EPA devalues human life, possibly to help avoid new regulations
When the time comes for government departments like the Environmental Protection Agency to produce new regulations, they have to do a cost-benefit analysis as part of the overall process. If the cost of implementing a new regulation exceeds potential benefits, the agency generally won't move forward. Over the last several years the EPA has twice lowered the value it places on a human life in its analysis. As recently as 2003, it used a figure of $7.8 million, but it now uses $6.9 million. While it's comforting to know that the EPA thinks I'm a Six Million Dollar Man (and then some), the lowered value effectively means that more lives would potentially have to be saved by new rules in order to justify their implementation. The EPA's monetary value for life is still higher than what most other agencies place on it, and the calculations are based on estimaties of the amount of money people are willing to pay to avoid certain risks. There's no evidence yet that EPA has specifically adjusted the numbers in order to duck new regulations such as carbon dioxide emissions limits. That said, the Bush administration has never been particularly fond of new environmental rules. Unfortunately, statistical analysis like this is anything but an exact science and is, in fact, very much a judgment call. As such, it's easy for biases to creep in, intentionally or otherwise.
[Source: MSNBC]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Nick 9:46PM (7/12/2008)
Considering that President Bush put his good friend, a former executive from the COAL industry at the head of the EPA, such news does not really surprise me.
This government has undermined the EPA's objectives by firing people and replacing them with former coal and oil crooks.
Shame on special-interest Republicans.
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bill 9:51AM (7/14/2008)
Talk about overstating the value of a human life. The late great Dan quisenbuery put his life's worth at $14.00+ when asked what he was worth. Dan was making a very healthy salary at the time as probably the best relief pitcher going at the time. Based upon Dan's assessment I would put my worth at about 41 cents mostly because of the increase in gas prices.
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bill 10:07AM (7/14/2008)
What a bozo. I mispelled Dan Quisenberry's name in my earlier comment. My apology to Dan. He was quite a person.
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f-cking comment back, i'd like to know what you think 12:53AM (7/15/2008)
At that rate, the Rockefeller's, Rothschild's, and the other war, weapons, and banking families only spend an average of $14,178,082.00 a day on lives in the war on the invisible enemy. That's far less than they make when the government owes them over $1Billion a day through the Federal reserve banking system.
That figure based on the rounded number of 3,000 lives lost in the war against ghosts and patriots.
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