Cost-Benefit and Risk-Risk Analyses in EPA’s New Standards for Ozone and PM2.5. J. B. Wiener, Duke University, Durham, NC 27708, Phone: (919) 613-7054, Fax: (919) 613-7231, E-Mail: wiener@faculty.law.duke.edu; and G. E. Marchant, Kirkland & Ellis, 655 Fifteenth Street, N.W., Washington, D.C., Phone: (202) 879-5156, Fax: (202) 879-5200, E-Mail gary_marchant@kirkland.com
Proposals for "regulatory reform" legislation have prominently included measures to require cost-benefit and risk- risk tradeoff analysis of new health and environmental regulations. In the midst of the Congressional debate over such requirements, EPA promulgated in 1997 controversial new National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS) for ground-level ozone and fine particulates. EPA decided not to conduct either cost-benefit or risk-risk tradeoff analyses in these rulemakings, and industry has challenged this decision in court, arguing that the costs of ozone and PM2.5 controls may outweigh the benefits and that reduced ozone levels will invite illnesses due to increased ultraviolet radiation. This presentation will address whether EPA should be obliged, allowed or forbidden to conduct cost-benefit and risk-risk analyses for new NAAQS, either under the Clean Air Act (CAA) itself, under the partial "regulatory reform" laws that have recently been enacted (e.g. the Unfunded Mandates Reform Act (UMRA) and the Small Business Regulatory Enforcement Flexibility Act (SBREFA)), or under new regulatory reform bills.
Go to . . .