What is the monetary value of human life in regards to the environment?

Question

According to the EPA, "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."

"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."

"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."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080711/ap_on_re_us/value_of_life

Answer 1

Wow.  It's kind of creepy to think of putting a monetary value on human life, for the purpose of making life-or-death decisions.  It's really scary that the process can work in reverse.  Apparently, the value of life can be changed specifically for certain regulations:

"In 2004, for a major air pollution rule, the agency lowered the value to $7.15 million in current dollars."

"Then, in a rule governing train and boat air pollution this May, the agency took away the normal adjustment for one year's inflation."

While the EPA may justify the change:

"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."

I think Viscusi is right:



"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."

It seems the EPA may have essentially sought a second opinion which gave a much lower value:

"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."

And then modified the numbers in a questionable way:

"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.'"

I am sure the valuation of life is unfortunately necessary, but there certainly should be some restrictions on when and how it is done.

Answer 2

$7.00