June 8, 2007
Mrs. Susan E. Dudley
Administrator
Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs
Office of Management and Budget
725 17th Street, NW
Washington, DC 20503
RE: Draft 2007 Report to Congress on the Costs and Benefits of Federal Regulations
Dear Susan:
The Salt Institute appreciates this opportunity to offer comments on OIRA’s draft Report to Congress. Certainly OIRA can claim a proud record of improving the quality of federal regulations and enhancing the benefits they deliver. Congratulations to you and your staff.
Our comments will focus entirely on Chapter III regarding implementation of the Information Quality Act (IQA). We recognize that OIRA is to include recommended reforms under the Regulatory Right-to-Know Act and would like to share our experience with the IQA and reforms you may wish to recommend in the Report.
While the draft Report captures the current status of IQA requests for correction and appeals, it fails to address two key issues and makes no recommendations for improving the effectiveness of the IQA.
Our experience with the IQA involved characterization of the results of a dietary trial (the DASH-Sodium Study) funded by the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute (HHS/NIH). We sought a correction of NHLBI’s statements that the study proves that all Americans will derive a health benefit by reducing dietary sodium (the study didn’t even address that question, confining itself to only one of the multiple cardiovascular risk factors affected by reducing dietary salt, namely blood pressure; it could have examined impacts on insulin resistance, plasma renin activity, etc., all of which are adverse – and contrary to those claimed for blood pressure). Our petition was first deemed improper (NHLBI suggested an FOIA remedy, submitted an FOIA on our behalf and that request was denied), our administrative appeal was denied and, ultimately, a federal appeals court ruled that the IQA is not judicially-enforceable, denying our appeal without addressing the substance of the appeal. The nimbus cloud of our experience, however, may have a silver lining if our “learning experience” can motivate OIRA to seek reforms to strengthen the IQA.
Specifically, we recommend that OIRA incorporate either or both of the following recommendations into the draft Report to Congress:
1. The IQA should be judicially enforceable. OIRA should recommend that the Department of Justice reconsider its opposition to judicial enforceability of the IQA. Unless agencies understand that they are not the final arbiter of whether they comply with the IQA, they will continue to value their internal opinions and agendas over the IQA’s mandate that the process be objective and transparent. For example, during the extended time we sought a correction based on the refusal of the agency to compel release of the data being used to justify its characterization of the results, several articles were published in peer reviewed journals. None contained the simple statistics we sought, but one published the subgroup analysis that conceded that there was no significant relationship in six of the eight subgroups (collectively representing the vast majority of the U.S. population). NHLBI has still not corrected their Web-published characterization and the appeals opinion denied any ruling on the substance of our concern. The IQA must be judicially enforceable and we urge OIRA to pursue that objective in conversation with the DOJ or that the Administration recommend to the Congress an explicit change to the statute.
2. OIRA should audit agency denials-of-correction on their merits to address these same concerns. At least an OMB review would be independent of the intra-agency politics that may have influenced the denial.
We would hope that having OMB or the courts looking over their shoulder would encourage the agencies to be willing to take the time necessary to investigate requests for correction and, thus, negate the insular arrogance that characterized responses to our well-considered and respectful request for correction.
Thank you for your consideration.
Sincerely yours,
Richard L. Hanneman
President
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