Washington DC - US government bureaucrats are struggling with an age-old question: What is the value of human life?
The government uses dollar amounts for lives when trying to weigh the costs and benefits of regulating such things as pollution, but it has proved politically and emotionally charged.
Now, the Environmental Protection Agency wants to stop putting a price tag on American lives and use different terminology - which is not as easy as it sounds.
The agency's first try for a replacement, a wonky “value of mortality risk,” was shot down as not quite right on Thursday by its science advisory board.
The EPA proposal also would put more value on preventing cancer deaths over other causes of death, such as heart attacks. That is because there is a bigger scare factor for cancer, EPA officials say. But critics say that puts a premium on touchy-feely emotions over science.
David Ropeik, an expert in risk communications and author of the book “How Risky Is It, Really?”, said: “This is highly ethical, but very dangerous.”
He said people often overestimated some risks, such as cancer, and underestimated others, such as heart disease.
For decades, the US government has used something called the “value of a statistical life” in analysing whether regulations make economic sense.
The so-called price tag became a political hot potato in 2002, when the Bush administration tried to reduce the value of elderly people by 38 percent compared to people under 70.
Then quietly in 2004, the EPA reduced the value of life for everybody from $7.9 million (R56 million) to $7 million (R49.5 million). The devaluation was uncovered in 2008 and the EPA's move was criticised by Democrats and ridiculed by comedians.
Soon after the Obama administration took over in 2009, the value of a statistical life was pushed back up to $7.9 million.
The EPA has proposed changing the term to “value of mortality risk” and instead of using dollars for a theoretical life, regulations would be measured in “dollars per micro-risk per year.” A micro-risk is one in a million.
So instead of using the value of a life at $7.9 million when calculations are made about the benefits of a regulation, it would be using figures that talk about the benefits of reducing deaths by $7.90 (R56) per micro-risk per person per year.
The EPA’s chief environmental economist, Al McGartland, says people are troubled by the question of “how do you put a value on a human life” under the current EPA economic calculations.
With the new proposal, “we're not putting a value on a human life,” he said.
Lisa Heinzerling, a Georgetown University law professor who until late in 2010 was the EPA's policy chief and the architect behind the change, said the new method was more understandable for the public.
When environmental economists talked about value of life, they were really trying to figure out how much people would pay to reduce individual risk of death, so this is a more accurate term, said Heinzerling, co-author of a book called “Priceless: On Knowing the Price of Everything and the Value of Nothing”.
But science board members said the proposed term was clunky and confusing. They suggested “value risk reduction.” Eventually, the board will make a recommendation to the EPA's chief, who will make the final decision.
No matter what term is used, says Tufts University economist Frank Ackerman, co-author of Heinzerling's book, the EPA's proposal “doesn't change anything, it still means the same thing. No one will be fooled for long”.
Frank O'Donnell, president of Clean Air Watch and a critic of the old method, said the rebranding could bury key environmental decisions “in ever-deeper jargon”.
In the proposal, the EPA is adding a 50 percent “cancer differential” to calculating death risks. This would say the risk of dying of cancer is 50 percent worse - or more costly - than the risk of dying in other ways. EPA associate environmental economics chief Nathalie Simon pointed to scientific studies, based on surveys that say people would be willing to pay more to avoid dying of cancer, when compared to other causes of death.
John Graham, the Bush administration regulation chief who proposed discounting the value of seniors, said people might say they fear cancer more, but their actions didn’t back that up.
Graham, now dean of Indiana University's school of public and environmental affairs, questioned whether a “cancer premium” could be justified “in light of the reluctance of citizens to monitor for radon in their homes, enroll in cancer screening programmes, and eat their fruits and vegetables on a daily basis.” - Sapa-AP