CRE In the News

Jim Tozzi and the Data Quality Act
Liberal science and policy journalist and blogger Chris Mooney writes about Jim Tozzi of the conservative regulatory think-tank, the Center for Regulatory Effectiveness, and about Tozzi's brainchild, the Data Quality Act, in the May Washington Monthly:"Paralysis by Analysis".

Mooney's title summarizes his argument, which is that Tozzi has promoted the Data Quality Act as a way of "gumming up" the regulatory works, and providing a tool for use in slowing down regulatory activity.

"..On its face, the Data Quality Act merely requires government agencies to field complaints over the data, studies, and reports they disseminate, in order to ensure the "quality, objectivity, utility, and integrity" of the information. Though seemingly unobjectionable, this provides a new workload for agencies that could impinge upon their other duties. But it's just the beginning. The Bush administration has used the DQA as a springboard to implement an unprecedented "peer review" system for government science, a cumbersome set of protocols that was strenuously opposed by the nation's science community, which saw little in the original plan resembling standard academic peer review. (As we went to press, the White House released a revised "peer review" bulletin that appeared to respond to some of these criticisms.)..."