http://www.boston.com/news/globe/ideas/articles/2003/10/05/the_science_gap/Excerpts:
TWO YEARS AGO, as anthrax-laced letters arrived in Congress and at New York media offices, reliable scientific information was in short supply. With jittery Washingtonians popping Cipro and refusing to open the mail, the confusion among leading policy makers only worsened the general unease. In an embarrassing flub, Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson suggested that the nation's first anthrax victim may have fallen ill through drinking from a stream.
The press and members of Congress needed better scientific analysis -- and they found it, among other places, in two reports on weapons of mass destruction published in 1993 by the congressional Office of Technology Assessment (OTA). One report contained key facts about the number of spores required to produce inhalation anthrax. The other report estimated that given the proper weather conditions, the release of 100 kilograms of anthrax from a plane upwind of Washington could kill more people than a hydrogen bomb.
Faced with America's first major bioterrorism attack, why was Congress dusting off decade-old reports? OTA hadn't produced anything more recent because the agency, once dubbed Congress's "defense against the dumb," no longer existed. <b>Soon after the "Gingrich revolution" of 1994 -- in a move that calls to mind current complaints over the Bush administration's approach to scientific advice -- incoming congressional Republicans dismantled their scientific advisory office.</b> They denounced OTA for being too slow and (some added) suspect in its political orientation. Yet perhaps because OTA took its time, its exactingly prepared and heavily reviewed reports have aged very well.
...
Meanwhile, New Jersey's Democratic congressman Rush Holt, who happens to be a physicist, has introduced a bill to bring the OTA back. But so far, Holt says, "the Republicans have dug in their heels." John Feehery, a spokesman for House Speaker Dennis J. Hastert, confirms that the party has little interest in Holt's efforts. "In `95, when we took over," says Feehery, "we made a decision that that branch of government was not producing. There's no reason to think that it will start producing if it is re-created."
The case for OTA's reincarnation is fairly straightforward. When Congress debates the Bush administration's rejection of the Kyoto treaty to combat global warming or its explanation of the great blackout of 2003, partisan voices on all sides appeal to the authority of science. But what does the best science tell us? Members of Congress rarely have the ability or the time to inform themselves about technical issues. <b>After the House of Representatives voted 265-162 to ban all cloning of human cells in 2001, Representative Peter Deutsch, a Florida Democrat, commented, "This is the least informed collectively that the 435 members of this body have ever been on any issue."</b>
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Um, do paid corporate scientists count?
Edited for stupid newbie mistakes
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