A new Harris poll conducted for Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety reveals that nine out of ten Americans believe that governmental regulation to protect health and safety is important. The finding accords with similar findings since 1996. According to the study's authors, "the weight of public opinion is overwhelmingly on the side of having federal responsibility for . . . safety and public health. The intensity of support is also high." Of those who rated the government's role as important, almost 64% (or 58% of all respondents) considered the government's role as very important.

The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) recently published a report to Congress that analyzes and summarizes federal agencies' first year of operations experience using the new information quality guidelines mandated under the Information Quality Act (IQA). The guidelines are supposed to ensure the quality, objectivity, utility, and integrity of information disseminated by federal agencies. The report provides OMB's perspective on the first year under the law and the IQA reports submitted to OMB from individual agencies.

The Small Business Administration (SBA) has been actively lobbying the states to enact legislation that would increase the role of small business in state regulatory processes, promoting in particular a model bill that would force state agencies to review the costs to small business of proposed public safeguards and, ultimately, all existing state regulations.

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--