The Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI), an anti-regulatory group, filed the first lawsuit under the Data Quality Act (DQA) against the White House Office of Science and Technology (OSTP). The suit challenges a climate change report, “National Assessment of the Potential Consequences of Climate Variability and Change,” and seeks to prevent its dissemination to the public. Filed with the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia on Aug. 6th, the suit contends that the National Assessment report does not meet the objectivity or utility standards of data quality. CEI claims that scientists used flawed computer models to generate the potential impacts of climate change. CEI believes the models do not provide reliable predictions and contest that “efforts to validate these two models actually exposed them as less capable at predicting climate impacts than a table of random numbers.” Additionally, the suit asserts the report violates the Global Research Act. CEI had filed administrative challenges advancing the same arguments against the report with several agencies, including the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), and OSTP. Each of the challenges sought to prevent the government from continuing to disseminate the report as the way to “correct the data.” EPA’s website indicates that the agency rejected CEI’s argument and also rejected CEI’s request for reconsideration. Since CEI has filed suit against OSTP, the agency must have rejected both the organization’s initial petition and its reconsideration request, leaving no additional administrative options with OSTP to challenge the report. On Sept. 4, CEI amended its data quality lawsuit against the White House adding violations of two statues – the Administrative Procedure Act and the U.S. Global Change Research Act. According to a Bureau of National Affairs’ article, CEI filed the amended complaint attempting to add more facts to its original argument. In addition to the original allegations of flawed data and underlying models, CEI asserts that because OSTP did not correct the flaws during report formulation, or afterwards per request, the document is arbitrary and capricious and therefore violates the Administrative Procedure Act. It is unclear how CEI believes the report violates the U.S. Global Change Research Act. The amended complaint was most likely filed as precaution against immediate dismissal. If the data quality guidelines were not deemed reviewable, the amended complaint would allow the case to be heard under the Administrative Procedure Act or the Research Act. There were many concerns that if CEI was granted standing and the court elected to hear the data quality case, then the Justice Department would not fully defend the report, given the administration’s recent position on climate change. CEI issued a press release Sept. 25 amid recent rumors that the White House may have solicited the lawsuit. Greenpeace obtained an email from a CEI employee to a senior official at the White House Council for Environmental Quality (CEQ) through a Freedom of Information Act request that describes CEI’s plans to file a lawsuit to discredit an EPA climate change study. The message starts by saying, “Thanks for calling and asking our help.” The press release refutes any collusion with the White House, asserting the allegations are “just an attempt to divert attention from the real issue—that junk science is being used as the basis for climate change reports…” Two state Attorney Generals have called upon U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft to conduct an investigation into the accusations. An out of court settlement was reached Nov. 6 between CEI and OSTP. The agency posted a notice stating that the NACC was not “subjected to OSTP’s Information Quality Act Guidelines.” The notice appears on the U.S. Global Change Research Program’s website where NACC is available. In a press release by CEI that announces the settlement, the organization proposes that its next data quality targets are the EPA Climate Action Report and any upcoming NACC reports. Since CEI exhausted all administrative options for data correction with EPA for the CAR, it is unclear if and how the organization will pursue this claim. Since the promulgation and implementation of the data quality guidelines at all federal agencies, it has been debated whether is the guidelines are judicially reviewable. CEI’s lawsuit would have been the first court test of whether the guidelines are enforceable by the courts. Several agencies stress their DQA guidelines are not rules nor are they legally binding. If it is determined that the Data Quality Act is judicially reviewable, then federal agencies may lose their flexibility to freely discuss breaking issues and concerns without unwarranted censorship. While it appeared that this lawsuit would answer the question of data quality guideline’s reviewability in court, the settlement has delayed that precedent setting decision.