Jim Tozzi
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Dr. James J. "Jim" Tozzi (b. 1938) is a lobbyist in Washington, D.C.; he is head of the Center for Regulatory Effectiveness, a watchdog group that specializes in data quality and a former regulatory official of the United States Office of Management and Budget (OMB).
Jim Tozzi got his Ph.D. in Economics and Business Administration from the University of Florida. After some time playing jazz as a self-described “bottom-tier” musician in New Orleans, Tozzi began working in Washington in 1964 at the Department of Defense, Office of the Secretary of the Army, where he worked on budget and strategic response issues. Tozzi served as an officer in the US Army Corps of Engineers.
Tozzi was instrumental in the passage of the Paperwork Reduction Act and the establishment of the OMB Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs in 1980. Under his directorship, the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs was the gatekeeper for virtually all proposed regulations dealing with public health and safety. It quickly became known among watchdog groups as a bureaucratic “black hole” where proposed regulations disappeared.
Tozzi was the Deputy Administrator of OMB when he left the organization in 1983 at age 45.
In 1986 Thorne Auchter and James Tozzi founded Federal Focus, 501(c)(3) non-profit organization funded by Philip Morris. Federal Focus successfully blocked the federal government from gathering data related to deaths from secondhand smoke.
In 1992, Tozzi founded a lobbying company, Multi-National Business Services. In 1996, he founded the Center for Regulatory Effectiveness.
Tozzi has been a member of the Environmental Financial Advisory Board (EFAB) since 1992 and currently serves as chairman of the International/Energy Workgroup. The EFAB provides advice to the Administrator and Program Offices of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on "how to pay" questions for environmental protection.
Tozzi was a major behind-the-scenes architect of the Data Quality Act (DQA) which he helped to become law in 2001 as a stealth rider to the Treasury and General Government Appropriations Act for Fiscal Year 2001. Since 2001 he has lobbied for regulated industries through the use of DQA. Among his accomplishments was the successful recertification of an herbicide, atrazine, by the EPA, despite laboratory and field studies showing that the chemical is an endocrine disruptor that causes frogs to become hermaphroditic.
Today Tozzi resides in Alexandria, Virginia with his main office in Dupont Circle in Washington, DC. He is currently working on many projects, including nationwide medical marijuana legalization. His personal "apprentice", as he calls him, and financial advisor, Taylor Phelps, is currently being trained to be Tozzi's successor.
See the website of the Center for Regulatory Effectiveness, additional details are at:
"'Data Quality' Law Is Nemesis Of Regulation", by Rick Weiss, Washington Post, August 16, 2004.
