To our dismay, and the nation’s detriment, self-described climate change deniers – strongly supported by fossil-fuel interests — continue to mislead Congress and the public.

In late January, we joined 14 other leading scientists in writing a letter to every member of Congress, asking our elected representatives to separate science from policy. We called attention to the overwhelming scientific evidence of climate change, urging Congress to “address the challenge of climate change, and lead the national response…” We want Congress to understand that, with each passing day, the problem worsens.

Our letter was certainly not the first plea to Congress to address climate change, and it won’t be the last. An open letter just last May from 255 members of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences urged similar actions. But the race to run away from the problem is nothing short of staggering. [emphasis added]

So begins an excellent Politico op-ed by John Abraham,  associate professor of thermal sciences at the University of St.Thomas, Peter Gleick,  president of The Pacific Institute, Michael Mann,  director of the Earth Science Center at Penn State University, and Michael Oppenheimer,  professor of geosciences at Princeton University.

The NYT magazine published a piece last month  with a similar theme, “Fact-Free Science,” which noted:

… more than half of the Republicans in the House and three-quarters of Republican senators … now say that the threat of global warming, as a man-made and highly threatening phenomenon, is at best an exaggeration and at worst an utter “hoax”…. These grim numbers, compiled by the Center for American Progress, describe a troubling new reality: the rise of the Tea Party and its anti-intellectual, anti-establishment, anti-elite worldview has brought both a mainstreaming and a radicalization of antiscientific thought.

Even former leading Republican members of the House have made the same point (see Former GOP chair of House Science Committee Sherry Boehlert on “Science the GOP can’t wish away”).

While some ‘appeasers’ think we should let the deniers win the debate and simply stop talking about climate science, that is the road to certain ruin.  As difficult as it is to imagine a aggressive action on climate or clean energy energy time soon, there  is no possibility whatsoever of  the nation and the world taking the necessary steps to avert multiple simultaneous catastrophes in the coming decades absent  abroad understanding of the science.  Moreover, if only the anti-science crowd participates in the debate, then there is no possibility the public’s confusion will end.

Imagine if the  public health community had taken the same view of the lies from the tobacco industry and given up on the health message.

“Energy independence” and “reducing dependence on oil” are great messages — indeed, they have been great messages for decade upon decade upon decade now, far longer than  climate change has been a major message — but they have never succeeded in creating a sustained set of policy is to actually reduce oil consumption in absolute terms (let alone the set of policies needed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in absolute terms).

In the end,  you can’t cure the disease unless  you understand the diagnosis and prognosis.  And so we come back to the article by the four scientists:

Nothing exemplifies this more than a bill by House Energy and Commerce Committee chairman, Rep. Fred Upton (R-Mich.), to overturn the scientific finding by the Environmental Protection Agency that greenhouse gases are harmful to human health.

We are saddened and disturbed that Upton is apparently planning to hold a vote in committee very soon to overturn a science-based determination absent any scientific justification for doing so.

This science-free approach serves only the interests of oil and coal producers and other big polluters who don’t want Congress — or the American people — to know what decades of scientific research have revealed about current climate trends and the growing future risks we face.

Science is the Achilles heel for those who try to perpetuate the myth that climate change is not occurring, or that the massive build-up of heat-trapping gases in the atmosphere is not the main reason the climate is changing. There is no serious disagreement in the scientific community that global temperatures are increasing, sea levels are rising, the oceans are becoming more acidic and that fossil fuel combustion is the primary cause.

In addition, the rapid shrinking of Arctic sea ice and the pattern of extreme weather and climate — including widespread drought, extraordinarily intense rainstorms, heat waves and wildfires — reflect more than just natural climate variability.

These findings have been confirmed by all the leading scientific academies around the world, most prominent among them, the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, which last year issued a series of four comprehensive reports that were unambiguous. The academy stated, “Climate change is occurring, is caused largely by human activities … and in many cases is already affecting a broad range of human and natural systems.”

Like the tobacco industry before them, fossil fuel interests regularly trot out discredited voices, false and disproven arguments and selective and misleading evidence to generate doubt. Their goal is to create the perception that fundamental aspects of climate science are controversial. They are not.

All their claims, all the studies they cite and all the evidence they have presented has been thoroughly reviewed by climate scientists. There is no scientific basis for contesting the academy’s finding. But that doesn’t stop fossil fuel interests from pouring millions of dollars into distorting, misrepresenting and, at times, falsifying the science.

We are disheartened that many in Congress choose to be guided by those who profit from pollution. Now we learn that Republicans in the House are proposing to cut more than $170 million in climate change programs, as well as to compromise the EPA’s ability to carry out its science-based mission. Given the staggering costs of disaster response and the financial ambush awaiting us if we fail to anticipate the risk of massive climate disruption, such action can only be labeled irresponsible.

These same Republicans pledged no cuts to national security. Yet the growing risk of climate change has been clearly identified as a national security threat by top military experts and analysts.

If Congress turns a deaf ear to science, it would be up to mayors, city planners, the building trades, transportation officials, health care workers, small and large businesses, universities, city councils, agriculture interests, water management officials and many others to take the lead in laying out the risks. We are grateful that many already are.

