Agency Learning Agendas and Regulatory Research
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Commentaries & Insights
Our Commentaries and Insights are short-form publications intended to distill long-form research and synthesize current policymaking activity into easily understood concepts.
Agency Learning Agendas and Regulatory Research
As federal agencies scramble to respond to COVID-19, there’s another initiative rolling forward that you probably haven’t heard of, one that was built by data wonks and will influence regulation in ways we’re just now beginning to understand. As part of a new legal requirement, agencies are writing learning agendas to organize the way they approach research, including regulatory research.
Using Public Comments to Identify Regulations for Retrospective Review
The difficulty of identifying which regulations to evaluate from the existing stock persists as a barrier to agencies in their efforts to implement retrospective review.
EPA Proposes to Accelerate Its Permit Appeal Process
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency recently proposed a rule to streamline the process for appealing a permit to the agency’s Environmental Appeals Board.
Are Future Lives Worth More Than Our Own?
The Environmental Protection Agency has asked its Environmental Economics Advisory Committee (EEAC) for advice on how the Agency should adjust the value of statistical lives (VSL) in the future. Incomes in the future are expected to grow, and people with higher incomes tend to place a higher value on measures to reduce their own mortality risks. Does this mean that a benefit-cost analysis should place greater weight on lives saved in the future than it does on those saved today? In comments filed with the Committee and summarized here, Mannix argues that this is more than just a question of analytical technique.