[Congressional Record Volume 149, Number 128 (Wednesday, September 17, 2003)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E1817]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




   CLARIFICATION OF SCOPE AND CONCLUSIONS OF PROFESSOR GUSTON'S STUDY

                                 ______
                                 

                           HON. RUSH D. HOLT

                             of new jersey

                    in the house of representatives

                     Wednesday, September 17, 2003

  Mr. HOLT. Mr. Speaker, on May 7 of this year, the House debated and 
passed an important piece of legislation, the Nanotechnology Research 
and Development Act of 2003 (H.R. 766). During debate of this bill, it 
became clear that there was a misunderstanding regarding the 
conclusions of a scholarly study conducted at Rutgers University. The 
author of that study, which was cited during the debate, has written to 
me with the request that he be able to clear up the confusion.
  I am enclosing for the record the attached letter from David Guston, 
Associate Professor and Director of the Public Policy Program at 
Rutgers. Professor Guston's letter clarifies the scope and conclusions 
of his study, and will help us move forward on issues related to 
nanotechnology in an informed and thoughtful way in the future.

         Rutgers, Edward J. Bloustein School of Planning and 
           Public Policy, Public Policy Program,
                            New Brunswick, NJ, September 17, 2003.
     Hon. Rush Holt,
     Longworth House Office Bldg.,
     Washington, DC.
       Dear Representative Holt: I write regarding the debate on 
     the House floor on 7 May on the Nanotechnology Research and 
     Development Act of 2003 (H.R. 766).
       It has come to my attention that, in responding to 
     Representative Johnson's proposed amendment to the bill to 
     provide for regularly occuring consensus conferences or 
     citizens' panels, Representative Burgess cited (at CR H3727) 
     ``[a] scholarly review of the Danish-type citizens' panel 
     process convened to study telecommunications and democracy 
     [that] judged the process to be ineffective.''
       In later remarks on the amendment, Chairman Boehlert 
     referred to the same ``scholarly study,'' saying that he was 
     told the study ``concluded that not even those engaged in 
     organizing the US citizens' panel thought it had any 
     impact.'' Chairman Boehlert then quoted from the study the 
     following passage (at CR H3727-28): ``The single greatest 
     area of consensus among the respondents was that the 
     Citizens' Panel on Telecommunications and the Future of 
     Democracy had no actual impact. No respondent, not even those 
     government members of the steering committee or expert 
     cohort, identified any actual impact.''
       I am the author of the study in question (which can be 
     found in pre-published form at http://policy.rutgers.edu/
papers/ and via http://www.loka.org/pages/panel/htm and in 
     peer-reviewed, published from in Science, Technology, & Human 
     Values 24(4):451-82). I believe that these comments indicate 
     real confusion about my findings. I am therefore writing to 
     correct the record and to ensure that no misunderstanding 
     about my study damages efforts to provide public input into 
     the future of nanotechnology R&D.
       There are three important aspects of my study on the 
     Citizens' Panel on Telecommunications and the Future of 
     Democracy of which you should be aware.
       First, the study concludes that the citizens' panel had no 
     actual impact on policy decisions because, in large part, it 
     was not designed to. The sentence from the study immediately 
     following the one Chairman Boehlert quotes reads: ``A primary 
     reason for this lack of impact is that having one was not a 
     primary goal of the citizens' panel.'' The organizers of the 
     panel designed it as a proof-of-concept, and they were more 
     interested in understanding how to implement such a panel and 
     in seeing how the experts and lay-citizens would interact 
     than they were in having an actual impact on policy. Although 
     conducting citizens' panels is not quite rocket science, 
     questioning their effectiveness by claiming that this panel 
     did not have an actual impact is like blaming the Gemini 
     program for not going to the Moon: Its designers did not 
     intend it to do so.
       Second, my study distinguishes between what I call ``actual 
     impact,'' defined as ``a concrete consequence to any 
     authoritative public decision,'' and three other impacts: (1) 
     those on the ``general thinking'' about a problem; (2) those 
     on the ``training of knowledgeable personnel''; and (3) those 
     that result in an ``interaction with lay-knowledge.'' I 
     develop these other measures to evaluate the impact of 
     citizens' panels for two reasons: (1) because--just as with 
     more traditional research--the education of participants is a 
     primary output of citizens' panels; and (2) because even very 
     formal, expert studies such as those conducted by the 
     National Academy of Sciences or by national commissions often 
     fail to have an ``actual impact.'' The comments made in the 
     floor debate by members of both parties emphasize that 
     scientists and lay-citizens need to learn from each other 
     about nanotechnology, and my study finds that such learning 
     can indeed occur in citizens' panels. To question the 
     effectiveness of citizens' panels by pointing to no ``actual 
     impact'' of this pilot panel misses the study's finding of 
     ``tantalizing evidence that many kinds of impacts can be 
     achieved.''
       Third--and most importantly--rather than undermining the 
     possibility of providing public input into technical 
     decisions, my research concludes that citizens panels are 
     real opportunities for productive interaction between experts 
     and lay-citizens. My research concludes that future citizens' 
     panels would need better ``connection to non-participants'' 
     and ``higher profile institutional partners'' in order to 
     achieve their potential. If citizens' panels were authorized 
     by H.R. 766 and conducted by NSF and its partner agencies, 
     then they would indeed have the institutional support my 
     research indicates they require to succeed.
       I hope that the record can be corrected to indicate that my 
     research provides evidence and analysis to support the 
     productive use of citizens' panels under the conditions that 
     H.R. 766 envisions them, rather than providing evidence 
     against their effectiveness.
       Please let me know if I may be of any assistance on such 
     matters in the future, and I thank you for your work on H.R. 
     766 and for your attention here.
           Sincerely,
                                                  David H. Guston,
     Associate Professor and Director.

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