On the recordJuly 22, 2011
I appreciate very much the gentleman from New Jersey's passion for this program. He mentioned that they turned out the lights in 1996, some 15 years ago, and I can't help but wonder why the lights haven't been turned on in the last 15 years. I talked to the gentleman yesterday, and I didn't know much about the OTA, but I couldn't help but wonder why, in the midst of the financial mess that we find our country in, he would pick this time to try to resuscitate a program that has lay sleeping for 15 years. I don't know whether he has tried every year to resuscitate this program and nobody was listening. I hope he has tried before. There were probably times when money was more plentiful and he might have had a better chance of bringing back a new program, a little more government, but I think this is just bad timing. I told him that if he wants to continue to try to educate the Members and tell them what a wonderful program this was up until 1996, there may be some day that it would be resuscitated. But the Members should know that in 2008 we gave $2.5 million to the Government Accountability Office to do these kind of technological assessments, and they've been doing that for the last 4 years.
