Life Not Worth As Much, Says Gov't Agency

EPA Says Americans Worth $900,000 Less Than They Were 5 Years Ago

(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.

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.

Some environmentalists accuse the Bush administration of changing the value to avoid tougher rules - a charge the EPA denies.

"It appears that they're cooking the books in regards to the value of life," said S. William Becker, executive director of the National Association of Clean Air Agencies, which represents state and local air pollution regulators. "Those decisions are literally a matter of life and death."

Dan Esty, a senior EPA policy official in the administration of the first President Bush and now director of the Yale Center for Environmental Law and Policy, said: "It's hard to imagine that it has other than a political motivation."

Agency officials say they were just following what the science told them.

The EPA figure is not based on people's earning capacity, or their potential contributions to society, or how much they are loved and needed by their friends and family - some of the factors used in insurance claims and wrongful-death lawsuits.

Instead, economists calculate the value based on what people are willing to pay to avoid certain risks, and on how much extra employers pay their workers to take on additional risks. Most of the data is drawn from payroll statistics; some comes from opinion surveys. According to the EPA, people shouldn't think of the number as a price tag on a life.

The EPA made the changes in two steps. First, in 2004, the agency cut the estimated value of a life by 8 percent. Then, in a rule governing train and boat air pollution this May, the agency took away the normal adjustment for one year's inflation. Between the two changes, the value of a life fell 11 percent, based on today's dollar.

EPA officials say the adjustment was not significant and was based on better economic studies. The reduction reflects consumer preferences, said Al McGartland, director of EPA's office of policy, economics and innovation.

"It's our best estimate of what consumers are willing to pay to reduce similar risks to their own lives," McGartland said.

But EPA's cut "doesn't make sense," said Vanderbilt University economist Kip Viscusi. EPA partly based its reduction on his work. "As people become more affluent, the value of statistical lives go up as well. It has to." Viscusi also said no study has shown that Americans are less willing to pay to reduce risks.

At the same time that EPA was trimming the value of life, the Department of Transportation twice raised its life value figure. But its number is still lower than the EPA's.

EPA traditionally has put the highest value on life of any government agency and still does, despite efforts by administrations to bring uniformity to that figure among all departments.

Not all of EPA uses the reduced value. The agency's water division never adopted the change and in 2006 used $8.7 million in current dollars.

From 1996 to 2003, EPA kept the value of a statistical life generally around $7.8 million to $7.96 million in current dollars, according to reports analyzed by The AP. In 2004, for a major air pollution rule, the agency lowered the value to $7.15 million in current dollars.

Just how the EPA came up with that figure is complicated and involves two dueling analyses.

Viscusi wrote one of those big studies, coming up with a value of $8.8 million in current dollars. The other study put the number between $2 million and $3.3 million. The co-author of that study, Laura Taylor of North Carolina State University, said her figure was lower because it emphasized differences in pay for various risky jobs, not just risky industries as a whole.

EPA took portions of each study and essentially split the difference - a decision two of the agency's advisory boards faulted or questioned.

"This sort of number-crunching is basically numerology," said Granger Morgan, chairman of EPA's Science Advisory Board and an engineering and public policy professor at Carnegie Mellon University. "This is not a scientific issue."

Other, similar calculations by the Bush administration have proved politically explosive. In 2002, the EPA decided the value of elderly people was 38 percent less than that of people under 70. After the move became public, the agency reversed itself.

Well, *excuuuuuuuusssse* me!!! For living at all, the graveyard''s full.

But the value of *my* life is determined by *me!!!*

A life is the private property of the owner. Not the government. This nanny-state that wants to protect us from ourselves is completely wrong.

AND I REFUSE TO COMPLY!!

My life is mine, God gave it to me and it is my right and responsibility to live it. No part of it *whatsoever* belongs to the government or anyone else, and for the government to dare to assign a monetary value to an individual''s life is way out of line.

See my blog http://www.alicelillieandher.blogspot.com

[DDouville]

OK, I just read the rules of engagement, and I don''t feel like I need to change anything in my previous post. It''s possible I might have insulted the author, but why should I say anything other than what your article made me feel? It''s the honest truth, from my heart. Isn''t that what this is all about? The way I feel after reading your handiwork? Now I know you are probably doing your best, but can you understand where I might be coming from? I just can''t see what possible good this article can do. Is it something we can change? Why did you write it? I am trying to understand the logic behind it. My ears are open. Please enlighten me. Thank you.

