roundtable: Waltzing With Elephants (FWD: CITS re: Walker and OTA)
roundtable: Waltzing With Elephants [FWD: CITS re: Walker and OTA]
Waltzing With Elephants [FWD: CITS re: Walker and OTA]
W. Curtiss Priest (BMSLIB@mitvma.mit.edu)
Wed, 22 Mar 95 06:03:55 EST
Message-Id: <9503221125.AA08065@a.cni.org>
Date: Wed, 22 Mar 95 06:03:55 EST
From: "W. Curtiss Priest" <BMSLIB@mitvma.mit.edu>
To: Telecommunications Policy Roundtable <ROUNDTABLE@CNI.ORG>
Subject: Waltzing With Elephants [FWD: CITS re: Walker and OTA]
Some of you may ask, why is Dr. Priest forwarding a 'science' piece
to lists such as the media forum.
The reason is, the Office of Technology Assessment covers the widest
range of issues on Technology from media, to education, to health,
and all the other issues that Congress wishes to address.
I encourage all of you to write in support of Rep. Walker's possible
restructuring of OTA to make reports more timely, rather than
the possible closure of OTA.
In particular, if you are from Pennsylvania!! -- please fax or
write your Congressman.
Thanks, Curt
Curtiss Priest
<bmslib@mitvma.mit.edu>
----------------------------Original message----------------------------
Date: 20 Mar 1995 15:22:34
From: RESCLOVE@amherst.edu
Subject: Waltzing With Elephants [FWD: CITS re: Walker and OTA]
To: Recipients of conference <fastnet@igc.apc.org>
Subject: Waltzing With Elephants (Loka Alert 2-4: Action Opportunity)
Loka Alert 2-4 (March 20, 1995)
PLEASE REPOST (where appropriate)
Friends and Colleagues:
This is one in an occasional series of electronic postings
on democratic politics of science and technology, issued by the
Loka Institute. If you would like to be added to, or removed from,
the Loka list, please send an e-mail message to that effect
to: resclove@amherst.edu
--Dick Sclove
Executive Director, The Loka Institute, P.O. Box 355,
Amherst, MA 01004-0355, USA
Tel. 413 253-2828; Fax 413 253-4942
E-mail: resclove@amherst.edu
*****************************************************************
WALTZING WITH ELEPHANTS?
Democratizing Science & Technology Under a
Republican Congress (Part 2)
Is it conceivable that progressive activists could
collaborate with Congressional Republicans on selected steps
toward democratizing science and technology decisionmaking? Loka
Alert 1-14 (Dec. 1994) foresaw small grounds for hope in trying
to work with that strain of Republican rhetoric that says it
wants to shrink the federal government specifically in order to
empower individuals and communities. Here I report on a shred of
evidence that perhaps this hope is not entirely crazy.
YOU CAN HELP ADVANCE THIS POTENTIAL STRATEGY BY CONTACTING
CONGRESSMAN ROBERT S. WALKER (see below).
On the evening of March 2, 1995 I appeared on a public panel
that headlined President Nixon's science advisor, Edward E.
David, Jr., and the new Republican Chairman of the House Science
Committee, Robert S. Walker (who is also one of House Speaker
Newt Gingrich's closest friends in Congress). The event was a
mini-symposium on "Democratizing R&D Policy Making" that took
place during the annual meeting of the National Association for
Science, Technology and Society.
Dr. David foresees that U.S. research-and-development (R&D)
expenditure--both public and private sector--will shrink about
30% over the next 5 years. (The explanation: deficit-budget
pressures on the government, coupled with structural pressures in
the global economy that are inducing corporations to downsize
their research expenditures and staffs in quest of short-run
profits.)
Congressman Walker made the opposite prediction that we are
entering a "Third Wave situation"--a global information economy
in which "the capital of the future will be cleverness"--and that
this will prove "a golden age for science." However, science and
technology will not thrive on traditional government largesse but
on federal incentives (e.g., R&D and investment tax credits) that
will leverage new funds out of the private sector.
Neither talk really addressed the announced topic of the
session: democratizing R&D policymaking. But things got more
interesting during the subsequent question-and-answer period.
