The Honorable John Glenn

March 22

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could be lost by a token parade of choices and alternatives which is not coupled to follow-through discussions and hearings.

Question 2: What is government presently doing in this regard, and is it in any way deficient?

Government policy centers, including OMB, CEA, and CEQ, do produce reports which include long-range projections and forecasts. However, it is worth stressing that these reports are carefully honed to be compatible with Administration policy. Therefore, although they have some value, they do not meet the needs perceived by the participants at the February symposium, nor do they make any serious attempt to display and examine choices and alternatives. Moreover, the present process through which government generates such policy reports suffers from an institutional myopia, induced in part by constituency and group pressures, and in part by the shrinkage of public confidence in government's capacity to assess with any accuracy either the short run or long run implications of its specific policy decisions.

If projective studies are to be useful, it would be preferable for government, and particularly the Congress, to explore strategies for genuine public involvement rather than attempting to improve its long-range planning capabilities exclusively by means of internal, institutional changes. Both the Executive and the Congress should turn to a variety of existing institutions--universities, professional societies, other non-profit organizations, consortia of quasi-private organizations--to generate a spirited, lively, and competitive stream of studies of critical choices, and should couple the generation of such studies to a process for networkCard synthesizing the variety of outputs. This would be consistent h converging the variety of views which marks the national culture, and ould one of the best antidotes to the simplistic, straight-line approach that so frequently characterizes government policy making.

Question 3: If it is deficient, what can be done to improve the effort either through reform of existing institutions or the development of new institutions?

As our responses to questions 1 and 2 suggest, we are skeptical about the value of creating any new government institutions for long range policy planning in the absence of processes through which government can generate and make use of the resources of non-governmental public involvement. The history of the former White House Office of Science and Technology demonstrates all too clearly how a laudable and vital government institution can become ineffective as a policy planning agency if its policy perspectives are regarded as being inconsistent with

The Honorable John Glenn

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those of the incumbent Administration. The new Executive Office science mechanism which Congress seems about to establish provides a number of opportunities for public participation in science policy planning along the lines suggested by our response to question 2. It would be well to give these mechanisms an opportunity to develop and be tested and then, perhaps, build upon them before attempting to establish additional Executive Advisory Councils, no matter how laudable their missions.

It is also our impression that the Congress seems unaware that it already has a remarkable institutional potential for policy evaluation and assessment in the combined resources represented by the General Accounting Office, the Congressional Research Service and the Office of Technology Assessment. To a degree, these institutions presently stand free of one another and expend too much time debating their respective turf boundaries. Every effort should be made to converge these three centers, to have them share capacity, and to make them permeable to one another. Their aggregate potential, which is now fragmented, could go very far indeed towards making better use of lead time for legislative purposes.

The Congress undertook a substantial institutional innovation when it established its new budget reform system. That system should be given a chance to mature since it has the potential to evolve, over time, into a long-range instrument for balancing alternatives for policy action and public investment.

Careful thought should be given to further changes in the budget and planning process to get away from the annual straightjacket and proceed as though the Congress expected the United States Government to be in existence for three to five years at a time. Annuality suited an 18th century government. Today the necessary and legitimate scale of government is vastly different and threatens to overwhelm the decision-making capabilities of the Congress. Where budget matters are concerned, the Congress should emphasize: first its oversight function, and second significant shifts in resource allocation over multi-year increments. baseline budget, covering ongoing commitments, could be enacted for three years or more at a time, thus freeing the legislative process for major policy considerations and giving it an opportunity to develop its capabilities for what might be called a directional navigation function.

A

We are pleased to have been given the opportunity to make these comments and regard your invitation to do so as evidence of recognition on your part of the growing need to inform long-range public policy planning processes with inputs from private institutions representing this country's scientific and technical capabilities.

Sincerely

Wild Claspid

Will A. Blanpred

Head

Division of Public Sector Programs

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, SANTA BARBARA

BERKELEY DAVIS IRVINE LOS ANGELES RIVERSIDE SAN DIEGO SAN FRANCISCO

COMMUNITY AND ORGANIZATION
RESEARCH INSTITUTE

SANTA BARBARA SANTA

SANTA BARBARA, CALIFORNIA 93106

March 22, 1976

The Honorable John Glenn

United States Senator

United States Senate

Washington, D. C. 20510

Dear Senator Glenn:

Your summary letter cited, several times, the low esteem in which
government is presently held. I concur. But having experienced 30
years of efforts to bring long range consequences into the view of public
decision makers at federal, state and local levels of government I now
question the total reliance on government as the instrument for that
purpose. It has been my experience, and observation of planning in
this and other nations, that "long range planning" is tolerated by
democratic governments, typically, only so long as it is not threatening to
the status quo. The strong new measures we are seeing in this society,
including environmental impact statements, have been prompted by
private citizen initiatives not governmental leadership. There is a
strength in that which government could encourage and guide to a
stimulating partnership - rather than the present action/reaction
syndrome. Why not faciliate the updating of what de Tocqueville saw
as the genius of American Democracy?

