Originally posted by padma
My production dba says assigning me 'select_catalog_role' could have potential performance issues on the database. Has anyone ever heard of such issues???
Not that I would act the same as your DBA or that I'm on his side, I would say that the reason he is stating is totaly valid! Extensive use (or abuse) of some dictionary views can have serious impact on the database performance.

If this is a mission-critical production database and if he is not 100% confident in your DBA knowledge, I can totaly undertand his position... However if I were in his boots, I would first make sure you understand the implications of your catalog queries and if I would find out that there are some "white spots" in your DBA knowledge I would make sure you fill up those gaps and then I'd assign you the desired role.