Ossifying Ossification: Why the Information Act Should Not Provide for Judicial Review

June 2006
Citation:
36
ELR 10430
Issue
6
Author
Margaret Clune

Editors' Summary: The Information Quality Act (IQA) was created to ensure the "quality, objectivity, utility, and integrity" of information disseminated by federal agencies. Although the Act's implementation guidelines allow for an administrative appeal process, the IQA does not provide for judicial review. Thus far, the courts have rejected claims for judicial review of agency IQA decisions. Those who support a broad reading of the Act, therefore, are likely to seek legislative relief. In this Article, Margaret Clune argues against allowing judicial review of IQA requests. In addition to demonstrating why neither the IQA nor the APA allow for judicial review, she implores Congress not to make the IQA judicially reviewable. Doing so would improperly delegate policy questions to the courts, exacerbate existing problems of the IQA, and overburden the federal courts.

Margaret Clune is a Policy Analyst at the Center for Progressive Reform (CPR) in Washington, D.C. She is a coauthor of CPR's March 2005 report, Truth and Science Betrayed: The Case Against the Information Quality Act. For their invaluable insights and advice on this Article, she thanks Prof. Rena Steinzor of the University of Maryland School of Law and Prof. Sidney Shapiro of the Wake Forest University School of Law, both of whom are CPR Board Members.
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