미국의 정보의질에관한법의 고찰

Abstract

Recently, both the volume and the types of information disseminated by federal agencies to the public have increased dramatically. Therefore,it is very important that the information underlying in regulatory policy be of sufficient quality to support sound decisionmaking. In December 2000,Congress passed the Information Quality Act(IQA) and provided the public with sufficient guarantee on the quality of information and administrative mechanisms. Through these administrative mechanisms, the affected persons can seek correction of information maintained and disseminated by the agencies that does not comply with the OMB guidance. IQA required the Office of Management and Budget(OMB) to issue guidance to federal agencies designed to ensure the “quality, objectivity, utility, and integrity"of information disseminated to the public. It also required agencies to issue their own information quality guidelines. It's the purpose of IQA to enhance the effectiveness of regulation by improving the quality of information constituting agency action. In addition, IQA can contribute to make democratic decisionmaking by causing the public to participate into the policy decisionmaking process via administrative mechanisms. Especially,agencies are required to make regulatory policy based on sound science through pre-dissemination peer review of the influential scientific information in the area of human health, safety, and environment. In this article, I explore and introduce the contents of IQA and OMB Guidelines in order to find ways whether federal agencies can improve the quality of information that is the basis of agency action. Specifically, I examine background of IQA enactment, contents of IQA and OMB Guidelines (focused on key terms definition, addressing procedures on risk information,peer review, agency correction mechanisms), cases on the challenges of information at the various agencies, judicial review of agency's denial on correction request.