1502 



(2) increasingly extensive, pervasive, and critical in their impact, beneficial 

 and adverse, on the natural and social environment. 



(b) Therefore, it is essential that, to the fullest extent possible, the consequences 

 of technological applications be anticipated, understood, and considered in 

 determination of public policy on existing and emerging national problems. 



(c) The Congress further finds that: 



(1) the Federal agencies presently responsible directly to the Congress are 

 not designed to provide the legislative branch with adequate and timely 

 information, independently developed, relating to the potential impact of 

 technological applications, and 



(2) the present mechanisms of the Congress do not and are not designed to 

 provide the legislative branch with such information. 



(d) Accordingly, it is necessary for the Congress to — 



(1) equip itself with new and effective means for securing competent,, 

 unbiased information concerning the physical, biological, economic, social, 

 and political effects of such applications; and 



(2) utilize this information, whenever appropriate, as one factor in the 

 legislative assessment of matters pending before the Congress, particularly 

 in those instances where the Federal Government may be called upon to 

 consider support for, or management or regulation of, technological 

 applications. 



The "basic function" of OTA is thus: ". . , to provide earh' 

 indications of the probable beneficial and adverse impacts of the 

 applications of technolog}?" and to develop other coordinate information 

 which may assist the Congress." 



The appropriateness of OTA to support congressional require- 

 ments for analyses of the long-range interactions of science and 

 technology with diplomacy turns on such questions as the following: 

 — Can OTA reserve resources for very long-range studies of 

 great scope and complexity or is it (like CRS) constrained by 

 shorter range requirements related to current problems and 

 pending legislation? 



— Would the fact that the bulk of OTA studies are "con- 

 tracted out" tend to render it less useful in sensitive diplomatic 

 studies? 



— Is OTA's heavy emphasis on technology compatible with 

 the need to give coequal attention to international social and 

 diplomatic aspects of complex global issues in order to provide 

 diplomatic policy guidance? 

 It seems possible that CRS or OTA could contribute substantially 

 in the field of technical foreign policy. OTA has — up to now — been 

 able to concentrate large resources on a small number of major 

 problems. However, it is to be recognized that to delegate. to it re- 

 sponsibility for studies in the technology /diplomac}^ area would mean 

 a substantial increase in OTA's scope. 



JOINT COMMITTEE ON NATIONAL SECURITY AFFAIRS 



Another possible institutional vehicle for the purpose might be a 

 joint committee on National Security Pohcy along the lines of that 

 proposed by Chairman Zablocki of the Subcommittee on International 

 Security and Scientific Affairs (see pp. 143-144). Such a committee, 

 without legislative responsibilities and limited to policy studies nnd 

 recommendations, might be able to free itself from shorter term 

 considerations. Presumably, such an organization would enlist 

 the services of a highly qualified professional staff, policy-oriented, 

 and deliberately instructed to concentrate on large problems of the 



