United States Government Publishing Office publisher pbl distributor dst United States Government Accountability Office Resources, Community, and Economic Development Division author aut Government Organization text government publication eng GAOREPORTS Legislative Agency Publications gao legislative 2010-08-12 U.S. Government Printing Office 1999-09-14 monographic deposited born digital 22 p. GA 1.13:RCED-99-250 https://www.govinfo.gov/app/details/GAOREPORTS-RCED-99-250 P0b002ee180394eea f:rc99250 DGPO 2010-08-12 2011-03-24 GAOREPORTS-RCED-99-250 machine generated eng fdlp REPORT GAOREPORTS-RCED-99-250 RCED-99-250 Reporting requirements Strategic planning Economic analysis Agency proceedings Policy evaluation Environmental policies Letter Report RCED Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO provided information on efforts to assess the economic impact of the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) regulations to enhance environmental quality, focusing on: (1) to what extent EPA's regulations have been the subject of retrospective studies; (2) whether retrospective studies are viewed as useful or difficult to do; and (3) ways to foster such studies in the future.<p/>GAO noted that: (1) assessments of the costs and the benefits of EPA's regulations after they have been issued have rarely been done; (2) of the 101 economically significant regulations issued by EPA from 1981 through 1998, only five were the subject of retrospective studies; (3) various sources--including Congress, EPA, and academia have provided the impetus for these studies, which were all completed from 1997 through 1999; (4) these studies covered regulations designed to, among other purposes, control acid rain, phase out chlorofulorocarbons, and reduce air pollution through improved vehicle inspection and maintenance; (5) authors of retrospective studies, EPA officials, and other experts told GAO that these studies have been or can be useful but also pose a number of difficulties for researchers; (6) these studies found that that actual costs of reducing emissions were lower than initially estimated; (7) based on these findings, a legislative proposal to further limit emissions has been introduced; (8) retrospective studies are viewed as difficult to do because, among other reasons, it is difficult to obtain valid cost data from regulated entities; (9) also, it is extremely difficult to quantify actual benefits; (10) one reason is that a significant time lag usually exists between the elimination or major reduction of pollutants and any corresponding change in illness rates; (11) GAO found that a systematic approach by EPA would foster retrospective studies in the future; (12) while all economically significant regulations, by executive order, are subject to a prospective economic assessment, EPA is not expected to calculate the actual costs and benefits for all of these regulations; (13) accordingly, EPA officials told GAO that they have used the agency's limited resources on prospective economic assessments--which EPA must perform--rather than on retrospective studies; and (14) based on discussions with study authors, EPA officials, and other experts, GAO found that the resource constraints and the difficulties in conducting retrospective studies could be better addressed if EPA were to develop a plan to foster studies of the actual costs and benefits of environmental regulations. https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/GAOREPORTS-RCED-99-250/html/GAOREPORTS-RCED-99-250.htm https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/GAOREPORTS-RCED-99-250/pdf/GAOREPORTS-RCED-99-250.pdf GAO/RCED-99-250 https://www.govinfo.gov/app/details/GAOREPORTS-RCED-99-250 Letter Report GAO/RCED-99-250; Environmental Protection: Assessing Impacts of EPA's; Reporting requirements Strategic planning Economic analysis Agency proceedings Policy evaluation Environmental policies