The Debate over the Data Quality Act’s Revised Standards for Scientific Evidence
While the DQA’s call for regulations to be based on valid scientific evidence seems to be
a reasonable objective, critics claim that it was actually an assault on the ability of the
government to protect the health and well-being of the American public. Supporters originally
contended that the DQA and other similar measures were necessary to insure that the government
acted on “sound science,” and didn’t issue needless regulations based on opinion-laden and
dubious evidence. Critics countered by saying that the desire for objective and transparent
scientific information, sounds reasonable but in reality it is another industry-driven attack on the
federal government’s ability to protect the public from preventable dangers. They feel that this
act, by allowing any individual or group to challenge the objectivity of scientific evidence, in
fact is a tool that industry groups can use to obscure the overwhelming findings of credible
scientific inquiry.
Critics charge that industry and commercial interests, by sponsoring their own research,
now have the ability to design studies that are far more lenient in their methodology and may
produce unfounded results that conflict with other more reliable investigations. This tactic can be
utilized to confuse federal judges, who typically have little scientific background. At a minimum
this practice can allow industry-groups to continuously challenge accepted scientific evidence,
which could have the effect of delaying needed regulation of dangerous products for years.
Court Action: Who Has Authority to Determine the Quality of Information?
Convention