Poplar Trees wallpaper, Bring Back the Office of Technology Assessment, Nuclaer waste costs pile up

Poplar Tress in Fall wallpaper

This may seem like an esoteric bandwagon to jump on out of the multiple poor directions our government has taken the last ten years, but the one way to fix that is to bring back a little more rationalism to policy discussions, Bring Back the OTA – Bring Back Evidence Based Government

It used to be, for about 20 years (from 1974 to 1995), there was an office on the Hill, named the Office of Technology Assessment, which worked for the legislative branch and provided non-partisan scientific reports relevant to policy discussions. It was a critical office, one that through thorough and complete analysis of the scientific literature gave politicians common facts from which to decide policy debates.

And here, Bring back the Office of Technology Assessment

For more than a decade, Congress has essentially operated in the dark when passing science and technology legislation. It remains in the dark because of what Chris Mooney, the author of The Republican War on Science, terms “a stunning act of self-lobotomy.” As Mooney details in his book, congressional Republicans made eliminating the Office of Technology Assessment (OTA), Congress’s authoritative scientific advisory body, a top priority when they took power in 1994. (For an excerpt, see the September/October 2005 Bulletin article, “Requiem for an Office” [PDF, 771 KB].)

As Nuclear Waste Languishes, Expense to U.S. Rises

Forgotten but not gone, the waste from more than 100 nuclear reactors that the federal government was supposed to start accepting for burial 10 years ago is still at the reactor sites, at least 20 years behind schedule. But it is making itself felt in the federal budget.

Most of the delay can be attributed to the lack of progress on the Yucca Mountains depositary. Insert your favorite lawyer joke here as lawyers for the power companies and lawyers for the government fight it out over who is responsible for all the delays and the subsequent costs.

* US Humane Society to honor boy who died saving pets

The Humane Society of the United States, the leading US animal welfare organization, is to honor a New York boy who died last year after going back into his blazing home to rescue his pets.

The organization was to present the Circle of Compassion award on Saturday to Thomas and Maria Monahan, whose nine-year-old son Tommy was overcome by smoke last December after trying to save his pet dog, lizard and fish.

The award recognizes and honors individuals who have performed an act of significant courage or compassion to assist an animal in need.