Tag: EPA

Life Not Worth As Much As 5 Years Ago – WTF?

Your Government is at work.  It’s HARD WORK to put a value on an American life, but by gosh, Your Government is willing to do it.  Not only are they willing to do it, but in the past five years, Your Government has downgraded the WORTH of your life by $900,000.00.

Let’s take a peek into this piece of unsavory news.

From AP:

It’s not just the American dollar that’s losing value. A government agency has decided that an American life isn’t worth what it used to be.

The “value of a statistical life” is $6.9 million in today’s dollars, the Environmental Protection Agency reckoned in May – a drop of nearly $1 million from just five years ago.

The Associated Press discovered the change after a review of cost-benefit analyses over more than a dozen years.

Though it may seem like a harmless bureaucratic recalculation, the devaluation has real consequences.

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.

 

E.P.A. Denies California’s Emissions Waiver

Cross-posted from THE ENVIRONMENTALIST

(I’m having trouble figuring out if this latest Bush Administration move is cynical or arrogant or both…)

Just after the Bush Administration signed an auto fuel efficiency bill, they denied a request for a waiver by California to tighten their own emission standards.

The Bush administration said Wednesday night that it would deny California’s bid to set stricter vehicle emissions standards than federal law required as part of the state’s efforts to fight climate change.

The E.P.A’s decision was a victory for the American auto companies, and came just hours after President Bush signed legislation that will raise fuel economy standards by 40 percent to 35 miles a gallon in 2020.

More below the jump…

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