^®: CRE Regulatory Action of the Week

Pennsylvania Enacts Data Quality Act
On July 7, 2011, Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Corbett signed into law Act No. 60 (formerly SB263), commonly known as the Data Quality Act. This Pennsylvania state statute requires that state government rulemaking agencies ensure the data and information that they use as a basis for regulation is "acceptable data." This is defined as "empirical, replicable, and testable data as evidenced in supporting documentation, statistics, reports, studies or research."

The Act further requires that any Pennsylvania agency seeking to propose a regulation must submit the proposed rule to the Independent Regulatory Review Commission along with a regulatory analysis form. This form describes the data upon which the regulation is based. This form also explains how the data were obtained and why the data are acceptable data. Any agency advocating that data are acceptable has the burden of proving that the data meet the statutory standards.