Reporter Colleen Cordes of _The Chronicle of Higher Education_
asked Congressman Walker what he thought about involving a
broader range of people in science and technology decisions--for
instance, by including representatives from environmental groups
and labor unions on high-level government science advisory
panels. Walker answered somewhat obliquely that the nation needs
to improve citizens' scientific literacy and lifelong learning--
both so that people are capable of making intelligent decisions
about science and technology and also so that they will be
employable in the emerging information-based economy.
Prodded further by Cordes, he then explained that he would
be leery of including laypeople in the peer review process that
awards government research grants. (He fears that laypeople
would be duped into funding impossible perpetual motion machines
and the like.) But Walker continued:
"If you're talking about making certain that
science policy reflects a broader view, yes there may
be a very good place to bring in people of diverse
backgrounds to tell us what it is that is either going
right or wrong in science. To have that kind of
evaluation may be useful in some applications and that
can be done."
Walker also mentioned that this evaluation is to some extent
a function that Congressmen--few of whom are technically expert--
already perform.
Another audience member asked the Congressman his feelings
about Republican proposals to abolish the Congressional Office of
Technology Assessment (OTA). Walker responded that OTA produces
high quality material but--speaking with some vehemence--he said
that it had not actually done much to help his work during 18
years as a U.S. congressman. In particular, it works too
slowly--taking two or three years to produce a report when
Congress often has to make decisions within a period of months.
"At the very least," he said, "if OTA does survive it is going to
have to be restructured in a way that makes it far more relevant
to the legislative business."
Within the context of the preceding exchanges, I then had a
chance to tell Congressman Walker that I was heartened by his
stated willingness to consider involving a wider range of people
in R&D policymaking. I posed two more-specific follow-up
questions:
First, would he be willing to do better than the previous
Democratic Congress in inviting representatives from a wider
range of affected groups to testify before his own committee? As
an example, I mentioned that during 1992 and 1993 hearings on a
comprehensive proposed National Competitiveness Act, 120
witnesses were invited to testify before the House Science
Committee. Among them there was not even one representative of
an environmental group, defense conversion group, or a trade
union or other worker organization.
Walker apparently misunderstood my question, thinking that I
was criticizing counterhearings that he had helped organize
during that period to support an alternative competitiveness bill
drafted by Republican minority members of the committee.
Accordingly, he answered that he'd only invited a limited range
of competitiveness-minded witnesses to his hearings because "the
other guys' process"--i.e., the official, Democratic-controlled
Science Committee hearings--"that's all they invited." I.e., the
Democrats supposedly invited no one but environmentalists,
workers, etc.
I explained again that I wasn't criticizing him but the
Democrats, who had actually invited no such representatives. "I
would disagree with that," said Walker. Mentioning that I had
read through the legislative hearing record, I reiterated that I
knew for a fact that the Democrats had not invited _any_ such
public-interest or worker representatives.
Amidst a bit of audience laughter, Walker responded less
defensively:
"Sure. I am willing to get the broadest possible
cross-section of people telling us what their views are
on issues. I am attempting to do an outreach, and
we've attempted to do that in the hearings we've had so
far. You end up with a limited number of available
slots, but I want to get broad-based views. Again, if
you're going to look out twenty years, you'd better do
it in the broadest possible context."
I then followed-up on his earlier remarks concerning OTA.
This time I mentioned that there are European processes for
technology assessment (dubbed "consensus conferences") that are
more participatory than what OTA does--thus keeping with his
just-announced openness to broadened participation--and yet that
yield sophisticated nuanced conclusions, while costing less and
operating significantly more speedily than do OTA's current
processes. (See Loka Alert 1-12, "Citizen-Based Technology
Assessment?") Would he be interested in asking OTA to explore
that type of process? Walker answered:
"Well, if in fact what they can do is cut down the time
frame and give us useful information, that would be
something we'd be very interested in. Because that's
my main concern about what OTA has been doing....
Cutting back the time is something that would be very
useful."
He then concluded his participation in the symposium,
rushing back to the House floor to help pass several of the anti-
environment provisions of the Contract With America.
