Washington Law Review
Abstract
The Information Quality Act (IQA) directs the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) to issue guidelines to federal agencies for ensuring and maximizing the quality, objectivity, utility, and integrity of information disseminated by the agencies. The IQA directs agencies to develop administrative mechanisms whereby a person affected by agency-disseminated information may request correction of information that the person believes does not comply with the OMB's guidelines. The IQA is silent on whether judicial review is available to challenge an agency's decision to deny a "request for correction" (RFC). Regulated parties, legislators, scholars, and other groups have framed judicial review of RFC decisions as either a necessary quality-control mechanism for agency rulemaking or an antiregulatory effort to burden an agency's ability to promulgate rules. This Comment argues that the Administrative Procedure Act (APA) bars judicial review of an agency's decision to deny an RFC under both of the APA exceptions to judicial review. Section 701(a)(1) of the APA bars judicial review because congressional intent to preclude judicial review of an agency's RFC decision is fairly discernible in the statutory scheme of the IQA. Section 701(a)(2) of the APA bars judicial review because an agency's RFC decision is committed to agency discretion by law; neither the IQA nor the guidelines promulgated by the OMB pursuant to the IQA provide any law to apply or any meaningful standards by which to judge such agency action.
First Page
731
Recommended Citation
Margaret Pak,
Notes and Comments,
An IQ Test for Federal Agencies? Judicial Review of the Information Quality Act under the APA,
80 Wash. L. Rev.
731
(2005).
Available at:
https://digitalcommons.law.uw.edu/wlr/vol80/iss3/5