The Information Quality Act (IQA) or Data Quality Act (DQA), passed through the
United States Congress
The United States Congress is the legislature of the federal government of the United States. It is bicameral, composed of a lower body, the House of Representatives, and an upper body, the Senate. It meets in the U.S. Capitol in Washing ...
in Section 515 of the
Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2001 (). Because the Act was a two-sentence rider in a spending bill, it had no name given in the actual legislation. The
Government Accountability Office uses the name "Information Quality Act".
IQA directs the
Office of Management and Budget
The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) is the largest office within the Executive Office of the President of the United States (EOP). OMB's most prominent function is to produce the president's budget, but it also examines agency programs, pol ...
(OMB) to issue government-wide guidelines that "provide policy and procedural guidance to federal agencies for ensuring and maximizing the quality, objectivity, utility, and integrity of information (including statistical information) disseminated by Federal agencies".
Other federal agencies are also required to publish their own guidelines for information quality and peer review agendas.
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Text of the IQA
Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2001 Sec. 515 reads:
(a) In General. – The Director of the Office of Management and Budget shall, by not later than September 30, 2001, and with public and Federal agency involvement, issue guidelines under sections 3504(d)(1) and 3516 of title 44, United States Code, that provide policy and procedural guidance to Federal agencies for ensuring and maximizing the quality, objectivity, utility, and integrity of information (including statistical information) disseminated by Federal agencies in fulfillment of the purposes and provisions of chapter 35 of title 44, United States Code, commonly referred to as the Paperwork Reduction Act.
(b) Content of Guidelines. – The guidelines under subsection (a) shall –
:(1) apply to the sharing by Federal agencies of, and access to, information disseminated by Federal agencies; and
:(2) require that each Federal agency to which the guidelines apply –
::(A) issue guidelines ensuring and maximizing the quality, objectivity, utility, and integrity of information (including statistical information) disseminated by the agency, by not later than 1 year after the date of issuance of the guidelines under subsection (a);
::(B) establish administrative mechanisms allowing affected persons to seek and obtain correction of information maintained and disseminated by the agency that does not comply with the guidelines issued under subsection (a); and
::(C) report periodically to the Director –
:::(i) the number and nature of complaints received by the agency regarding the accuracy of information disseminated by the agency; and
:::(ii) how such complaints were handled by the agency.
Guidelines developed pursuant to IQA
OMB guidelines
OMB, Guidelines for Ensuring and Maximizing the Quality, Objectivity, Utility, and Integrity of Information Disseminated by Federal Agencies, Final Guidelines, with Request for Comments (Oct 1, 2001)
* OMB
Guidelines for Ensuring and Maximizing the Quality, Objectivity, Utility, and Integrity of Information Disseminated by Federal Agencies, Final Guidelines (corrected), 67 Fed. Reg. 8452 (Feb. 22. 2002)
Guidelines developed by agencies pursuant to IQA and OMB guidelines
* Federal Trade Commissio
FTC Information Quality Guidelines
* Health and Human Service
HHS Information Quality / Peer Review Ensuring the Quality of Information Disseminated by HHS Agencies
* NAS
Requirements for Documentation, Approval, and Dissemination of NASA Scientific and Technical Information
* Patent and Trademark Offic
* List of links to all
Cabinet, Executive Agency, and Independent Regulatory Agency guidelines
Criticism
The Data Quality Act has been criticized as providing a vehicle for special interest groups to challenge regulations on the grounds of not meeting information quality requirements. However, others view unchecked data and lack of peer-review as a tool of political corruption leading to the imposition of arbitrary and capricious
In law, the standard of review is the amount of deference given by one court (or some other appellate tribunal) in reviewing a decision of a lower court or tribunal. A low standard of review means that the decision under review will be varied or o ...
regulations. The "driving force behind the IQA", Jim Tozzi, said "there’s no doubt that we were funded by industry" and they wanted the IQA to be used as a tool to challenge government information. However, it does not confer any right to judicial review if people have sought to change information and been unsuccessful in convincing the agency (see below).
Information Quality Act failing as a basis for law suits
The Competitive Enterprise Institute
The Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) is a non-profit libertarian think tank founded by the political writer Fred L. Smith Jr. on March 9, 1984, in Washington, D.C., to advance principles of limited government, free enterprise, and individ ...
filed a lawsuit to prevent dissemination of Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)'s "Climate Action Report 2002" published May 2002, claiming the research did not meet requirements of the Federal Data Quality Act (FDQA), which came into effect in October 2002. The case was dismissed in November 2003.
In 2004, a multi-party dispute regarding the management of the Missouri River led to a case in which the District Court declared that "the IQA directs the Office of Management and Budget ("OMB") to issue guidelines that provide policy and procedural guidance to Federal agencies for ensuring and maximizing the quality, objectivity, utility, and integrity of information disseminated by the agency, the plain language of the legislation fails to define these terms. 44 U.S.C. § 3516. Moreover, the history of the legislation fails to provide any indication as to the scope of these terms. Absent any "meaningful standard" against which to evaluate the agency's discretion, the Court finds that Congress did not intend the IQA to provide a private cause of action, and therefore Blaske Marine Plaintiffs' IQA claim fails."
