The Environmental Protection Agency has published and solicited public comments on its draft rule reforming the benefit/cost analytic methodology applied to new regulations promulgated under the Clean Air Act (CAA). However boring this topic may seem, it is exceptionally important: Such regulations can yield substantial environmental improvement at reasonable costs, or they can impose massive costs upon the economy with little or no environmental benefits in the bargain.
With its central focus on clarity and transparency, this draft rule makes a good start in terms of rationalizing an analytic process that has proven replete with abuse and political and bureaucratic gameplaying designed to support as “appropriate and necessary” the adoption of rules that could not satisfy any honest benefit/cost analysis.