Don Nickles: “before this body passes the Treasury and general government appropriation bill for fiscal year 1998, I would like to…”

“before this body passes the Treasury and general government appropriation bill for fiscal year 1998, I would like to raise an important issue concerning how the Government develops policies and regulations. The issue is the public's right to have access to the data that is produced from Government funded studies and used to support regulatory rulemakings. As you may know, the Federal Government does not have a standardized process for making research data available for independent review. Often the public is forced to comply with costly regulations without the assurance that the data underlying the rules has been made available for independent scientific evaluation. If the Government is going to force the public to comply with its rules, the public must have confidence that the rules are based on sound science. Similarly, if the Government is going to provide funding for research, the public should be able to access the data that is produced from such research. Unfortunately, the Government does not have a disclosure policy on research data. I believe this undermines the scientific basis of our rulemaking and erodes the public's confidence in the Government's regulatory development process.”