|
News & Analysis | REG•WATCH Blog | Press Room
Thursday, December 01, 2005
Open Gov meets Right to Know meets Reg Policy
Here at OMB Watch, we have separate programs for open government, the public's right to know about industry harms (although we stick to environmental right to know), and regulatory policy. Every now and then, an issue comes along that hits all those areas at once.
Latest case in point: NHTSA has access to documents showing that, "throughout the late 1990s, Ford successively weakened the roof of its Ford Explorer and that the vehicle has an extremely low margin of safety in rollover crashes." These documents are directly relevant to a pending rulemaking on roof strength that, so far, fails to demand the level of safety that is both possible and cost effective. NHTSA has decided nonetheless to suppress those documents, which were unearthed in a lawsuit. Meanwhile, the court presiding over the lawsuit that produced the documents has sealed the documents.
Public Citizen wants consumers to know what's at stake and wants NHTSA to own up to the implications of these documents in the pending roof crush rulemaking. Although PC obtained the documents legally, Volvo threatened to sue the group if it chooses to publish them.
Now, PC and Trial Lawyers for Public Justice are challenging the order sealing the documents. Learn more here.
Posted by Robert Shull
|