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75 Food & Drug L.J. 278 (2020)
The Information Quality Act: Is There a There, There?

handle is hein.journals/foodlj75 and id is 288 raw text is: The Information Quality Act: Is There a There, There? JAMES T. O'REILLY* The famous novelist Gertrude Stein once insulted Oakland, California, with the aphorism that There is no there, there!l In the same vein, as a longtime teacher and student of administrative processes in the federal government, I was asked to assess the Information Quality Act of 2000 (IQA), which is an impressive title for just a few lines tucked into a late addition to an appropriations bill.2 I conclude that there is no there, no effective check upon the federal agencies, in the IQA. Its correction system is systemically flawed. And at a deeper level, I doubt that correcting the policy nuances within the content of agency documents by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Guidance is worth the exercise. OMB once had a vigorous oversight role of agencies with an aggressive manager of its Information and Regulatory Affairs Office, but Cass Sunstein has long departed for academia, and the OMB Director now sweeps up the clouds of dust left by Donald Trump's bizarre tweetstorms. The OMB brand is trashed by the subservience which we all see in the Trump alignment. All students of the bureaucracy can agree that the 1946 Administrative Procedure Act' has had a profound impact on governance, and that the 1966 Freedom of Information Act has had a major contribution to accountability.4 Both laws were copied extensively at the state level. Both models have resonated in other nations, as I found during a term advising the European Commission's managers of the EU Better Regulation project in Brussels.5 But if scholars and practitioners were asked, has this IQA made a difference in federal law, the resounding answer would be no. The IQA has failed; it allows nuances of agency policies to be critiqued, but with no effective mechanism for lively challenges. You already know that we live in a period where bizarre presidential behavior-without objectivity and accuracy-has become the new normal, and if the IQA had applied to the head of the Executive Branch, we can wish that quality and objectivity will someday be returned to federal administrative processes. James O'Reilly teaches at the College of Medicine of the University of Cincinnati. He also co- chairs the FDA committee of the American Bar Association Section of Administrative Law & Regulatory Practice. i GERTRUDE STEIN, EVERYBODY'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 298 (1937) (emphasis added). 2 Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2001, Pub. L. No. 106-554 § 515, 114 Stat. 2763 (2000). 3 5 U.S.C. § 706(2)(A) (2016). ^ 5 U.S.C. § 552; see 1 JAMES O'REILLY, FEDERAL INFORMATION DISCLOSURE (2019). s GEORGE BERMANN, CHARLES KOCH & JAMES O'REILLY, ADMINISTRATIVE LAW OF THE EUROPEAN UNION (Am. Bar Assoc. Press 2009). 278

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