Do Walker's statements during the symposium mean that he
will actually do anything? Quite possibly not (although, for
what it's worth, he was speaking in a public forum and in the
presence of a number of reporters). But maybe it's possible to
help him along. Thus, I followed up with the letter appended to
this alert.
To help reassure Congressman Walker that indeed steps toward
democratizing science and technology policymaking would be
appreciated, please write a follow-up letter of your own (and
invite others to do the same). To maximize his receptivity to
the message, it might help to mention supportively the
Republicans' efforts to open up government electronically with
the "Thomas" on-line legislative service. Please also send a
duplicate of your correspondence to Newt Gingrich.
Cheers to all,
Dick Sclove
The appropriate addresses:
The Hon. Robert S. Walker The Hon. Newt Gingrich
Chairman Speaker of the House
House Science Committee U.S. Congress
2320 Rayburn HOB Washington, DC 20515-1006
Washington, DC 20515-6301 Tel. (202) 225-4501
Tel. (202) 225-4275 Fax (202) 225-4656
Fax 202-225-1116
*****************************************************************
The Loka Institute
P.O. Box 355, Amherst, MA 01004, USA
Richard E. Sclove, Ph.D. Tel. (413) 253-2828
Executive Director Fax (413) 253-4942
E-mail: resclove@amherst.edu
March 7, 1995
The Hon. Robert S. Walker
Chairman
House Science Committee
2320 Rayburn HOB
Washington, DC 20515
Dear Congressman Walker,
As one of your co-panelists, I want to thank you very much
for participating in the annual meeting of the National
Association for Science, Technology & Society (NASTS) on the
evening of March 2, and especially for the time you took to
entertain questions from the audience.
I was particularly heartened by the response you gave to my
questions, indicating that you are interested in broadening the
range of witnesses who testify before your committee, including
by inviting representatives of communities, workers, and public-
interest groups who are affected by science and technology policy
but not ordinarily consulted. That will be a most welcome
departure from prior practices of the predecessor House Science,
Space, and Technology Committee, and I am sure that it will be
deeply appreciated by concerned citizens in many walks of life.
As the Director of the Loka Institute's Technology &
Democracy Project and as a member of the Interim Governing
Council of the National Citizens' Forum on Science and
Technology, I would be pleased to assist your committee's staff
in identifying a range of responsible representatives from
diverse affected groups. There are many such people who can
offer illuminating testimony concerning the social implications
of alternative science and technology policies.
I was also pleased by the interest you expressed in learning
whether European procedures for citizen-based technology
assessments might be a mechanism that would allow the Office of
Technology broadly participatory, economical, and timely
fashion. Accordingly, I enclose a memo that I have written on
that subject, adapted from my forthcoming book, _Democracy and
Technology_ (Guilford Press, Summer 1995). The Office of
Technology Assessment, in my judgment, does invaluable and
irreplaceable work; thus I very much hope that Congress will not
choose hastily to abolish it. But, as my memo indicates, there
may indeed be mechanisms that would allow the OTA to cut some of
its costs while, in certain respects, improving performance.
Thank you again for participating in the NASTS symposium on
"Democratizing R&D Policymaking." I look forward to working with
you in pursuit of our common concern to ensure that science and
technology best serve the interests of all Americans.
Sincerely,
Richard E. Sclove
Executive Director
The Loka Institute
Encl.: "Citizen-Based Technology Assessment?" (Loka Alert 1-12)
cc: Ed Andrews, _New York Times_
Bonnie Cassidy, _Science & Technology in Congress_
Gary Chapman, National Citizens Forum on Science & Technology
Dan Charles, National Public Radio
Colleen Cordes, _Chronicle of Higher Education_
Sandra Hackman, _Technology Review_
Roger Herdman, Office of Technology Assessment
Wil Lepkowski, _Chemical & Engineering News_
Steven Levy, _Newsweek_
Neil Munro, _Washington Technology_
Boyce Rensberger, _Washington Post_
Wade Roush, _Science_
Prof. Rustum Roy, NASTS
Michael Schrage, _Los Angeles Times_
*****************************************************************
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