Hear!  Hear!

This reposted from ClimateProgress.org where Dr. Joseph Romm is Editor.

The President recognized that “When we fail to invest in research, we fail to invest in the future.” For decades, we have underinvested in our nation’s R&D infrastructure. The $22 billion in research funding I worked to include in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act was a down payment on our economic future. I look forward to working with the administration and my colleagues in Congress to ensure that we meet the President’s commitments to doubling the R&D budgets of our basic science agencies and investing at least 3 percent of GDP in public and private research and development.

The President also said, “I firmly believe that the nation that leads the clean energy economy will be the nation that leads the global economy.” I could not agree more. As Congress continues to weigh a response to the challenges of climate change and energy security, we must make robust investments in the research and development that will transform our energy sector. We can and should be the nation that creates and produces the energy technologies that are necessary for a sustainable future.

The United States retains an unlimited potential for discovery, entrepreneurship, and prosperity. If we choose to unleash that talent, we can lead the world in innovation and dispel the uncertainty that has gripped us in recent years.

Rush Holt represents the 12th congressional district of New Jersey.

Over the next 23 years, OTA studied some of the most controversial and technically intensive issues of its time, winning national and international acclaim. Its reports on topics such as climate change, education, energy, environmental protection, food production, health, national defense, telecommunications, terrorism, and transportation, among many others, addressed issues before almost every Congressional committee.

When the Republicans took control of both Houses of Congress in 1994, Congress voted not to fund OTA for the next fiscal year, and the agency ceased operations in September 1995. Yet it was not abolished. The Technology Assessment Act of 1972 remains on the books, so all it would take to restart OTA would be an appropriation. Whatever the reasons for OTA’s defunding during that contentious and volatile transition 15 years ago, it did not constitute a referendum on the agency’s overall value or competence.

Today, Congress still lacks a dedicated capability to analyze scientific and technological issues, even though they undoubtedly play a greater role in public policy than they did forty years ago. As a result, not only is Congress handicapped in its ability to deal with the critical technological components of current policy issues, but it is also poorly suited to anticipate the significance or the implications of emerging technologies.

Simply put, Congress pushed OTA’s “Pause” key in 1995. It’s time to press “Play” once again.

A Comprehensive Record of Achievement and Integrity

Over its history, OTA informed members of Congress and their staffs and helped shape legislation. But its reports played a far wider role. Since they explained complicated technical concepts to a non-technical audience, they were widely circulated, attracting considerable public attention. “The Office of Technology Assessment does some of the best writing on security-related technical issues in the United States,” said the journal Foreign Affairs. OTA has “produced hundreds of policy-related reports, and has developed a reputation for objective, non-partisan, and comprehensive assessments of public policy issues with highly technical aspects,” according to the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Critical review of OTA reports from both public and expert audiences amplified their message and validated their value and quality.

Ironically, the scientific community’s strong support for OTA may have created the false impression that OTA primarily served to support scientists. This is like saying that television weather announcers primarily serve to support professional meteorologists—which is, of course, precisely backwards. Meteorologists already know the weather. The role of television weather announcers is to take meteorological forecasts, turn them into language the rest of us can understand, and enable us all to make better plans. The scientific community supported OTA not because it benefitted scientists directly, but because it enabled members of Congress to make better decisions about policy issues with significant scientific and technological components.

OTA’s unique value derived from its authoritativeness and credibility.[1] Its position within Congress gave it authority: OTA was overseen by a Congressional Board and worked on studies requested by Congressional committees. This vantage point ensured the relevance of OTA’s work and elicited the cooperation of outside parties. It also came with the recognition that nobody elected OTA to make policy decisions. As a result, OTA made no policy recommendations, but rather offered a range of policy options that were consistent with its technical findings.

OTA won credibility by ensuring that its studies were technically accurate, analytically sound, and balanced with respect to stakeholder interests. All major OTA studies relied on advisory panels of experts who served as sources of information, guidance, and critical review. These panels included top substantive experts, who helped assure the studies’ technical and analytic quality, and individuals representing the different interests at stake, who were sensitive to the balance among competing views.

Objectivity in an Intensely Political Environment

In an environment as intensely political as the U.S. Congress, perhaps OTA’s greatest challenges were to insulate itself from political pressure and to minimize any biases in its own operations. These responsibilities fell to its Congressional oversight body, the Technology Assessment Board. TAB’s voting members consisted of six senators and six members of the House of Representatives, evenly split among majority and minority parties no matter what the composition of either chamber. This balance made TAB the most bipartisan Congressional committee possible. TAB selected the OTA director and approved the initiation and the release of OTA’s major reports. TAB’s composition ensured that the agency served as a shared resource, that its workload was not dominated by some committees over others, and that its reports did not advantage certain political parties or interests.

Restarting OTA

The argument to restart OTA is overwhelming.

