This document is a faxed transmission of Office of Technology Assessment (OTA) materials located in the National Archives as overseen by the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) and as of May 12, 1998.

This document presents the findings of the Office of Technology Assessment (OTA) staff assessment of policy analysis that took place in 1992. It consisted of reviewing 18 sample OTA reports and soliciting opinions about OTA's policy analysis from outside observers. This report presents the findings of this assessment, along with options for OTA management and suggestions for OTA project directors.

This paper examined the technologies and issues to be considered at World Administrative Radio Conference (WARC)-92, discusses the international and domestic context for WARC-93 preparations, and analyzed the U.S. process of conference preparation.

This report is part of a process leading to regulations to be issued by the U.S. Department of Transportation. This process has included a review of a draft of this study by the Architectural and Transportation Barriers Compliance Board (ATBCB).

This report provides information that can help align agricultural legislation with emerging needs and trends. Current policies do not ameliorate conflicts between agricultural production and environmental quality, between trade and the environment, and between agriculture and competitive trade.

This OTA assessment reviews the status of federal government efforts to provide safe sanitation to Alaskan Natives and the technologies that have been used or proposed for this purpose. Finally, the report examines the legislative and institutional setting for the waste sanitation problems, and the criteria that need to be applied in selecting and implementing new technologies.

This Special Report is the frost product of OTA assessment of international collaboration in defense technology. It provides an overview of the subject and analyzes the impact that changes in the environment of defense technology and reduced East-West tensions will exert on defense industrial cooperation and associated alliance relations.

This OTA background paper evaluates the current state of knowledge and assesses the potential of bioremediation for responding to marine oil spills. Our basic message is a dual one: we caution that there are still many uncertainties about the use of bioremediation as a practical oil spill response technology; nevertheless, it could be appropriate in certain circumstances, and further research and development of bioremediation technologies could lead to enhancing the Nation’s capability to fight marine oil spills.

This report focuses on energy use in buildings, which account for over one-third of all energy used in the United States. Significant energy savings in buildings are possible through the use of commercially available, cost-effective, energy efficient technologies; yet adoption rates for these technologies are often low. Interviews with industry, property managers, homeowners, and others were used to explore why technology adoption rates are so low. Past Federal efforts to encourage energy efficiency are reviewed, and policy options for encouraging the adoption of energy efficient technologies are discussed.

This report discusses how the loss of tropical forests and reduction in the Earth’s biological diversity has grown from development assistance concerns to themes of global debate during the last decade. At the same time that the value of biological resources to local communities and individual nations has become more fully appreciated, the connections between these resources and global environmental stability and economic development potential have been uncovered.

The background paper summarizes the evidence on the effectiveness and costs of prostate cancer screening and treatment in elderly men and explores the implications for Medicare of offering this preventive technology as a Medicare benefit.

This report discusses the earth data—positional, topographic, climatological, meteorological, man–made features, and changes over time in all of these, which are increasingly important to the military. Data from these systems are bought and extensively used by the military and intelligence communities. The need to integrate data from military-unique systems as well only complicates the situation.

Part one of this report analyzes how R&D institutions currently pursuing defense missions could be more responsive and useful to civilian technology development. The Report focuses particularly on the Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) three nuclear weapons laboratories, Livermore National Laboratory, Los Alamos National Laboratory, and Sandia National Laboratories. The report examines two sectors in Part Two: new kinds of automobiles that pollute less and could reduce dependence on foreign oil, and high speed surface transportation.

This report takes a strategic look at the development of electronic commerce and identifies the characteristics of the infrastructure that will be required to support it. The report found that, in an electronically networked economy, the design and underlying architecture of the global information infrastructure will have a major impact on national economic growth and development.

There are two longstanding constraints to implementing more energy efficient practices: 1) a shortage of finds to invest in efficient equipment; and 2) a lack of information for program planning and budgeting about the extent of investment opportunities and about the best finding mechanisms. This paper reviews advances made in addressing these constraints since 1991.

This report focuses on the Federal Government, the Nation’s largest single energy consumer, in terms of the opportunities and constraints for the use of energy efficient technologies. Energy efficient technologies could greatly reduce energy demand growth and spending in the United States and lessen environmental impacts while increasing productivity. Yet, in today’s public and private markets, adoption rates for many of these technologies are low. This report reviews past and current efforts to improve Federal energy efficiency and discusses policy options that could accelerate the adoption of these measures by the Federal Government.

This report focuses on the improvement of energy efficiency. It reviews how energy is used in the former centrally planned economies. Then it analyzes the potential effectiveness of modern technology in reducing energy waste and the factors that constrain improvements. The report also examines government programs assisting energy efficiency technology transfer and opportunities for U.S. businesses. Finally, it discusses congressional policy options to support technology transfer.

This report discusses the Oregon legislature that passed the Oregon Basic Health Services Act in 1989, which established three mechanisms for increasing access to health insurance.

The primary purpose of this report is to identify options for enhancing the effectiveness of export controls in slowing or preventing the spread of capabilities to develop and produce weapons of mass destruction.

This report analyzes what OTA identifies as four pressing challenges for the research system i-n the 1990s: setting priorities in tiding, understanding trends in research expenditures, preparing human resources for the future research work force, and supplying appropriate data for ongoing research decision making. Managing the Federal research system requires more than funding; it means devising ways to retain the diversity and creativity that have distinguished U.S. contributions to scientific knowledge.

The report identifies three policy issues: 1) the appropriate scope of copyright protection for computer software; 2) patent protection for software-related inventions and algorithms, and how the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office will handle these types of applications; and 3) complications facing libraries and commercial and private producers and users of digital information, including computer-based mixed media products.

This report deals with the drug and biological infusion treatments (including blood transfusions) being used in the home but not yet explicitly covered by Medicare in that setting. Medicare does cover total parenteral nutrition (TPN) in the home for individuals with long-term disabilities that prevent them from being able to digest food. TPN has many similarities to the therapies discussed in detail in this report, and many providers of HDIT also provide TPN and other nutritional products and services.

This report discusses a seven-country study of hospital financing is an attempt to find lessons for the United States. The individual experiences over the past decade of the United States and six of its international peers—Canada, England, France, Germany, the Netherlands, and Sweden—in hospital financing and payment systems are reviewed by experts in each country.

This report describes, documents, and analyzes available data about two key waste management problems at the Department of Energy Weapons Complex—those of high-level radioactive waste and transuranic waste. The paper is organized in two chapters—” Chapter 1: Managing High Level Waste’ and ‘Chapter 2: Managing Transuranic Waste. ” Each chapter contains a summary overview followed by a discussion and analysis of important areas in the waste management problem that the DOE faces at present and in its future operations.