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The 1992 World Administrative Radio Conference: Issues for U.S. International Spectrum Policy

Description: This report examines the U.S. preparations process for WARC-92, highlighting efforts to integrate the needs and concerns of various interest groups. It also reviews the forces and trends affecting the United States as it approaches WARC-92, and is intended to inform future congressional oversight of the domestic and international radio communication policy process.
Date: November 1991
Creator: United States. Congress. Office of Technology Assessment.
Partner: UNT Libraries Government Documents Department
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Adjusting to a New Security Environment: The Defense Technology and Industrial Base Challenge

Description: This background paper, OTA sought information and advice from a broad spectrum of knowledgeable individuals and organizations whose contributions are gratefully acknowledged. As with all OTA studies, the content of this background paper is the sole responsibility of the Office of Technology Assessment and does not necessarily represent the views of our advisers and reviewers.
Date: February 1991
Creator: United States. Congress. Office of Technology Assessment.
Partner: UNT Libraries Government Documents Department
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Adolescent Health, Volume 1: Summary and Policy Options

Description: This 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. In addition, OTA was asked to: 1 ) identify risk and protective fac… more
Date: April 1991
Creator: United States. Congress. Office of Technology Assessment.
Partner: UNT Libraries Government Documents Department
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Adolescent Health, Volume 2: Background and the Effectiveness of Selected Prevention and Treatment Services

Description: The 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.
Date: October 1991
Creator: United States. Congress. Office of Technology Assessment.
Partner: UNT Libraries Government Documents Department
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Adolescent Health, Volume 3: Crosscutting Issues in the Delivery of Health and Related Services

Description: 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.
Date: June 1991
Creator: United States. Congress. Office of Technology Assessment.
Partner: UNT Libraries Government Documents Department
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Agricultural Commodities as Industrial Raw Materials

Description: 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.
Date: June 1991
Creator: United States. Congress. Office of Technology Assessment.
Partner: UNT Libraries Government Documents Department
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American Military Power: Future Needs, Future Choices

Description: This background paper outlines some of the issues of importance for making choices about the future nature and role of U.S. armed forces, and suggests how these choices will affect defense base requirements. The final report of the assessment, to be delivered in the spring of 1992, will address specific policy options arising from the strategic choices and tactical decisions discussed here.
Date: October 1991
Creator: United States. Congress. Office of Technology Assessment.
Partner: UNT Libraries Government Documents Department
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Automated Record Checks for Firearm Purchasers: Issues and Options

Description: This report assesses the proposals and prospects for automated checks, ranging from the point-of-sale “instant” check now used by the State of Virginia, to the establishment of a computerized national felons file, to live scanning of fingerprints, or the issuance of ‘smart’ cards to identify firearm purchasers. It considers the benefits, costs, and risks of automated checks. The report examines the relationship between automated record checks and waiting periods, the wide variability in State c… more
Date: July 1991
Creator: United States. Congress. Office of Technology Assessment.
Partner: UNT Libraries Government Documents Department
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Biological Rhythms: Implications for the Worker

Description: This report discusses biological rhythms: what they are, how they are controlled by the brain, and the role they play in regulating physiological and cognitive functions. The major focus of the report is the examination of the effects of nonstandard work hours on biological rhythms and how these effects can interact with other factors to affect the health, performance, and safety of workers.
Date: September 1991
Creator: United States. Congress. Office of Technology Assessment.
Partner: UNT Libraries Government Documents Department
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Bioremediation for Marine Oil Spills

Description: This OTA background paper evaluates the current state of knowledge and assesses the potential of bioremediation for responding to marine oil spills. Our basic message is a dual one: we caution that there are still many uncertainties about the use of bioremediation as a practical oil spill response technology; nevertheless, it could be appropriate in certain circumstances, and further research and development of bioremediation technologies could lead to enhancing the Nation’s capability to fight… more
Date: May 1991
Creator: United States. Congress. Office of Technology Assessment.
Partner: UNT Libraries Government Documents Department
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Biotechnology in a Global Economy

Description: This report examines the impact of biotechnology in several industries, including pharmaceuticals, chemicals, agriculture, and hazardous waste clean-up; the efforts of 16 Nations to develop commercial uses of biotechnology; and the actions, both direct and indirect, taken by various governments that influence innovation in biotechnology.
Date: October 1991
Creator: United States. Congress. Office of Technology Assessment.
Partner: UNT Libraries Government Documents Department
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Biotechnology in a global economy

Description: This report discusses the biotechnology in the following countries: Australia, Brazil, Canada, Denmark, Ireland, Japan, Korea, Netherlands, Switzerland, and United Kingdom.
Date: June 1991
Creator: United States. Congress. Office of Technology Assessment
Partner: UNT Libraries Government Documents Department
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Changing by Degrees: Steps To Reduce Greenhouse Gases