The argument to restart OTA is overwhelming. At a February meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, Harvard Kennedy School Professor Emeritus Lewis Branscomb argued that technical understanding is much more critical to public policy today than it was when OTA was defunded in 1995. He also pointed out that in the light of global competition—and the growing scientific, engineering, and management strength of China, India, and other rapidly growing economies—the American economy is more dependent than ever on innovation.

Congressman Rush Holt (D-NJ), in a statement prepared for the same AAAS meeting, put it more succinctly: “When OTA was disbanded, Congress gave itself a lobotomy. Our national policies have suffered ever since.”

Since the demise of the OTA, Holt also noted, no entities have been able to assume OTA’s place as the provider of scientific and technical assessment and advice to Congress. Understanding the technical aspects of policy controversies may not resolve them—but it is an absolute prerequisite for wise policymaking.

Moreover, the arguments against restarting OTA are weak:

OTA was too slow. OTA was sometimes criticized for not meeting legislative needs in a timely way. But this accusation was selectively applied and often irrelevant. Reports could be done rapidly when Congressional timelines required it.[2] However, Congress already had the Congressional Research Service and did not need a second agency to do quick turnaround research. OTA’s primary mission—looking comprehensively at the consequences of new technologies and synthesizing alternate policy options to deal with them—required a complex, dispassionate analysis not tied to short-term political imperatives. Pathbreaking efforts, particularly when there was little existing work to draw on, took time and yielded commensurate benefits. Such studies built the base from which OTA could respond rapidly to related requests.

A look back shows that rather than being late, OTA had considered many issues with depth and perception long before they came to the general attention of legislators. For example, after the September 11 attacks and the anthrax letters of the following month, members of Congress (and many others) reached for the 1993 OTA reports on “Proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction.” Similarly, OTA reports from the early 1980s and 1990s pioneered the ideas enacted into law last year in the Genetic Information Non-discrimination Act of 2008. Congress frequently returned to major issues that had technological and scientific components—and when it did, an OTA report would often be waiting.

OTA was politically biased. Bias is in the eye of the beholder. It would be astounding if, out of the nearly 750 publications OTA produced over its 23-year history, none had ever been challenged on these grounds, particularly given that almost every topic OTA addressed had ardent advocates on all sides. But most external observers found no overall justification for such allegations. OTA’s practice of making all its unclassified reports available to the public was the best way to uncover bias, and its oversight by a strictly bipartisan Congressional Board was the best way to defend against it.

Members of Congress can just call on scientists directly, or go to the Internet, for scientific advice. Former Speaker Newt Gingrich criticized OTA for interposing non-expert staff between members of Congress and top scientists. Although members of Congress can certainly reach out to scientific experts, that hardly replaces OTA.

The OTA model, honed over 23-years of serving Congressional and national needs, has been proven.

First of all, interactions with individual experts can be rigged by the politically based selection of experts. More importantly, as George Mason University science policy expert Christopher Hill told the AAAS meeting earlier this year, Internet sources such as Wikipedia can provide information that is rapidly updated and community-vetted, but they cannot perform the type of integrative, multidisciplinary analysis that is necessary to address today’s policy concerns. Policy debates don’t hinge on the kind of information that any technical expert or web site—no matter how eminent or accurate—can impart in single interchange. As Hill told the AAAS crowd, Congress is not particularly interested in the melting point of bismuth.

OTA’s process was far richer. It tapped the nation’s expertise in the full range of technical and policy disciplines, placed that information in policy context, evaluated the significance of knowledge gaps and uncertainties, formulated and analyzed policy options, and communicated its results in ways that non-scientists could understand. This process was very much a collaborative and interdisciplinary enterprise, and it added value far beyond any number of one-on-one interactions with experts.

There’s Not a Moment to Lose

The OTA model, honed over 23-years of serving Congressional and national needs, has been proven. Nobody would argue that OTA was perfect. However, the Technology Assessment Act has turned out to be an amazingly flexible document, and any needed improvements can be done within its scope. The agency’s structure, as defined in 1972, remains appropriate today.

Conversely, legislatively reauthorizing OTA in order to rename it, redefine its mission, or dramatically change its governance structure is likely to be an extended, multi-year process, as was OTA’s creation. Together with the possibility of politically-motivated legislative roadblocks, a reauthorization would be unlikely to succeed, killing any near-term hope of reestablishing a technical advisory mechanism for Congress.

Even winning an appropriation for OTA will not be easy. At a time of economic crisis, government spending that is not for the purpose of economic recovery faces extraordinary funding pressures. But the costs of making technically inappropriate policy choices vastly exceed the cost of thinking things through.

OTA knew how to provide scientific and technical advice in a way that was directly translatable to Congress.  We just need to restart it.

Gerald L. Epstein is a Senior Fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and a former OTA staffer.

Notes

[1] This section draws on Epstein, Gerald L. and Carter, Ashton B., “A Dedicated Organization in Congress,” in M. Granger Morgan and Jon M. Peha, eds., Science and Technology Advice for Congress (Washington, DC: Resources for the Future Press, 2003), pp. 157-163

[2] For example, in 1995, OTA provided Congress with an analysis of the National Space Transportation Policy within 4 months, from request to delivery.