Data Quality Act exemption for NOAA dropped from CJS bill
Andrew Freedman, Environment & Energy Daily reporter
A controversial provision in the FY '05 Senate Commerce, Justice, State appropriations bill, S. 2809, that would have exempted the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration from the requirements of the Data Quality Act will be removed after causing an outcry from conservatives.

The provision, put in the bill by retiring Sen. Fritz Hollings (D-S.C.), who is credited with helping to create NOAA in 1970, would have made NOAA the only federal agency not bound by Data Quality Act restrictions.

The act was passed as part of a spending bill in FY '01 without ever receiving a congressional hearing and required the White House Office of Management and Budget to establish standards for ensuring the quality of information used in agency rulemaking. It allows groups to challenge data used in developing new regulations on the grounds that it does not meet certain standards.

NOAA was caught unaware of the provision, scrambling yesterday to find out where it originated, according to a Bush administration official. Proponents of the act, including the Competitive Enterprise Institute, a free-market think tank, say it makes government more open and accountable while critics say the Data Quality Act slows down rulemaking and offers a large window of opportunity for well-financed opponents of federal action to exert their influence.

CEI Senior Fellow Christopher Horner recently wrote on the Center for Regulatory Effectiveness' Web site that the provision removed from the CJS bill was directed at freeing NOAA from the Data Quality Act because of its lead role in climate change science.

"This rider prevents an honest evaluation of the science of climate change from occurring and ensures that future policy decisions are based not on sound science but rather on junk science," he wrote.

Others took dead aim at the Data Quality Act, saying it impedes the government's ability to regulate. "Its intention is to develop a new tool to chip away at the regulatory process," said Sean Moulton, an analyst at OMB Watch.

The rider would have rendered moot a lawsuit CEI settled with the Bush administration last year. CEI sued President Bush and his top science adviser contending that the National Assessment on Climate Change failed to follow the act's standards.

That report found that global warming is likely to lead to longer, hotter summers and shorter, warmer winters, increased instances of flood and drought, plant and animal migrations and coastal erosion. CEI dropped the suit after two sentences were added to the report explaining that it included information not produced by federal agencies but written by a third party not bound by the Data Quality Act.

Experts say that lawsuit effectively nullified the importance of the national assessment by making it nearly impossible for the government to base any policy decisions on its findings.

"That is a clear effort to prevent that information from being used in a regulatory process down the road," Moulton said, recalling the CEI lawsuit.

Moulton added that most of the Data Quality Act challenges brought thus far have been aimed at depublishing information, which demonstrates an anti-regulatory bias. "Really what they're trying to do is hide information," he said.

Moulton said he was pleased with the move to address the Data Quality Act, but does not believe the rider is the solution because it would make it more difficult for other agencies to use NOAA's data in rulemakings. Instead, he would prefer passage of a bill that pertains to all agencies.

Lobbyist Jim Tozzi, who helped get the Data Quality Act passed three years ago, said the Hollings rider would lead to a degradation of the law. "I think it's very bad news because it would set a precedent for anyone who doesn't like the Data Quality Act to ask for an exemption," Tozzi said.

Hollings' spokeswoman Ilene Zeldin said CJS Appropriations Subcommittee Chairman Judd Gregg (R-N.H.) believes the provision needs to be considered further before being included in the bill. "Apparently it's brought a lot of attention, and Sen. Gregg thought it needed more vetting. We agree, and I guess there's going to be some more vetting on it," Zeldin said.