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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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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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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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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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Seeking Solutions: High Performance Computing for Science

Description: This background paper focuses on the Federal role in supporting a national high-performance computing initiative. High-performance ‘‘supercomputers’ * are fast becoming tools of international competition and they play an important role in such areas as scientific research, weather forecasting, and popular entertainment. They may prove to be the key to maintaining America’s preeminence in science and engineering. The automotive, aerospace, electronic, and pharmaceutical industries are becoming m… more
Date: March 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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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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Identifying and Controlling Immunotoxic Substances

Description: This background paper, which describes the state-of the- art of identifying substances that can harm the immune system, represents one response to the committee’s request. Chapter 2 provides basic information about the principal components of the immune system and the general consequences that stem from perturbations to it. Chapter 3 describes methods for evaluating chemical immunotoxicity and reports on some known or suspected immunotoxicants. Chapter 4 summarizes Federal research and regulato… more
Date: April 1991
Creator: United States. Congress. Office of Technology Assessment.
Partner: UNT Libraries Government Documents Department
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Rural America at the Crossroads: Networking for the Future

Description: This study explores the role that communication technologies can play in securing rural America’s future. It develops several policy strategies and options to encourage such development. The study was requested by the Joint Economic Committee of Congress and Senators Charles E. Grassley and Orrin G. Hatch.
Date: April 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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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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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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Long-Lived Legacy: Managing High-Level and Transuranic Waste at the DOE Nuclear Weapons Complex

Description: This report describes, documents, and analyzes available data about two key waste management problems at the Department of Energy Weapons Complex—those of high-level radioactive waste and transuranic waste. The paper is organized in two chapters—” Chapter 1: Managing High Level Waste’ and ‘Chapter 2: Managing Transuranic Waste. ” Each chapter contains a summary overview followed by a discussion and analysis of important areas in the waste management problem that the DOE faces at present and in … more
Date: May 1991
Creator: United States. Congress. Office of Technology Assessment.
Partner: UNT Libraries Government Documents Department
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Science Advice to the Congress, May 1991

Description: This report is divided into three parts: first, an account of science advice to Congress and its dependence on its agencies; secondly, a more detailed look at the Office of Technology Assessment (OTA) as the agency with most to offer other countries and most resemblance to parliamentary committee work; and thirdly, a short consideration of whether or not an OTA is appropriate for the UK.
Date: May 1991
Creator: Walters, Rhodri
Partner: UNT Libraries Government Documents Department
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U.S. Dairy Industry at a Crossroad: Biotechnology and Policy Choices

Description: The report concludes that, based on today’s research findings, bST poses no additional risk to consumers and does not produce adverse health effects to cows. However, if approved by FDA, bST will accelerate trends that already put additional economic stress on dairy farm operators in many areas of the country. Other new technologies that may become available during the decade may also have similar impacts as bST and raise similar issues. The industry in the decade of the 1990s will be at a cros… more
Date: May 1991
Creator: United States. Congress. Office of Technology Assessment.
Partner: UNT Libraries Government Documents Department
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Verification Technologies: Managing Research and Development for Cooperative Arms Control Monitoring Measures

Description: This report examines the management of the research and development process from which the new technologies are emerging. Partly as a result of the way in which the research and development process is managed, the allocation of research resources appears to be geared to meeting short-term needs and solving isolated problems, rather than to pursuing long-term goals and developing integrated verification regimes for the future. The report identifies a range of organizational options that might he… more
Date: May 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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