[DDouville]

You got to wonder, between the media and the government, is there ever any good news? I think these people get off on reporting bad, depressing news. Why don''t they try to find something else to report instead of this rubbish they come up with? It''s like they go out of their way to find a subject that will keep everybody gloomy and depressed. We know oil is breaking a new record every day for the love of Christ. How could it not be? This person that wrote this article has nothing better to do than spend his/her time figuring this out. Gee, what kind of miserable, gloomy subjects can I come up with to get everyone bummed out? What an idiot you are. Is this what your bosses tell you to do? Or was it your unbelievably stupid idea? Are you trying to prepare us for the end of the world or what? My advice, even if the whole picture isn''t rosy, why not print something positive that would make people happy and feel good? Because you get off on making people gloomy and feel bad! What a bonehead you are. I hate to say it, but I think you are a lousy reporter. No one is asking you to lie, BUT CAN''T YOU FIND SOMETHING NICE TO WRITE ABOUT? THERE A MILLIONS OF SUBJECTS YOU COULD HAVE DONE AN ARTICLE ABOUT, AND YOU CHOSE THIS. IS YOUR NAME GLOOM BUMFARKLE? Get my drift? Find another occupation if this is the best you can do. People are getting sick of it. How you like them apples Einstein?

[soshljustic]

Considering that food costs are rising,land costs are rising,californicators are here in hawaii too, but so is everyone else,and we have to ship everything in which only doubles our food and gas costs...humans are at the top of the food chain,and land use in perpetuity for cemetaries is a passe ideology, corn and sugar cane is for fuel,whats left and usable from the oceans will be pharma...looks to me like "cooking the books" means future food costs are dropping?

[libsluv2spit]

Posted by UndrMyBoot3 at 05:10 PM : Jul 11, 2008
+ report abuse

************

i dont think your worth $5.7 dollars..a bucket of spit and i would still ask for change

[undrmyboot3]

Stop whining.


Posted by hypnotoad72 at 04:44 PM : Jul 11, 2008
-----------

LMFAO
Thanks for that one.

[undrmyboot3]

So the government is finally making it official? We already knew that the NeoRepubicons did not value the average American for more than throw-away labor at Oil Companies and Dennys.

[hypnotoad72]

Stop whining.

[chimpyout]

Veterans mistreated by the V.A. or the Pentagon would be astonished to learn that they are worth that MUCH!

[DocD--2008]

The value of the EPA... Zero

[frootloop47]

have to agree with you! I live in Oregon, and we have been deluged with Californicators here.

Posted by jimfinster
.. .. ..

I have to agree with you! I live in Colorado, and we have been deluged with Californicators here too.

Posted by Latrocinor



I feel your pain :)

I don''''t blame them for fleeing CA, just wish they would NOT come to Oregon!!
Posted by jimfinster
----------------------------------------------
I blame on Obama. He''s too blame for everything!

[cbsfan73]

You are just another ant in the colony.

[toolmangler-2009]

There is no price (money) high enough to purchase my life, however I will gladly ''give'' it up to save someone else if the need arose. You cannot truly put a value on life, Book keepers can manipulate the math to seemingly evaluate a Citizens worth but this is an imperfect method, In the end, a life is worth no more and no less than the owner says it is.

[forthepeopl1]

you realy want to see a lie that has been for over 40 years, the goverment owns 7 oil wells already to produce alreay drill, just hook up and start draining oil and gas..and its more oil and gas than saudias and more gas than russia.

back in 1970 they discover these well and had them all capped and put on guard for the past 40 years, what a joke. gas would be pennys and oil in the penny for us americans. this has to get out into the media so everyone please help.

go to rense.com

look under GAS PRICE MANIPULATION AND GULL ISLAND OIL

AND START SCREAMING WHAT THE FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF

for-america@h
otmail.com

[witchsince91]

DONT WORRY ABOUT YOUR 401K;
DONT WORRY ABOUT YOUR RETIREMENT;
DONT WORRY ABOUT YOUR STASH OF GOLD AND SILVER COINS;

BECAUSE, IT WONT HELP YOU IN THE NEAR FUTURE!!!!!!!!!!!!!

IF YOU DONT LEARN TO GROW AND CAN YOUR OWN FOOD, YOU ARE GOING TO BE UP SH*T-CREEK DURING THE NEXT HURRICANE KATRINA, OR WEATHER RELATED, OR TERRORIST TYPE U.S. CRISIS. YOU WILL HAVE TO GO DOWN TO THE WALMART AND FIGHT OVER THE LAST CAN OF BEANS LIKE DURING THE NEW ORLEANS HURRRICANE,..OR YOU''''LL HAVE TO PIMP OUT YOUR WIFE OR DAUGHTER FOR A CAN OF TUNA FOR YOUR FAMILY.

