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®: CRE Regulatory Action of the Week
Senators Vitter and Barrasso Reintroduce Public Access to Historical Records Act
On January 15, 2011, Senators Vitter and Barrasso reintroduced into the 112th congress essentially the same bill that they introduced late in the 111th Congress. This bill, S. 116,
Requires NASA to utilize the raw data related to temperature that is collected by applicable stations and vessels and to quantify the statistical uncertainty of each temperature observation and any subsequent products based on that observation.
Requires the gaps that exist in temperature station and temperature reading data to be clearly and fully identified.
Creates a panel to assist the Administrator in the establishment of the dataset.
Requires the Administrator of NASA, at least once every three years, to contract with an appropriate independent entity to perform a verification and validation of the dataset and requires the publication of any algorithms utilized, and any determinations made, in verifying and validating the dataset.
Requires persons and entities engaged in global climate research funded by the federal government to utilize the dataset as a source of data on the historical temperature record.
Directs the Secretary of Commerce to provide for the immediate release of: (1) all raw temperature station data from cooperative observers and automated stations collected by the National Climatic Data Center; and (2) an analysis of the differences between raw and final temperature datasets collected by the Center.
This bill has been Read twice and referred to the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation.
CRE published a Regweek on this bill when it was introduced in the 111th Congress. As we noted then, this bill "is consistent with the Information Quality Act, which requires that scientific information from federal government agencies be accurate, clear, complete and unbiased." The bill includes provisions requiring that algorithms for processing temperature data comply with the IQA, and that agencies process within 30 days IQA requests for correction of coding or other algorithms.
To follow the progress of this bill, go to http://thomas.loc.gov/ , and search for S. 114.
Click here read CRE's Regweek on this bill as introduced in the 111th Congress.
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