Reforming regulatory impact analysis

Over the past decades, considerable debate has emerged surrounding the use of cost-benefit analysis (CBA) to analyze and make recommendations for environmental and safety regulations. Critics argue that CBA forces values on unquantifiable factors, that it does not adequately measure benefits across generations, and that it is not adaptable in situations of uncertainty. Proponents, on the other hand, believe that a well-done CBA provides useful, albeit imperfect, information to policymakers precisely because of the standard metrics that are applied across the analysis. Largely absent from the d

The requirement that federal agencies prepare economic studies--regulatory impact analyses (RIA)--for major new environmental and other social regulations has been controversial since its implementation almost thirty years ago. In a new RFF report, experts with differing perspectives take a hard look at several recent RIAs issued by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and explore what reforms would benefit the current system. The publication grew out of a series of workshops drawing upon views from government officials, legal scholars, and academic experts.