Regulatory Policy

Regulatory safeguards play a vital role in protecting us from hazards and ensuring that companies that pollute, make unsafe products, and create workplace hazards bear the cost of cleaning up their messes and preventing injuries and deaths. Still, the regulatory system is far from perfect: Rules take too long to develop; enforcement is often feeble; and political pressure from regulated industries has led to weak safeguards.

These systemic problems are made all the more severe by the determination of the Trump administration to undercut sensible safeguards across virtually all aspects of federal regulation. Moreover, the President and his team have taken aim at the the process by which such safeguards are developed, aiming to take a system already slanted in favor of industry profit at the expense of health, safety and the environment, and make it even less protective. For example, where critics of the use of cost-benefit analysis see a system that understates the value of safeguards and overstates the cost of implementing them -- making it difficult to adopt needed protections -- the Trump administration seeks simply to ignore benefits of safeguards, pretending they do not exist. The result is a regulatory system that fails to enforce landmark laws like the Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act and more.

CPR exposes and opposes efforts by opponents of sensible safeguards to undermine the regulatory system, fighting back against knee-jerk opposition to environmental, health, and safety protections. Below, see what CPR Members Scholars and staff have had to say in reports, testimony, op-eds and more. Use the search box to narrow the list.

Letter to OIRA on 2009 OMB Report to Congress

Comments to the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs on 2009 OMB Report to Congress re the costs and benefits of regulation, by Amy Sinden, Rena Steinzor and James Goodwin

Type: Letters to Agencies (Nov. 5, 2009)
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Author(s): Amy Sinden, Rena Steinzor, James Goodwin
A Return to Common Sense: Protecting Health, Safety, and the Environment Through Pragmatic Regulatory Impact Analysis

A Return to Common Sense: Protecting Health, Safety, and the Environment Through Pragmatic Regulatory Impact Analysis, CPR White Paper 909

Type: Reports (Oct. 27, 2009)
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Author(s): Rena Steinzor, Amy Sinden, Sidney Shapiro, James Goodwin
Regulatory Dysfunction: How Insufficient Resources, Outdated Laws, and Political Interference Cripple the 'Protector Agencies'

Regulatory Dysfunction: How Insufficient Resources, Outdated Laws, and Political Interference Cripple the 'Protector Agencies,' CPR White Paper 906

Type: Reports (Aug. 12, 2009)
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Author(s): Rena Steinzor, Sidney Shapiro, Matt Shudtz
The Cost-Benefit Dodge: Used to Dilute Regulation

The Cost-Benefit Dodge: Used to Dilute Regulation, op-ed by Catherine O'Neill and Amy Sinden

Type: Op-Eds (June 5, 2009)
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Author(s): Catherine O'Neill, Amy Sinden
Poisoned for Pennies: The Economics of Toxics and Precaution

The term, “Cost-benefit analysis,” is used so frequently that we rarely stop to think about it. But relying on it can lead to some dubious conclusions, as Frank Ackerman points out in this eye-opening book. Inventing dollar values for human life and health, endangered species, and fragile ecosystems does not guide us to better policies, he maintains. Cost-benefit analysis, as practiced today, could have led to damming the Grand Canyon for hydroelectric power, leaving lead in gasoline, and other absurd and harmful decisions. In Poisoned for Pennies, Ackerman uses clear, understandable language to describe an alternative, precautionary approach to making decisions under uncertainty.

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Author(s): Frank Ackerman
Doubting Daubert

Doubting Daubert, by Lisa Heinzerling, White Paper 511, August 2005.

Type: Reports (Sept. 7, 2005)
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Author(s): Lisa Heinzerling
Is Cost-Benefit Analysis Neutral? An Analysis of the Bush Administration's Approach to Environmental, Health, and Safety Protection

Is Cost-Benefit Analysis Neutral? An Analysis of the Bush Administration's Approach to Environmental, Health, and Safety Protection, by David M. Driesen, White Paper 507, June 2005.

Type: Reports (June 15, 2005)
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Author(s): David Driesen
The Feasibility Principle

The Feasibility Principle, by David Driesen, first in a series of papers outline alternatives to cost-benefit analysis. White Paper 407, December 2004.

Type: Reports (Dec. 15, 2004)
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Author(s): David Driesen
Applying Cost Benefit Analysis to Past Decisions

Applying Cost Benefit Analysis to Past Decisions, by Frank Ackerman, Lisa Heinzerling, and Rachel Massey. White Paper 401, July 2004.

Type: Reports (July 8, 2004)
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Author(s): Lisa Heinzerling, Frank Ackerman
Bush's Cost-Benefit View Carries a High Price

Bush's Cost-Benefit View Carries a High Price, op-ed by Frank Ackerman and Lisa Heinzerling

Type: Op-Eds (April 26, 2004)
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Author(s): Lisa Heinzerling, Frank Ackerman

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