Four days after this judgement the Department of Justice reiterated that "The language of the IQA reflects Congress's intent that any challenges to the quality of information disseminated by federal agencies should take place in administrative proceedings before federal agencies and not in the courts. The first and only court to address this issue determined that the IQA does not provide for a private cause of action.”.
This statement was made in a brief that successfully asked for the dismissal of a lawsuit lodged by the Salt Institute (a salt-producers' association) and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce
The United States Chamber of Commerce (USCC) is the largest lobbying group in the United States, representing over three million businesses and organizations. The group was founded in April 1912 out of local chambers of commerce at the urgin ...
against the Department of Health and Human Services
The United States Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is a cabinet-level executive branch department of the U.S. federal government created to protect the health of all Americans and providing essential human services. Its motto is ...
in federal court using the Information Quality Act. The suit alleged that federal scientists lacked evidence that salt was harmful to health but was dismissed by a trial and appellate court. The Journal of the American Dietetic Association and the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute
The National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI) is the third largest Institute of the National Institutes of Health, located in Bethesda, Maryland, United States. It is tasked with allocating about $3.6 billion in FY 2020 in tax revenue to ...
(NHLBI) which is part of the US National Institutes of Health
The National Institutes of Health, commonly referred to as NIH (with each letter pronounced individually), is the primary agency of the United States government responsible for biomedical and public health research. It was founded in the late ...
claimed that the food industry is adding too much salt to foods. The motion to dismiss was granted "because the Plaintiffs lack standing to sue, there is no private right of action under the Information Quality Act, and the NHLBI's actions regarding the DASH-Sodium Trial data are not subject to judicial review under the Administrative Procedure Act."
In July 2019, the Department of Justice maintained that there was "no basis" for lawsuits based on the Information Quality Act. Protect Democracy Project Inc. and the Brennan Center for Justice had filed a suit demanding the U. S. Department of Justice and Department of Homeland Security correct a report linking immigration with terrorism. The report remained online, unchanged.
External links
Susan Bisong, Federal Agencies Subject to Data Quality Act
gives the historical background and purposes of the DQA (FindLaw)
Information Quality Act
from the Project on Scientific Knowledge and Public Policy The Project on Scientific Knowledge and Public Policy (SKAPP), based at the George Washington University in Washington, D.C., examines the nature of science and the ways in which it is both used and misused in government decision-making and legal pr ...
(SKAPP)
* Center for Regulatory Effectiveness
The Center for Regulatory Effectiveness (CRE) is an industry-funded, for-profit think tank. It focuses on federal agency compliance with "good government" laws which regulate the regulators. These "good government" laws include the Data Quality A ...
DataQualityAct.US
* OMB Watch
The Center for Effective Government, formerly OMB Watch, was a think tank and advocacy group based in Washington, D.C. It was focused on government transparency. Founded in 1983, the organization ceased operations in 2016, folding its work into th ...
Data Quality Act
* GAO Report September 2005
Information Quality Act: National Agricultural Statistics Service Implements First Steps, but Documentation of Census of Agriculture Could Be Improved
GAO report on implementation
Commentary
Center for Effective Government
* Center for Regulatory Effectiveness
The Center for Regulatory Effectiveness (CRE) is an industry-funded, for-profit think tank. It focuses on federal agency compliance with "good government" laws which regulate the regulators. These "good government" laws include the Data Quality A ...
br>"The Data Quality Act: A revolution in the role of science in policy making or a can of worms?"
* Rick Weiss, ''The Washington Post
''The Washington Post'' (also known as the ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'') is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C. It is the most widely circulated newspaper within the Washington metropolitan area and has a large nati ...
'', August 16, 2004
"'Data Quality' Law Is Nemesis Of Regulation"
* Chris Mooney, ''Boston Globe
''The Boston Globe'' is an American daily newspaper founded and based in Boston, Massachusetts. The newspaper has won a total of 27 Pulitzer Prizes, and has a total circulation of close to 300,000 print and digital subscribers. ''The Boston Glob ...
'', August 28, 2005
"Thanks to a little-known piece of legislation, scientists at the EPA and other agencies find their work questioned not only by industry, but by their own government"
* Chris Mooney, ''The Republican War on Science'' (New York: Basic Books, 2005 {{ISBN, 0465046754), ch. 8 ("Wine, Jazz, and 'Data Quality'"), pp. 102–20.
Urs Gasser
"Information Quality and the Law, or, How to Catch a Difficult Horse"
*Catherine Campbell Meshkin
Katherine, also spelled Catherine, and other variations are feminine names. They are popular in Christian countries because of their derivation from the name of one of the first Christian saints, Catherine of Alexandria.
In the early Chris ...
"Unchecked Data: A Tool for Political Corruption?"
Engage Volume 11, Issue 3, December 2010
References
United States federal government administration legislation
Science and law
Acts of the 106th United States Congress
Data laws of the Americas
Riders to United States federal appropriations legislation