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CRE Proposes Draft Data Quality Regulation Pursuant to the FY 1999 Omnibus Appropriations Act (P.L. 105-277) and conference report, Congress directed OMB to develop a regulation to ensure the "Quality, Objectivity, Utility, and Integrity" of information used or disseminated by the federal government. The rule, which was supposed to be completed by September 30, 1999, shall include a petition process through which the public may petition the relevant agency for the correction of information which does not meet the standards laid out in the OMB rule. Individual agencies would then adopt conforming regulations to implement the OMB rule. This most recent directive of Congress in support of Data Quality is not breaking new ground. Similar information quality provisions are already extant in the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995 (P.L. 104-18, 44 U.S.C. §§ 3500, et seq.). To date, OMB has taken no action on the Data Quality regulation. Therefore, in order to assist OMB in meeting its mandate from Congress, CRE has developed a draft Data Quality regulation which defines the four key Data Quality terms and lays out a proposed petition process mechanism for correction of information. As a supplement, CRE also conducted an analysis of existing agency petition processes to demonstrate that such processes are not new and are unlikely to stop the machinery of government. A review of current petition process at EPA alone revealed over 140 such mechanisms. CRE has shared this draft with OMB and will later provide a final version which incorporates comments from a variety of interested stakeholders and the public. It is hoped that these materials will foster discussions with OMB and the federal agencies as they seek to implement the Data Quality mandate of Congress.
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