superrific
Master of the ZZLverse
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E.P.A. to Stop Considering Lives Saved by Limiting Air Pollution
In a reversal, the agency plans to calculate only the cost to industry when setting pollution limits, and not the monetary value of saving human lives, documents show.
"Under President Trump, the E.P.A. plans to stop tallying gains from the health benefits caused by curbing two of the most widespread deadly air pollutants, fine particulate matter and ozone, when regulating industry, according to internal agency emails and documents reviewed by The New York Times."
This will not remotely work and I don't know why they are even bothering. It's literally the most arbitrary and capricious rule I've ever seen. The statute tells EPA that its mandate is to protect human health. Cost benefit analysis only enters via executive order. This is literally contradicting its basic mandate. It would be like saying "we will not consider basketball playing ability when voting on all-ACC teams."
Ironically, it's essentially the position of progressives in the 1970s, who didn't want cost benefit analysis because they wanted the EPA to have more power to protect human health. This formulation -- quantification of costs, loose appreciation of benefits -- would be a leftist's dream.