Peer Review: OMB's Proposed, Revised, and Final Bulletins (CRS Report for Congress)
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| Release Date |
Feb. 3, 2005 |
| Report Number |
RL32680 |
| Report Type |
Report |
| Authors |
Curtis W. Copeland, Government and Finance Division |
| Source Agency |
Congressional Research Service |
Summary:
In September 2003, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) published a proposed
bulletin
on "Peer Review and Information Quality" in the Federal Register that sought to
establish a process
by which all "significant regulatory information" would be peer reviewed. The scope of the
proposed bulletin was very broad, covering virtually all agencies and defining regulatory information
as "any scientific or technical study that ... might be used by local, state, regional, federal and/or
international regulatory bodies." Such information would be subject to peer review if the agency
could determine that it could have a "clear and substantial impact on important public policies or
important private sector decisions" when disseminated. The proposed bulletin placed additional peer
review requirements on "especially significant regulatory information," and said agencies were
required to notify OMB in advance of any studies that might require peer review and how any such
reviews would be conducted.
The proposed bulletin aroused controversy, with some observers expressing concern that it
could create a centralized peer review system within OMB that would be vulnerable to political
manipulation or control by regulated entities. OMB received nearly 200 comments on the proposal,
and published a "substantially revised" peer review bulletin in April 2004 that was broader in scope
than the proposed bulletin in that it applied to "influential scientific information" (which includes,
but is not limited to, regulatory information) and "highly influential scientific assessments."
However, agencies were given substantial discretion to decide whether information is "influential"
and therefore requires a peer review. The revised bulletin also allowed agencies to use the National
Academy of Sciences for peer reviews or to use other procedures that had been approved by OMB.
It also provided exemptions for certain classes of information, such as information related to national
security, products by government-funded scientists that are not represented as views of a federal
agency, and routine statistical information. However, OMB retained significant authority to decide
when information is "highly influential" (and, therefore, requires more specific peer review
procedures) and to approve alternative peer review procedures.
OMB received more than 50 comments on the revised peer review bulletin, many of which
were
supportive of the changes made to the proposal. However, some commenters believed the changes
did not go far enough, while others believed that OMB had significantly weakened the bulletin. In
January 2005, OMB published a final version of the bulletin with what it described as "minor
revisions" to the version published in April 2004 (e.g., requiring agencies to disclose the identities
of peer reviewers and to prepare an annual report on their peer review activities). A number of issues
regarding the implementation of the bulletin remain unclear (e.g., how much discretion agencies will
be given to decide when and what kind of peer review is required). This report will be updated when
any further revisions to the bulletin are published or other significant events occur.
