CHAPTER 15 "SOUND SCIENCE" OR "PARALYSIS BY ANALYSIS"?

• Jurisdiction: United States

Natural Resources and Environmental Administrative Law and Procedure II
(Sep 2004)
CHAPTER 15
"SOUND SCIENCE" OR "PARALYSIS BY ANALYSIS"?
Sidney A. Shapiro
University Distinguished Chair in Law
Wake-Forest University School of Law
Winston Salem, North Carolina

Sidney A. Shapiro holds a University Distinguished Chair in Law at Wake-Forest University. He is a member scholar and Board member of the the Center for Progressive Regulation.

His most recent book is Risk Regulation At Risk: Restoring A Pragmatic Approach, published by Stanford University Press. He is the co-author of two law school textbooks on regulatory law and practice and administrative law, as well as a one-volume administrative law treatise. Professor Shapiro has written widely on regulatory policy and process topics, including a book on occupational safety and health law and policy.

Professor Shapiro has been a consultant to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) and the Administrative Conference of the United States (ACUS), and he has testified in Congress on regulatory policy and process issues.

The New Information Quality Procedures

Sidney A. Shapiro
University Distinguished Chair in Law,
Wake Forest University
Board Member, Center for Progressive
Regulation

Background

• '62-'78: new environmental and resource protection laws

• Reaction

• 1%gst%g wave: regulatory assessment requirements

• 2d wave: Information Quality Act (2001)

• OMB IQA procedures (2002)

• Proposed Peer Review procedures (2004)

1%gst%g Wave

Results

• Proponents

• Better, smarter regulation

• Opponents

• Paralysis by analysis

• Ossification of Rulemaking

• 3 to 8 years for major rule

IQA

• Passed in 2001

• Appropriations rider

• No hearings

• No legislative history

• Unknown to legislators

• Written by industry lobbyist

• Jim Tozzi,

• Center for Regulatory Effectiveness

• Requires

• OMB to

• establish standards to ensure "objectivity, integrity, and utility"

• of "disseminated" information

• agencies to

• Comply with OMB standards

• Establish complaint process

• OMB Guidelines

• 67 Fed. Reg. 8,452 (Feb. 22, 2004)

• Agency Guidelines

• EPA link

• 67 Fed. Reg. 63,657 (Oct. 15, 2002)

• Other agencies

• See CRE website link

Scope of IQA

• applies to "disseminated" information

• OMB definition

• any "agency initiated or sponsored distribution of information to the public"

• Coverage

• Reports/Web: Yes

• Rulemaking...