The downward spiral continues: According to a recent declaration from the Environmental Protection Agency, the "value of a statistical life" in America is $6.9 million, down a million dollars from just five years ago. Sounds like a punchline, but Associated Press science writer Seth Borenstein spells out what it actually means:
When drawing up regulations, government agencies put a value on human life and then weigh the costs versus the lifesaving benefits of a proposed rule. The less a life is worth to the government, the less the need for a regulation, such as tighter restrictions on pollution.
Consider, for example, a hypothetical regulation that costs $18 billion to enforce but will prevent 2,500 deaths. At $7.8 million per person (the old figure), the lifesaving benefits outweigh the costs. But at $6.9 million per person, the rule costs more than the lives it saves, so it may not be adopted.
The article reports that some concerned parties have reached an obvious conclusion: that the Bush administration is handling math and science with its usual creative flair, in order to ward off regulations that might prove costly to its own vested interests, and those of its deep-pocketed friends. The official reponse:
Agency officials say they were just following what the science told them.
You can read the entire article here.
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