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. 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 Office's legacy is also found in its hundreds of publications, gathered for the first time in electronic form on the set of 5 CD-ROMs: The OTA Legacy, 1972-1995. This Web site presents the complete contents of the five CD-ROMs with additional enhancements and features that facilitate access and retrieval.

The focus of this report is the construction of nuclear power plants abroad, especially the problem of assuring that none of the plutonium produced in these plants is diverted for use in weapons.

A report by the Office of Technology Assessment (OTA) that "discusses five chronic conditions that severely affect older persons-osteoarthritis, dementia, osteoporosis, hearing impairments, and urinary incontinence" (p. iii).

The findings of an assessment by the Office of Technology Assessment (OTA) on "international cooperation and competition in civilian space activities" (p. iii).

A memorandum by the Office of Technology Assessment (OTA) that reviews the "United States Postal Service (USPS) decision to utilizes single-line optical character readers (OCRs) instead of multi-line OCRs" and conducts "a comparative technical and economic analysis of the two technologies in the context of the overall postal automation program" (Foreward).

OTA’s report responds to the request of numerous Members of Congress to review the physical, emotional, and behavioral health status of contemporary American adolescents, including adolescents in groups who might be more likely to be in special need of health-related interventions: adolescents living in poverty, adolescents from racial and ethnic minority groups, Native American adolescents, and adolescents in rural areas.

This report examines potential new crops and traditional crops for industrial uses including replacements for petroleum and imported strategic materials; replacements for imported newsprint, wood rosins, rubbers, and oils; and degradable plastics. This report finds that, in the absence of additional and more comprehensive policies, developing industrial uses for agricultural commodities alone is unlikely to revitalize rural economies and solve the problems of American agriculture.

The background paper extends the analysis of energy use into new areas by explicitly looking at how energy use has changed with the expansion of the service sector, the explosion of international trade, and greater complexity of the U.S. economy as the structure of businesses changed in response to new technologies and competitive challenges. The increasing sophistication of the U.S. economy means that the role of energy is less likely to be directly identified and is instead more likely to be an indirect factor that was added many steps before in the complex network that connects producer to consumer. This report explicitly separates direct from indirect energy use.

This Special Report assesses how Federal scientific and technical information (STI) can contribute to a more competitive America and what actions are needed to realize this potential. The report was prepared in response to a request from the House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology.

This paper provides a detailed look at the State that is often considered a model for what States can do to help provide universal or near universal health insurance coverage for their residents. The paper discusses the history of health insurance provision in Hawaii, emphasizing two relatively recent State insurance laws: 1) the 1974 law that required employers to offer coverage to most of their employees, and 2) the 1989 law that provided a State subsidy for coverage of those individuals who fell in the gap between employment-based coverage and Medicaid coverage. The paper addresses the difficulties faced in evaluating the impact of Hawaii’s various attempts to provide coverage and access, and speaks to whether all or parts of Hawaii’s experience can be transferred to other States or to the Nation as a whole.

This background paper examines the epidemiologic evidence used by the CDC in deciding to revise the AIDS case definition and the impact the proposed definition will have on surveillance. The paper also explores the logistical consequences and other implications of the revised definition, including its impact on Social Security disability determinations.

This paper seeks to place the issue of climate change within an international context. Specifically, it addresses the feasibility of forging treaty agreements among countries to achieve significant worldwide reductions in emissions of greenhouse gases.

An assessment by the Office of Technology Assessment (OTA) on the "prospects for energy efficiency in the U.S. industrial sector, the technologies available to improve industrial energy efficiency, and the effect of various legislative policies on stimulating increased efficiency" (p. iii).

A report by the Office of Technology Assessment (OTA) that examines the U.S. steel industry, specifically the "nontechnological factors that shape the environment in which new technology is created and adopted" (p. iii).

A case study by the Office of Technology Assessment (OTA) that examines "the technical basis for, and validity of, the habitability decision for the emergency declaration area near Love Canal" (p. iii).

A report by the Office of Technology Assessment (OTA) that evaluates "the present states and possible future directions of space applications technologies in the civilian sector" and focuses on the technologies of "satellite communications, land remote sensing, materials processing in space, and space transportation" (p. iii).

A report by the Office of Technology Assessment (OTA) reviewing "a range of solar energy systems designed to produce thermal and electrical energy directly from sunlight" and examining this technology, identifying "the circumstances under which such systems could be economically attractive" (p. iii).

An assessment by the Office of Technology Assessment (OTA) of the national research and development (R&D) activities with the intent of "understanding...how to maximize the beneficial impacts of our total R&D enterprise" (p. iii).

A study by the Office of Technology Assessment that examines the oil shale resources of the Western United States that could contribute to the liquid fuel supply of the United States.

A study by the Office of Technology Assessment (OTA) that "evaluates the progress and direction of a number of conservation and solar energy programs, in order to provide an overview of the balance and long-range contribution of these efforts, and to discover if the programs are coherently linked to goals set by Congress and the administration" (p. iii).

A report by the Office of Technology Assessment (OTA) that "discusses the strengths and weaknesses of data sources used for determining trends in cancer occurrence and mortality, and reviews estimates of the contribution of various factors-behaviors and exposures-associated with cancer in this country" (p. iii).

A report by the Office of Technology Assessment (OTA) that "describes the status of technologies in use today, such as research ships, submersibles, buoy systems, aircraft, and satellites" (Foreward).

A report by the Office of Technology Assessment (OTA) over the use of drugs in livestock feed

A report by the Office of Technology Assessment (OTA) covering the the "major problems and opportunities which may occur because of the Fishery Conservation and Management Act of 1976" (Preface).