Environmental state and information politics - Environmental Reform in the Information Age - page 148

utility of information. 21 Parties affected can - based on this Act - peti-
tion against governmental information that is not according to the
guidelines. The Act requires “government agencies to ensure the qual-
ity of data they use when issuing new rules, regulations and studies.
For the first time, anyone will be able to challenge the data used in for-
mulating government regulation, instead of just challenging the rules
themselves” (Horvath, 2002 ).
Although the principle of improving information quality is hardly
questioned, the consequences of the particular DQA and the guidelines
installed by the OMB are. It is expected by environmental NGOs 22
that regulated private sectors will use the Act as a weapon to delay the
ability of agencies to put new safeguards in place and address environ-
mental and health issues. It also might be used to suppress information
dissemination that is so essential to inform the public in a democratic
process. This is aggravated by the fact that petitions and complaints
against agencies are dealt with secretly, behind closed doors, by the
agency, the affected party and the OMB, without informing the public.
In addition, environmental advocates wonder how this DQA relates to
the precautionary principle: as conservatives and private sector inter-
ests usually interpret the application of the precautionary principle as a
cover for imperfect information and bad analysis, would the DQA (fur-
ther) obstruct the application of the precautionary principle? Finally,
there is a risk that this DQA will inhibit information transparency and
chill dissemination, as agencies may find it too troublesome to fulfill
the DQA guidelines and rather chose for not publicising information
than going through a troublesome process of examining data quality.
This would weaken the role of public discourse in policy formulation
and regulatory oversight (Herrick, 2004 ). And, indeed, OMB Watch,
a U.S.-based nongovernmental organisation dedicated to promoting
government accountability and citizen participation in policy decision
making, has recently found several cases of strategic use of the DQA

21

EPA, Guidelines for Ensuring and Maximizing the Quality, Objectivity, Utility
and Integrity of Information Disseminated by the Environmental Protection
Agency , can be found at http://www.epa.gov/oei/qualityguidelines/. Of
additional interest are the guidelines that the EPA has produced for assessing
information from external sources to be used by EPA: Assessment Factors for
Evaluating the Quality of Information from External Sources
(http://www.epa.gov/oei/qualityguidelines/af assessdraft.pdf).

22

See the comments of the U.S. environmental NGO Natural Resources Defense
Council on the DQA in Noe et al. ( 2003 ).