May 9, 2019    Hon. Cindy Hyde-Smith, Chairman  Hon. Chris Murphy, Ranking Member  U.S. Senate, Committee on Appropriations, Subcommittee on the Legislative Branch  Room S-128, The Capitol  Washington, DC 20510    Re: Strengthening Legislative Branch Capacity on Science and Technology    Dear Chairman Hyde-Smith, Ranking Member Murphy, and Members of the Committee:    On behalf of the undersigned organizations and individuals, we write to express our concern  that Congress does not have sufficient capacity to tackle 21st century science and technology  policy challenges. Accordingly, we urge you to prioritize efforts to augment this institutional  capacity, including providing funding for the Office of Technology Assessment (OTA), as part of  the fiscal year 2020 Legislative Branch Appropriations bill.    The Senate has played a leading institutional role in promoting science and technology  capacity in Congress. We note with favor the recently created Science, Technology Assessment  and Analytics (STAA) team inside the Government Accountability Office, and its expanding  capabilities to serve Members of Congress with expert advice and analysis.1 We also look  forward to the forthcoming report from the National Academy of Public Administration later  this year.    But OTA and STAA have different comparative advantages: the former in foresight and  emerging technologies, and the latter in oversight and evaluating federal government programs  and expenditures. Congress must have both these capabilities to meet the ever-increasing  demands on its oversight and legislative responsibilities.    We thank you for the opportunity to express our support for the reestablishment of the Office  of Technology Assessment and welcome the opportunity to discuss this further. Please contact:  Zach Graves, Head of Policy at Lincoln Network, at ​zach.graves@joinlincoln.org​ or  202-733-8976; and Daniel Schuman, Policy Director at Demand Progress, at  daniel@demandprogress.org​ or 240-237-3930.     Sincerely,        1 “GAO Science, Technology Assessment, and Analytics Team: Initial Plan and Considerations Moving Forward,” GAO, April  10, 2019. ​https://www.gao.gov/pdfs/about/GAOScienceTechPlan-2019-04-10.pdf​.   1 ORGANIZATIONS    Lincoln Network  FreedomWorks  TechFreedom  R Street Institute  American Principles Project  Stand Up Republic  Log Cabin Republicans  Federation of American Scientists  Union of Concerned Scientists  Code for America  Information Technology and Innovation Foundation  American Library Association  CompTIA  Medium  DuckDuckGo  Mozilla  Consumer Reports  Engine  Tech:NYC  Demand Progress  American Civil Liberties Union  Center for Democracy & Technology  Center for Humane Technology  Open Markets Institute  Public Knowledge  X-Lab  Issue One  Sunlight Foundation  Project On Government Oversight  Campaign for Accountability  Government Accountability Project  Joseph Rainey Center for Public Policy  Copia Institute  The New Center  Future of Life Institute  Defending Rights & Dissent  Government Information Watch  Latino Tech Policy Initiative  Senior Executives Association  Longpath     2 INDIVIDUALS*    Vint Cerf, Internet Pioneer  Craig Newmark, Founder of Craigslist and Craig Newmark Philanthropies  Douglas W. Elmendorf, Dean and Don K. Price Professor of Public Policy, Harvard Kennedy  School  Adam Keiper, Co-Founder and Senior Editor,​ The New Atlantis  Tim O’Reilly, Founder and CEO, O'Reilly Media  Allison Berke, Executive Director, Stanford Cyber Initiative  Jerry Taylor, President, Niskanen Center   Alan Davidson, VP of Global Policy, Trust, and Security at Mozilla Corporation  Mike Godwin, Board of Trustees, The Internet Society  Bruce Schneier, Lecturer in Public Policy, Harvard Kennedy School  Jon Peha, Professor of Electrical Engineering and Public Policy, Carnegie Mellon University  Daniel Sarewitz, Consortium for Science, Policy and Outcomes, Arizona State University  Robert Cook-Deegan, Consortium for Science, Policy and Outcomes, Arizona State University  Robert Friedman, VP for Policy, J. Craig Venter Institute  Daniel J. Chenok, Executive Director, IBM Center for The Business of Government  Ryan Calo, Co-Director, Tech Policy Lab, University of Washington  Robert Seamans, Professor, NYU Stern School of Business  William A. Galston, Senior Fellow, The Brookings Institution  Jason Schultz, NYU School of Law  Eric Goldman, Professor, Santa Clara University School of Law  David Eaves, Digital HKS, Harvard Kennedy School  Joan D. Winston, former CRS, OTA, and GAO analyst  Matthew Might, Director and Professor, Hugh Kaul Precision Medicine Institute, University of  Alabama at Birmingham  John Leary, CEO, DotGov.com  Gladys B. White, Ph.D. Georgetown University, School for Continuing Studies  Gigi Sohn, Distinguished Fellow, Georgetown Law Institute for Technology Law & Policy  Rodney Sobin, Senior Program Director, National Association of State Energy Officials  Benedicte Callan, Clinical Professor, Arizona State University  DJ Patil, Former U.S. Chief Data Scientist  Sean Tunis, Principal, Rubix Health  Nick Sinai, Adjunct Faculty, Harvard Kennedy School  Austin Brown, Executive Director, UC Davis Policy Institute for Energy, Environment, and the  Economy  Jillian Grennan, Assistant Professor, Duke University, Fuqua School of Business  Richard Forno, Senior Lecturer, University of Maryland, Baltimore County  Lorelei Kelly, Fellow, Resilient Democracy Lead, Beeck Center for Social Impact + Innovation at  Georgetown University  Kathy Hill, Director Center of Advanced Governmental Studies, Johns Hopkins University  Christopher T. Hill, Prof. Emeritus of Public Policy and Technology, George Mason University  3 Annemarie Bridy, Allan G. Shepard Professor of Law, University of Idaho  Renee DiResta, Mozilla Fellow  Colleen Chien, Visiting Professor, Columbia Law School; Professor, Santa Clara Law School   Rebecca Williams, DC Legal Hackers  Alexander Howard, Founder, e-PluribusUnum.org  Ryan Khurana, Executive Director, Institute for Advancing Prosperity  Andy Lee Roth, Associate Director, Project Censored  Steve Plotkin, Argonne Associate, Argonne National Laboratory  Henry Kelly, University of Michigan  Grant Tudor, Harvard University  Justin Warner, Harvard University  Ross Dakin, New Jersey Office of Innovation  Adam Bly, Former VP Data at Spotify  Caroline S. Wagner, Wolf Chair in International Affairs, Ohio State University  Michael Stebbins, President, Science Advisors, LLC    *Affiliation listed for identification purposes only.    4