accomplishments, and Demise of the Office of Technology Assessment

During the summer of 1995, after multiple rounds of debates, the U.S. Congress abolished one of its four support agencies: the Office of Technology Assessment (OTA). This unprecedented event was important, not because of the size of OTAs budget, but because of OTAs stature as a source of technically substantive, balanced analysis for Congress. In the ensuing years analysts and politicians alike have continued to debate how to best provide scientific and technical advice for use in the congressional decisionmaking process. As the remainder of this book will help to clarify, there are a number of institutional models that may be able to fill the void left by the closure of the OTA.