Even as complicated technology shapes the national debate about privacy and surveillance, politicians on Capitol Hill recently voted to reject a proposal that would have provided the science and tech education they so desperately need.
Lawmakers voted on Friday against an amendment that would have revived the Office of Technology Assessment, a tech advisory body created by an Act of Congress in 1972 that provided lawmakers with detailed and unbiased research on science and tech issues to help inform their decisions until it was killed in 1995 by lawmakers.
Rep. Mark Takano (D---California) introduced an amendment last Monday to the Legislative Branch Appropriations Act 2017 that would have allocated $2.5 million to revive the OTA. The amendment was rejected, however, on Friday by a vote of 223 to 179.
At its peak the OTA's budget was $20 million, so the amount Takano proposed to revive it was just one-tenth its former operating budget. The $2.5 million would have come from the Architect of the Capitol's Capital Construction and Operations Account, an administrative budget currently earmarked for a federal construction project. According to Takano's spokesman, the redirection would not have adversely affected the construction project.
"There is money allocated for the actual construction project and there is money dedicated to other administrative purposes that may be accessible that may not be needed," spokesman Josh Weisz told WIRED. "It would not have disrupted the construction project. The goal was to allocate a small fraction of what the OTA operated on when it was funded 20 years ago. It’s obviously well short of that, but the goal was to start it up and to use this as a building block to start paying for staff and expenses and revive it."
Former Rep. Rush Holt (D---New Jersey) tried a similar tactic last year before he left office. He proposed an amendment that also would have allocated $2.5 million to revive the OTA, which would have come from the House Historic Buildings Revitalization Trust Fund. Lawmakers rejected that amendment as well by a vote of 248 to 164.
During its 20 years in existence, the OTA produced 700 reports for lawmakers on highly classified topics like terrorism, nuclear proliferation, the effectiveness of satellite and space programs, genetic engineering, computer security and privacy, and the environmental impact of various technologies. It was an OTA report that also helped put the kibosh on President Reagan's $20 billion Star Wars project, which the OTA said wouldn't work. The OTA was killed in 1995 as part of the Republican Party’s Contract with America campaign to cut the federal budget and shrink government.
Although the OTA was cut twenty years ago through a Republican initiative, Weisz says that 15 Republicans crossed the aisle to lend their vote in support of Takano's amendment. That wasn't enough. But Weisz says Takano isn't giving up. He plans to re-introduce the proposal again next year.
