[Congressional Record Volume 148, Number 137 (Thursday, October 17, 2002)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E1940-E1941]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




 SUPPORT FOR VALUE OF HUMAN LIFE AMENDMENT, KUCINICH AMENDMENT TO H.R. 
                                  5120

                                 ______
                                 

                        HON. MAURICE D. HINCHEY

                              of new york

                    in the house of representatives

                       Thursday, October 17, 2002

  Mr. HINCHEY. Mr. Speaker, the Office of Management and Budget has 
been choosing ideology over economics when making decisions about 
environmental, health and safety regulations.
  An ideology that devalues future generations and the environment.
  An ideology that seriously distorts the benefits of public 
protection.
  An ideology that says a 15 year-old who dies from a car crash is 
worth protecting more than a 15 year-old who dies from cancer following 
exposure at birth to a carcinogen.
  OMB is forcing EPA, FDA, DOT and all other federal agencies to 
underestimate the

[[Page E1941]]

benefits of life-saving regulations and skew regulatory decision-making 
against protective safeguards. Mr. Kucinich's amendment corrects a 
serious problem with OMB's way of calculating the benefits of 
environmental, health and safety regulations. This amendment addresses 
a fundamental, ethical question that underlies the practice of 
discounting the value of future reductions in fatal risk (also known as 
the value of a statistical life). This is a complicated issue, but I 
think I have a few questions to illustrate the point:
  How much is it worth to you to never hear that your daughter, or 
grandson, or niece, or neighbor has Leukemia?
  How much would you pay to reduce your spouse's risk of getting 
Multiple Sclerosis in 10 years?
  What do you think a pregnant woman would pay to reduce the risk of 
her unborn baby developing asthma when he enters first grade?
  For most of us, reducing the risk of danger is valuable--even if the 
risk is in the future. The fear, pain and dread of avoiding risk and 
protecting health are worth a lot now. OMB serves as the gatekeeper for 
regulatory reviews in the White House through its Office of Information 
and Regulatory Affairs. Recently the head of this office, Administrator 
John Graham, issued a directive to federal agencies concerning the 
implementation of cost-benefit analysis and is in the process of 
developing guidance on the discounting of life. Unfortunately, these 
requirements and other actions being taken by OMB will worsen the 
tendency of these cost-benefit tests to overstate costs and undervalue 
benefits.
  One of the main ways in which cost-benefit tests can be biased is by 
placing a value on human life that is too low. One technique with this 
kind of bias is called discounting, which lowers the importance of 
someone's death if they die from a hazard that has a delayed effect, 
such as toxic chemicals, hazardous wastes, and cancer causing agents. 
OMB discounts the value of future risks at a 7 percent discount rate. 
This is significantly higher than those of many other federal agencies 
and many economists. The Kucinich amendment recognizes that the value 
of future risks in valuing a statistical life should not be discounted 
at all.
  It is not true that non-monetary benefits, such as health, safety, 
and environmental benefits, are worth less tomorrow than if they were 
immediate. Discounting the value of future health, safety, and 
environmental benefits--which cannot be invested--at the same rate used 
to discount money is illogical because such benefits do not become less 
valuable over time, the way that money does. In some cases, 
particularly with respect to environmental regulations, benefits 
actually become more valuable. For instance, it would certainly be less 
costly to implement programs to reduce global warming in the present 
than to pay for its very costly consequences decades from now.
  The shenanigans that surrounded EPA's arsenic rule highlight the 
importance of the Kucinich amendment. Don't tell me that a rule that 
reduces a child's risk of cancer by lowering arsenic exposure should be 
driven by controversial--and in my opinion venal--cost/benefit 
assumptions. By its very nature, discounting pushes regulatory 
decision-making in an anti-environmental direction by ignoring some of 
the most serious environmental threats to human health. This tilted 
playing field becomes the most exaggerated when the issues necessarily 
have a long time-horizon, such as nuclear wastes and climate change.
  The Kucinich amendment helps to correct one of the most serious 
biases of cost-benefit analyses. The proper treatment of the value of 
life is one of the most important features we should expect from 
regulations designed to protect all of us. As a result, I fully support 
Mr. Kucinich's ``Value of Human Life Amendment.''