May 8, 2003
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E.P.A. Drops Age-Based Cost Studies
May 8, 2003
By KATHARINE Q. SEELYE and JOHN TIERNEY
BALTIMORE, May 7 - A Bush administration policy to base
some regulations on a calculation that the life of each
person older than 70 should be valued less than the life of
a younger person has antagonized older Americans and
environmental groups, and it has stirred tensions among
federal agencies.
Instead of the traditional assumption that all lives saved
from cleaner air are worth the same, administration
officials in two environmental studies included an
alternative method that used two values, $3.7 million for
the life a person younger than 70 and $2.3 million for an
older person, a 37 percent difference.
Critics call the policy the "senior death discount" and say
the administration is turning on older Americans as a
rationale to weaken environmental regulations.
More at: http://www.nytimes.com/2003/05/08/politics/08REGS.html?ex=1053392596&ei=1&en=8dbca73d62e492f9
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