The Congressional Office of Technology Assessment (OTA) closed on September 29, 1995. During its 23-year history, OTA provided Congressional members and committees with analyses of the scientific and technological issues that were increasingly relevant to public policy and legislative action.
OTA occupied a unique role among the Congressional information agencies. Unlike the General Accounting Office, which is primarily concerned with evaluation of ongoing programs, and the Congressional Research Service, which provides rapid information on legislative topics, OTA provided a deeper, more comprehensive, and more technical level of analysis. Through eleven Congressional sessions, OTA became a key resource for Congressional members and staff confronting technological issues in crafting public policy. Its existence brought a healthy balance to the analytical resources available to the executive and legislative branches of government.
The agency’s legacy is found in the many items of legislation it influenced and in the channels of communication its staff helped foster between legislative policymakers and members of the scientific, technical, and business communities.
The Black Vault has archived here the complete collection of reports and data issued by the OTA. Clicking on any document below will take you directly to the report, all in .pdf format. This collection holds 110,670 pages in total.
1995
- Advanced Automotive Technology: Visions of a Super-Efficient Family Car
- Adverse Reactions to HIV Vaccines: Medical, Ethical, and Legal Issues
- Agriculture, Trade, and Environment: Achieving Complementary Policies
- Annual Report to the Congress: Fiscal Year 1994
- Assessing the Potential for Civil-Military Integration: Selected Case Studies
- Biologically Based Technologies for Pest Control
- Bringing Health Care Online: The Role of Information Technologies
- Challenges for U.S. Agricultural Research Policy
- Cleaning Up Contaminated Wood-Treating Sites
- The Cost-Effectiveness of Colorectal Cancer Screening in Average-Risk Adults
- Costs and Effectiveness of Prostate Cancer Screening in Elderly Men
- Coverage of Laser Technology by Health Insurers
- Current Status of Federal Involvement in U.S. Aquaculture
- Distributed Interactive Simulation of Combat
- Does Vocational Education Help the “Forgotten Half”?: Short-term Economic Consequences of High School Vocational Education for Non-College Students
- Education and Technology: Future Visions
- Effectiveness and Costs of Osteoporosis Screening and Hormone Replacement Therapy, Vol. I: Cost-Effectiveness Analysis
- Effectiveness and Costs of Osteoporosis Screening and Hormone Replacement Therapy, Vol. II: Evidence on Benefits, Risks, and Costs
- The Effectiveness of AIDS Prevention Efforts
- The Effectiveness of Research and Experimentation Tax Credits
- Electronic Surveillance in a Digital Age
- Environmental Monitoring for Nuclear Safeguards
- Environmental Policy Tools: A User’s Guide
- Environmental Technology: Analysis of Selected Federal R&D Programs
- EPA Superfund Actions and ATSDR Public Health Data
- Federal Technology Transfer and the Human Genome Project
- Fish Passage Technologies: Protection at Hydropower Facilities
- Flat Panel Displays in Perspective
- Foreign Eligibility for U.S. Technology Funding
- The Fusion Energy Program: The Role of TPX and Alternate Concepts
- Gauging Control Technology and Regulatory Impacts in Occupational Safety and Health: An Appraisal of OSHA’s Analytic Approach
- Global Communications: Opportunities for Trade and Aid
- Health Care Technology and Its Assessment in Eight Countries
- A History of the Department of Defense Federally Funded Research and Development Centers
- Hospital Financing in Seven Countries
- Impact of Health Reform on Rural Areas: Lessons From the States
- Impacts of Antibiotic-Resistant Bacteria
- Improving the Prospects for Future International Peace Operations: Workshop Proceedings
- Information Technologies for the Control of Money Laundering
- Innovation and Commercialization of Emerging Technologies
- International Partnerships in Large Science Projects
- Issue Update on Information Security and Privacy in Network Environments
- Learning To Work: Making the Transition From School to Work
- The Lower Tiers of the Space Transportation Industrial Base
- The National Space Transportation Policy: Issues for Congress
- Nuclear Safeguards and the International Atomic Energy Agency
- Nuclear Wastes in the Arctic: An Analysis of Arctic and Other Regional Impacts From Soviet Nuclear Contamination
- Occupational Training for Young People in the United Kingdom
- Other Approaches to Civil-Military Integration: The Chinese and Japanese Arms Industries
- Reducing Earthquake Losses
- Reducing the Costs of Collecting Meteorological Data: A Workshop Summary
- Renewing Our Energy Future
- Risks to Students in School
- Screening and Testing Chemicals in Commerce
- Selected Technology Issues in U.S. Aquaculture
- State of the States on Brownfields: Programs for Cleanup and Reuse of Contaminated Sites
- Targeting Environmental Priorities in Agriculture: Reforming Program Strategies
- Teachers and Technology: Making the Connection
- The Technological Reshaping of Metropolitan America
- Technology and Policy for Suppressing Grain Dust Explosions in Storage Facilities
- Telecommunications Technology and Native Americans: Opportunities and Challenges
- U.S.-Russian Cooperation in Space
- Wireless Technologies and the National Information Infrastructure
1994
- An Alaskan Challenge: Native Village Sanitation
- Annual Report to the Congress: Fiscal Year 1993
- Assessing the Potential for Civil-Military Integration: Technologies, Processes, and Practices
- Civilian Satellite Remote Sensing: A Strategic Approach
- Climate Treaties and Models: Issues in the International Management of Climate Change
- Defensive Medicine and Medical Malpractice
- The Department of Defense Kuwait Oil Health Fire Risk Assessment (The “Persian Gulf Veterans’ Registry”)
- Electronic Enterprises: Looking to the Future
- Energy Efficiency in Federal Facilities: Update on Funding and Potential Savings
- Export Controls and Nonproliferation Policy
- External Review of the Federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s HIV Prevention Program: Summary and Overview
- Federal Research and Technology for Aviation
- Fueling Reform: Energy Technologies for the Former East Bloc
- Hip Fracture Outcomes in People Age 50 and Over
- Identifying Health Technologies That Work: Searching for Evidence
- Industry, Technology, and the Environment: Competitive Challenges and Business Opportunities
- Information Security and Privacy in Network Environments
- International Comparisons of Administrative Costs in Health Care
- International Health Statistics: What the Numbers Mean for the United States
- Managed Care and Competitive Health Care Markets: The Twin Cities Experience
- Mental Disorders and Genetics: Bridging the Gap Between Research and Society
- Multinationals and the U.S. Technology Base
- Perspectives on the Role of Science and Technology in Sustainable Development
- Power Sources for Remote Arctic Applications
- Proliferation and the Former Soviet Union
- Psychiatric Disabilities, Employment and the Americans With Disabilities Act
- Public Information About Osteoporosis: What’s Available, What’s Needed?
