Pub. L. No. 92-463, 86 Stat. 770, as amended 1. Short title This Act may be cited as the ''Federal Advisory Committee Act''. 2. Findings and purpose (a) The Congress finds that there are numerous committees, boards, commissions, councils, and similar groups which have been established to advise officers and agencies in the executive branch of the Federal Government and that they are frequently a useful and beneficial means of furnishing expert advice, ideas, and diverse opinions to the Federal Government. (b) The Congress further finds and declares that--

In the first ever court decision to address the Data Quality Act, a federal district court in Minnesota has held that the Act does not permit petitioners to seek judicial review.

Internal FDA memos reported by the Washington Post last week show senior scientists at the FDA disagreed sharply with the agency's decision last month to bar the Plan B morning-after pill from over-the-counter sales. The scientists asserted that FDA officials applied a higher standard for determining Plan B's OTC status than has been applied to other drugs. Dr. John Jenkins, director of FDA's Office of New Drugs, wrote in an internal memo reported in the Wall Street Journal that Plan B is "fully consistent with the agency's usual standards for meeting the criteria" for OTC status.

OMB requirements that agencies conduct economics-based analyses of the costs and benefits of regulatory decisions have delayed several major environmental protections and prompted the Environmental Protection Agency to install working groups of economists for every major rulemaking, according to an internal EPA memorandum. Uncovered by Inside EPA, the memo from EPA Acting Deputy Administrator Steve Johnson instructs agency officials to adopt new rules that subordinate environmental decisions to economic considerations: