By Valerie Volcovici
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The Environmental Protection Agency on Thursday scrapped a Trump-era rule that changed the way the agency weighed the benefits and costs of a new regulation, which had been intended to make it harder to craft more stringent public health measures.
The Biden EPA said it had reviewed the previous administration’s “Benefit-Cost Rule” and found that it “imposed procedural restrictions and requirements” that hamstrung the agency’s ability to use the best available science to develop Clean Air Act regulations and was “inconsistent with economic best practices.”
“Revoking this unnecessary and misguided rule is proof positive of this Administration’s commitment to science,” said EPA Administrator Michael Regan.
The previous rule, finalized in December 2020 during the last month of the Trump presidency, instructed the agency to weigh all the economic costs of regulating an air pollutant and not to weigh “co-benefits” that would arise from a reduction of death and illness that would stem from the curbs.
At the time, public health and environmental groups said the move undermined future regulators’ ability to set stricter limits on air pollution because they will not be able to account for the full range of health benefits of a proposed rule if they mainly factor in its cost to justify it.
Meanwhile, industry groups ranging from the American Chemistry Council to the National Mining Association praised it saying previous benefit-cost analyses resulted in tougher restrictions on their industries.
The Biden EPA said the Trump rule imposed new requirements on the agency to conduct benefit-cost analysis without explaining why they were needed and that the Clean Air Act already required the agency to weigh both direct and indirect benefits of a new regulation.
The new rule will take effect in 30 days.
(Reporting by Valerie Volcovici; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama)
