And it appears to shelve a powerful tool, known as the value of a statistical life, that agencies have used for decades in the cost-benefit analyses that justify new regulations.
The E.P.A. has used the tool to assign a dollar value to the lives saved by clean-air rules, causing the benefits of these rules to dwarf the costs by at least a 30-to-1 ratio. That has allowed it to defend pollution controls that companies would otherwise challenge as too costly.
Other federal agencies have used the metric to justify regulations affecting everything from safety features on cars to cancer warning labels on cigarette packs.
— Maxine JoselowReplicated under Fair Use from What’s a Human Life Worth? The E.P.A. Says Zero Dollars. - The New York Times by Maxine Joselow.