EPA Shrinks The VAlue Of Each American’S Life

The Feds will create laws keeping America’s men, women and children safe…if Big Business doesn’t lose too many bucks on the deal. EPA Shrinks The Value Of Each American’s LifeBy Cliff Montgomery – Aug. 5th, 2008An Associated Press (AP) article released July 10th revealed that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has long been devaluing the worth of a human life in its cost-benefit reviews for new regulations. The EPA and other agencies employ the supposed ‘life value’ as a means of determining if a proposal’s benefits would outweigh costs to Big Business.In other words, the federal government will indeed create laws which keep America’s men, women and children safe…provided corporations don’t lose a few too many dollars on the deal.The AP report stated that the EPA’s current life value of $6.9 million is around $1 million less than it was just half a decade ago.”[I]n 2004, the agency cut the estimated value of a life by 8 percent,” stated the AP report. A May 2008 EPA rule for ship and train pollution also failed to adjust this ‘life value’ for inflation.Thus, “between the two changes, the value of a life fell 11 percent, based on today’s dollar,” stated the AP analysis.In forming a proposal, the EPA considers such potential benefits to U.S. citizens as lives saved, averted toxic spills, or an overall reduction in asthma attacks. The agency also computes the potential costs of such a regulation upon industries and corporations.To contrast life benefits to costs, the EPA translates the value of a human life into dollars.The agency employs a computation known as a Value of a Statistical Life (VSL) to determine a dollar value for each life which might be saved by the proposal.In figuring the potential benefits of a regulation, the EPA first calculates how many human beings the proposal may save, and then multiplies that number by the VSL.Other federal agencies use a VSL, but it is not the same shrinking figure as the one calculated by the EPA–in fact, their VSLs are rarely as generous.In a 2007 land Security Department plan to increase security for air travel, the U.S. Customs and Border Patrol calculated potential benefits by utilizing two distinct life values, $6 million and $3 million. Conversely, the Transportation Department recently fixed a $5.8 million life value, or VSL, for both present and subsequent transportation safety plans.President Bill Clinton created the rule that federal agencies had to create a VSL for proposals. Clinton’s Executive Order 12866, for example, states that, “Each agency shall assess both the costs and the benefits of the intended regulation.”But it’s been under George W. Bush that the cost-benefit analysis for a human life has become a ‘make-or-break’ matter for safety proposals. The Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) is the division of the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) charged with approving new regulations. Bush’s OIRA has regularly employed the VSL as a anti-regulation safeguard.For instance, the OIRA recently tossed an EPA plan to create a nation-wide program for  recycling pesticide containers, because the agency’s cost-benefit analysis stated that corporate costs may outweigh the rule’s benefits to human life.The problem with such an analysis is that it falsely turns all matters to the level of rank debate. Since it often is impossible to provide absolute proof of any proposal’s long-term benefits to human life, almost any plan not squaring with the personal whims of the White House may be denied–regardless of its reasonableness, or of the evidence showing it to be the best available proposal.Like what you’re reading so far? Then why not order a full year (52 issues) of thee-newsletter for only $15? A major article covering an story not being told in the Corporate Press will be delivered to your email every Monday morning for a full year, for less than 30 cents an issue. Order Now!