Information Quality Assurance Act

Floor Speech

Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of the Comment Integrity and Management Act.

Technological advances have expanded access to Federal agencies' online rulemaking dockets and have made it easier for the public to comment on proposed rules. That is a very good thing from the standpoint of transparency, accountability, and deliberation.

At the same time, in some recent high-profile rulemakings, agencies have received an extraordinarily high volume of completely duplicative comments, which has created some challenges for agencies in processing them and managing their online rulemaking dockets.

I am sure Members are familiar with receiving a standardized message hundreds or even thousands of times from constituents or people across the country.

This bill is designed to help agencies manage such mass comments and computer-generated comments submitted in response to proposed rules. It is not intended in any way to discourage mass comments, which are indeed a vital part of the regulatory process. The bill would simply allow agencies to post a representative sample of mass comments. If they choose to do that, they would also be required to post the number--hold that thought, if you would, Mr. Speaker. I was describing the next bill. Forgive me. We got our papers confused here. Keep that in mind. I like that one, too.

The Information Quality Assurance Act is bipartisan legislation introduced by Representatives Porter and McClain. I commend them for their work on it.

It would require the Director of OMB to update guidance issued under the Information Quality Act. That guidance is more than 20 years old, and much work has been done by Congress and the executive branch on these issues in the interim. The Evidence-Based Policymaking Act, the DATA Act, and the OPEN Government Act are just a few new laws requiring updated guidance.

Updated guidance would enable agencies to better ensure the quality of information and evidence used in promulgating regulations. The new guidance would ensure that the best reasonably available scientific, demographic, economic, financial, and statistical information is relied on during the regulatory process.

The bill also continues the practices of the Information Quality Act that allow for public input on the information submitted and mechanisms for OMB to report any complaints to Congress.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the majority for working closely with us and the administration in crafting this bill. The result is strong, and I fully support it.

Despite the fact that I didn't know we were on this bill originally, we are in very strong and unanimous support on our side of the aisle for this, and I yield back the balance of my time.

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