Description: Environmental protection clearly is an issue of importance to Americans. Establishing, achieving, and maintaining environmental standards are now among government's most significant activities. Since the 1970s, however, this consensus support for the environment and natural resources has been accompanied by growing concern over the costs of environmental policies. In the minds of many, economic efficiency has become an essential criterion for environmental policy.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has been conducting economic analysis for years to assess the economic effects of environmental regulation. Economic Analyses at the EPA: Assessing Regulatory Impact is the first authoritative, in-depth study of these analyses, also known as Regulatory Impact Analyses (RIAs). It clearly explains their purpose, design, execution, and conclusions, as well as their ultimate impact on environmental rules.

Richard Morgenstern, formerly director of EPA's Office of Policy Analysis and currently a visiting scholar at Resources for the Future, has assembled twelve original case studies of RIAs performed at the EPA over the past decade. The contributors, most of whom actually worked on these RIAs, provide detailed examination of why and how the individual analyses were performed, what factors were included and excluded, and their effect on the final regulations. They critique the nature, amount, and quality of data used by the EPA in their benefit-cost and cost-effectiveness analyses as well as the subsequent utilization of that data in decisionmaking. The case studies also illustrate how difficult issues such as discounting, risk, nonmonetized benefits and costs, and equity are taken intoaccount.

The studies reveal great variety. The amount and quality of data available differ. Political and social contexts are variable, and they occur at different points in the policy process. It is understandable, then, that while some analysts strongly influenced the final regulations, others did not. Morgenstern and his colleagues illustrate and explain these variations, using them to draw some important conclusions.

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