Science, Technology, and Democracy: Building a Modern Congressional Technology Assessment Office
About the authors
Zach Graves is a Technology and Democracy Fellow at the Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation. He is head of policy at the Lincoln Network, a technology and policy group headquartered in Silicon Valley. Zach’s work focuses on the intersection of technology and governance issues. Prior to Lincoln, he was founder and former director of the R Street Institute’s technology and innovation policy program. Before R Street, he previously worked at the Cato Institute and the America’s Future Foundation. He is currently a fellow at the Internet Law and Policy Foundry, an associate fellow at the R Street Institute, and a visiting fellow at the National Security Institute at George Mason University’s Antonin Scalia Law School. He holds a master’s from the California Institute of the Arts and a bachelor’s from the University of California at Davis. Zach is married and lives in Washington, DC.
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70 See, e.g., this bipartisan coalition letter (organized by the authors of this paper) supporting OTA signed by center-right civil society groups including FreedomWorks, TechFreedom, American Principles Project, R Street Institute, et al., “Re: Strengthening Legislative Branch Capacity on Science and Technology,” May 9, 2019. https://lincolnpolicy.org/2019/05/09/re-strengthening-legislative-branch-capacity-on-science-and -technology/. See also this op-ed from the American Enterprise Institute: James Pethokoukis, “Congress should revive the Office of Technology Assessment,” The Week, December 6, 2018. http://www.aei.org/publication /congress-should-revive-the-office-of-technology-assessment/.
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75 See testimony of Zach Graves, the R Street Institute. https://www.rstreet.org/2018/04/17/zach-graves-testimony -before-the-u-s-house-of-representatives-committee-on-appropriations-legislative-branch-subcommittee/.
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86 For a deeper discussion of conservative objections to OTA, see: Zach Graves, “Rebuilding a Technology Assessment Office in Congress,” R Street Institute, September 2018. https://www.rstreet.org/wp-content /uploads/2018/09/No.-152.pdf See also: Adam Keiper, “Science and Congress,” The New Atlantis (Fall 2004/ Winter 2005). https://www.thenewatlantis.com/docLib/TNA07-Keiper.pdf/.