- Remotely Sensed Data: Technology, Management and Markets
- Review of the Medical Follow-Up Agency
- Saving Energy in U.S. Transportation
- The Social Security Administration’s Decentralized Computer Strategy: Issues and Options
- Studies of the Environmental Costs of Electricity
- Technical Options for the Advanced Liquid Metal Reactor
- Technologies for Understanding and Preventing Substance Abuse and Addiction
- Testing and Assessment in Vocational Education
- Tools for Evaluating Health Technologies: Five Background Papers
- Understanding Estimates of National Health Expenditures Under Health Reform
- Understanding Estimates of the Impact of Health Reform on the Federal Budget
- Universal Health Insurance and Uninsured People: Effects on Use and Cost
- Virtual Reality and Technologies for Combat Simulation
- Wage Record Information Systems
1993
- The 1992 World Administrative Radio Conference: Technology and Policy Implications
- Access to Over-the-Road Buses for Persons With Disabilities
- Accessibility and Integrity of Networked Information Collections
- Adult Literacy and New Technologies: Tools for a Lifetime
- Advanced Network Technology
- Aging Nuclear Power Plants: Managing Plant Life and Decommissioning
- Aircraft Evacuation Testing: Research and Technology Issues
- Alternative Coca Reduction Strategies in the Andean Region
- Benefit Design in Health Care Reform: Clinical Preventive Services
- Benefit Design in Health Care Reform: Patient Cost-Sharing
- Biological Components of Substance Abuse and Addiction
- Biopolymers: Making Materials Nature’s Way
- The Chemical Weapons Convention: Effects on the U.S. Chemical Industry
- Compilation of Abbreviations and Terms
- The Continuing Challenge of Tuberculosis
- Contributions of DOE Weapons Labs and NIST to Semiconductor Technology
- Coverage of Preventive Services: Provisions of Selected Current Health Care Reform Proposals
- Data Format Standards for Civilian Remote Sensing Satellites
- Defense Conversion: Redirecting R&D
- The Department of Veterans Affairs Persian Gulf Veterans’ Health Registry
- Development Assistance, Export Promotion, and Environmental Technology
- Dismantling the Bomb and Managing the Nuclear Materials
- Drug Labeling in Developing Countries
- Energy Efficiency: Challenges and Opportunities for Electric Utilities
- Energy Efficiency Technologies for Central and Eastern Europe
- The Future of Remote Sensing From Space: Civilian Satellite Systems and Applications
- Global Change Research and NASA’s Earth Observing System
- Harmful Non-Indigenous Species in the United States
- Hazards Ahead: Managing Cleanup Worker Health and Safety at the Nuclear Weapons Complex
- Health Insurance: The Hawaii Experience
- Impact of Legal Reforms on Medical Malpractice Costs
- An Inconsistent Picture: A Compilation of Analyses of Economic Impacts of Competing Approaches to Health
- Care Reform by Experts and Stakeholders
- Industrial Energy Efficiency
- Information Systems Related to Technology Transfer: A Report on Federal Technology Transfer in the United States
- Making Government Work: Electronic Delivery of Federal Services
- Multinationals and the National Interest: Playing by Different Rules
- Pharmaceutical R&D: Costs, Risks, and Rewards
- Potential Environmental Impacts of Bioenergy Crop Production
- Preparing for an Uncertain Climate-Vol. I
- Preparing for an Uncertain Climate-Vol. II
- Proceedings: Technology and Governance in the 1990s. Papers Presented at the OTA 20th Anniversary Forum on Technology and Governance in the 1990s
- Proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction: Assessing the Risks
- Protecting Privacy in Computerized Medical Information
- Pulling Together for Productivity: A Union-Management Initiative at US West, Inc.
- Researching Health Risks
- Technologies Underlying Weapons of Mass Destruction
- U.S. Telecommunications Services in European Markets
- Water for Walker Lake
- Who Goes There: Friend or Foe?