Question 1: Government role in setting long-term goals and
development of strategies?

Government can facilitate longterm goal setting and implementation in
this society much more effectively if it does not take the view that
"goals" are strictly official business that "belongs" to government.
A parallel with BBC funding and direction might be cited. Federal,
state and local governments could, by law, require that a certain tax
be set for long-range goal setting, etc which went to non-profit,
non-governmental bodies to openly examine alternative future courses

The Hon. John Glenn

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March 22, 1976

of action with policy makers (official decision makers and interested
citizens). Such bodies would not make decisions but would carry the
heavy cost of analysis, communication and education which, as far as
I can see, government has no stomach for. And maybe this is quite
appropriate. (Final decisions would be made where they are now, in
business and in government.)

The political vulnerability that comes with financing such expensive,
sensitive communication has kept governments in this country from
undertaking it as serious business. Open discussion, goal setting and
implementation should be welcomed in either a democratic society or
a representative republic, but the diversion of sufficient funds for this
purpose seems to be political dynamite. Perhaps the BBC formula,
and
other means, could avoid this conflict of interest.

The object is to avoid political power bases as the foundation for
"objective "forums on goals. It doesn't wash. It leads to adversary
tactics which are designed from the outset to go to court. We cannot
run the whole business of this fast-changing society through the courts.
When it comes to official determinations on selective goals and the
strategies to implement them, the official machinary of government
must go to work. Certainly we are presently a $ 3 trillion, 220 million
people nation without long term national goals and stratgies on energy,
transportation, and telecommunications, to name three of the most
crucial national policy instruments we are doing without.

But, Washington conferences seem to dwell eternally on resolving it
all in Washington. Multi-state and multi-county regions are where
practical coordination and implementation(and constructive citizen

involvement) must be based once basic national policies are set to set them)

I see no mention of that in your seminars.

Question 2: What is government presently doing?

A lot, and not much. The pieces are there, but in the way Congress
legislates specific, categorical, one-year-at-a-time funds this country
is in fact without effective means to implement long range concepts.
No one really takes it seriously, unless we refer to exceptional examples
which do demonstrate capability, such as 40,000 miles of inter-regional
highways, landing on the moon, the agriculture "miracle" and TVA ( in
its original state.) Even a conservative President like Eisenhower could
see the effect of a 2-year term for Congress on the nation's business.

The Hon. John Glenn

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March 22, 1976

At the moment there is a creative new impetus in Congress in the u nderfunded OTA, in the stated purpose of NSF/RANN, in the intergrated grants program managed by OMB, the Javitts-Humphrey Bill, etc. Also the ten Federal Regional Councils, if allowed to become what they could and should be instead of simply places to smooth out jurisdictional disputes between federal agencies, offer a new potential.

I am not much impressed with White House (this or other administration) attempts at "setting" National Goals. The Eisenhower effort under Henry Merritt Wriston laid a basic foundation, but just ask him how he funded that effort!

As to your letter's reference to "prominent thinkers" whose thoughts So unheeded. Some of them should go unheeded, but writing a "law" that they be heeded won't do it either. In my judgment, we are presently without the "process" to adequately and democratically discuss the future of this society, although technically the resources are already in our hands.

Question 3: What can be done?

Both improvement in existing institutions and social inventions seem the creative response to this time of great change. My emphasis of late has been in the social inventions needed to improve regional policy making. The National Science Foundation and 25 local institutions in the Santa Barbara County South Coast Region funded the ACCESS project through its design stage. I am now seeking funding through six or seven federal agencies to carry it through a one year Pilot Test. There is much I can tell you about the state of mind in Washington at this time about long range planning, and in private foundations, if you have the time to listen.

I enclose a review copy of the final report to the National Science Foundation on this subject. It references numbers of other works. Note especially the interest that electric utility industry have taken. (see also especially pages 30 - 31 and 54 - 55). The ACCESS project was recognized February 3, 1976 by the Ameican Revolution Bicentennial Administration as one of five national Horizon projects.

The University of California, Santa Barbara has become the applicant for the one year Pilot Test. The Office of Environmental Education, HEW, is the lead agency for joint federal funding. To date HEW, EDA, EPA, and Forestry have pledge $261, 000. That is not enough. A minimum of $300,000 is required to start the project. Your interest in this national prototype, of what you have set a course on, couldn't help but