EPA Blasted for 'Senior Death Discount'

During a recent series of public meetings, senior citizens and public health advocates attacked EPA’s practice of assigning less value to the lives of those over 70 when monetizing the benefits of prospective regulation -- causing agency Administrator Christie Whitman to denounce the method herself.EPA employed this practice, which has been pushed by OMB's Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs [1], in analysis for its recent watered-down rule on snowmobile emissions [2], as well as its flagship environmental proposal, the Clear Skies Initiative [3] -- valuing lives of people over 70 years old at $2.3 million compared to $3.7 million for those younger. This type of age-adjusted analysis reduces the estimated benefits of regulatory actions and helps justify weak health, safety and environmental standards.

The agency-sponsored gatherings [4], held in Tampa, San Antonio, Iowa City, Pittsburgh, Los Angeles and Baltimore, were convened to gather input from older Americans on environmental protections -- and Whitman and other EPA officials certainly got an earful. Calling it the “senior death discount,” senior citizens and other activists descended upon EPA’s meetings, battering the administrator and her subordinates with complaints about the devaluation of older lives.

By the final session in Baltimore on May 7, public pressure appeared to have gotten the best of Whitman, as she withdrew her support for the practice, stating, “EPA will not, I repeat, not, use the age-adjusted analysis in decision making,” according to the Washington Post [5].

Of course continued vigilance is still warranted since the “senior death discount” is just one of the Bush administration’s many tools [6] used to skew regulatory decision-making in favor of inaction and against the elderly.