DO IT NOW ,..LEARN TO GROW A VEGETABLE GARDEN, LEARN TO CAN FOOD, LEARN TO BUILD A SMOKE HOUSE TO SMOKE GAME MEATS. "DONT FAIL TO PLAN!"

IT%u2019S GOING TO BE SO FUNNY WATCHING THESE "SUITS" ON THE FINACIAL CHANNELS STARVE TO DEATH WITH TONS OF MONEY STASHED IN THEIR HOMES AND SAFE-DEPOSIT BOXES, BECAUSE THE STORES WON%u2019T HAVE ANY FOOD ON THE SHELVES.

LEARN TO GROW YOUR OWN FOOD, EVEN IF YOU JUST START WITH A TOMATO PLANT IN YOUR WINDOW OR ON YOUR PATIO. BUY SOME LAND, EVEN A 1/2ACRE(THAT COULD SUPPORT A SMALL FAMILY W/POTATOS, BEANS, OINIONS AND CABBAGE/GREENS.),%u2026IF YOU KNOW HOW TO CAN FOOD LIKE ME.

[latrocinor-2009]

I feel your pain :)

I don''''t blame them for fleeing CA, just wish they would NOT come to Oregon!!

Posted by jimfinster at
.. .. ..

It''s the same problems now as California, smog, water shortages, urban sprawl.

They should of stayed there and deal with their problems rather than chase another "gold field".

Sigh, the grass is always greener.

[gman80214]

What a completely disconnected way to evaluate the costs to do the right thing. What ever happened to doing the right thing regardless of cost? Many have fought and died for our freedom and many of us have lost a loved one for those causes. Why in the world would we generate a cost process based on disconnected self worth assessments? Are all the great thinkers and inventors living in one town that someone could think this way? I think the regime change in January will help us as a nation discover a community mind set of people coming together and help lower the finger pointing and get some stuff done. Federal help is great for some things but not for a personal survival strategy like some people look for it to be.

[fuzzybear9]

Hello America

there we have it !

we all agree California should be Seperated out of the Union, and the agreement is,
that california will collect up all their Illegal Immigrants from Nebraska, Colorado, Oregon, Iowa and where ever else they scattered to.
and we except that we will not need to furnish any more natural gas from Wyoming, Colorado, Utah and Montana to subsidize their lavish life styles.
that means we can use our natural gas for heating homes and fueling our cars instead of burning vast ammounts providing electricity to Palo Alto.

its for the best, and no worry we can get our oranges from Florida,

and
and
we can watch reruns of Gilligans Island, until we set up new movie studios in Branson.

so good ridance to California once and for all.
and all their liberal wackos.

Gouvenor Arnie we won`t need to see you on ABC`s Sunday roundtable with George !

its been all settled, the U.S. no longer needs to worry about California.

sincerely Fuzzy Bear

[newsjunky5]

" but a life isn''''''''t worth NEARLY $6.9M. That''''''''s crazy.
And if you live in the 3rd world, you''''''''d be lucky to get a few hundred dollars if your loved one died in an accident. "
--------------------------------

The $6.9 million is not how much insurance you''ll be paid, or receive if someone dies. It''s the amount of money the Government is willing to spend for safety, per life.
It''s less in a poorer country because they won''t/can''t spend that amount per person for safety.
If spending less than $6.9 million on a smokestack filter so one person won''t get lung cancer, they''ll do it. If you need to spend $7 million for it, they won''t.
Bolivia won''t spend $6.9 million dollars for a filter to save just one life. Because their economy is weaker, the number is much lower.

The story says the US Government lowered that figure, because you''re not worth it.
The economy is bad. The money has been spent on Blackwater, KBR and others. It doesn''t just mean you can''t buy that car this year, it means more folks will die as the Government tells the industries they represent they can spend less (on mad cow detection, salmonella prevention, airline inspections, etc.)
Got it?

[jimfinster]

I have to agree with you! I live in Oregon, and we have been deluged with Californicators here.

Posted by jimfinster
.. .. ..

I have to agree with you! I live in Colorado, and we have been deluged with Californicators here too.

Posted by Latrocinor



I feel your pain :)

I don''t blame them for fleeing CA, just wish they would NOT come to Oregon!!