Description: This report discusses the actions necessary to effect a major reduction of United States. carbon dioxide emissions. The U.S. is the world’s leading industrial society and largest single emitter of carbon dioxide. Climate change therefore presents a unique challenge to this Nation. It is a threat that will require major prudent political actions even before all the scientific certainties are resolved. The analysis, prevention, and remediation of global warming will require unprecedented internat… more
Date: February 1991
Creator: United States. Congress. Office of Technology Assessment.
Partner: UNT Libraries Government Documents Department
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Competing Economies: America, Europe, and the Pacific Rim

Description: This report examines how the economic environment of the United States can be made more conducive to improving manufacturing performance. It considers how Federal institutions, in cooperation with industry, can develop competitiveness strategies for high-tech, fast growing industries; and how trade, financial, and technology policies could be combined into a strategic competitiveness policy.
Date: October 1991
Creator: United States. Congress. Office of Technology Assessment.
Partner: UNT Libraries Government Documents Department
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Complex Cleanup: The Environmental Legacy of Nuclear Weapons Production

Description: This report is a comprehensive look at the problem as we now know it, the public concerns about the problem, and DOE’s plans for addressing it. It focuses especially on the need for additional attention to those areas which DOE has neither the capability nor the credibility to handle.
Date: February 1991
Creator: United States. Congress. Office of Technology Assessment.
Partner: UNT Libraries Government Documents Department
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Delivering the Goods: Public Works Technologies, Management, and Financing

Description: This report identifies several immediate steps the Federal Government could take. First, new environmental standards, population shifts, and industrial changes have transformed the nature of many public works problems, and Federal programs must be refocused to fit the new circumstances. Second, if we expect to maintain our economic health, the Nation must increase its investment in public works, despite budget dilemmas.
Date: April 1991
Creator: United States. Congress. Office of Technology Assessment.
Partner: UNT Libraries Government Documents Department
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Dioxin Treatment Technologies

Description: This paper presents the status of national efforts to cleanup dioxin-contaminated sites and the technologies that have been used, proposed, and researched. It covers thermal and nonthermal treatment techniques as well as approaches such as stabilization and storage. It discusses the development of these technologies as well as advantages and disadvantages of their use.
Date: November 1991
Creator: United States. Congress. Office of Technology Assessment.
Partner: UNT Libraries Government Documents Department
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Energy Efficiency in the Federal Government: Government by Good Example?

Description: This report focuses on the Federal Government, the Nation’s largest single energy consumer, in terms of the opportunities and constraints for the use of energy efficient technologies. Energy efficient technologies could greatly reduce energy demand growth and spending in the United States and lessen environmental impacts while increasing productivity. Yet, in today’s public and private markets, adoption rates for many of these technologies are low. This report reviews past and current efforts t… more
Date: May 1991
Creator: United States. Congress. Office of Technology Assessment.
Partner: UNT Libraries Government Documents Department
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Energy in Developing Countries

Description: This report, the first of two, was prepared in response to the requesting committees’ interest in receiving an interim product. It examines how energy is supplied and used in developing countries, and how energy use is linked with economic and social development and environmental quality.
Date: January 1991
Creator: United States. Congress. Office of Technology Assessment.
Partner: UNT Libraries Government Documents Department
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Energy Technology Choices: Shaping Our Future

Description: The report provides a broad overview of energy choices facing the Nation. It is not an exhaustive analysis of any one technology; rather, it draws together the main themes of OTA reports from the past 16 years, and other documents, into an outline of the main directions the country could follow.
Date: July 1991
Creator: United States. Congress. Office of Technology Assessment.
Partner: UNT Libraries Government Documents Department
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Exploring the Moon and Mars: Choices for the Nation

Description: This report, the result of an assessment of the potential for automation and robotics technology to assist in the exploration of the Moon and Mars, raises a number of issues related to the goals of the U.S. civilian space program. Among other things, the report discusses how greater attention to automation and robotics technologies could contribute to U.S. space exploration efforts.
Date: July 1991
Creator: United States. Congress. Office of Technology Assessment.
Partner: UNT Libraries Government Documents Department
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The FBI Fingerprint Identification Automation Program: Issues and Options

Description: This report focuses on key assumptions that will affect the sizing and procurement of the new FBI system, and on other related steps that appear necessary to ensure complete and up-to-date record systems. These include full implementation of a Federal/State/local partnership for maintaining and exchanging fingerprint and criminal history records; enactment of an interstate compact or Federal legislation setting out uniform rules for the exchange of such records; standards and funding for improv… more
Date: November 1991
Creator: United States. Congress. Office of Technology Assessment.
Partner: UNT Libraries Government Documents Department
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Federally Funded Research: Decisions for a Decade

Description: This report analyzes what OTA identifies as four pressing challenges for the research system i-n the 1990s: setting priorities in tiding, understanding trends in research expenditures, preparing human resources for the future research work force, and supplying appropriate data for ongoing research decision making. Managing the Federal research system requires more than funding; it means devising ways to retain the diversity and creativity that have distinguished U.S. contributions to scientific… more
Date: May 1991
Creator: United States. Congress. Office of Technology Assessment.
Partner: UNT Libraries Government Documents Department
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