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:

The Right-to-Know Network (RTK NET) published the 2002 Toxic Release Inventory (TRI) data today, providing public access to important Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) data on the release and transfer of toxic chemicals in the U.S. The 2002 data shows an overall increase of 5 percent in toxic releases -- the first year in which this measurement increased since 1997.