An American life worth less today

By Seth Borenstein, The Associated Press
Article Last Updated: 07/10/2008 09:58:11 PM PDT

WASHINGTON - It's not just the American dollar that's losing value. A
government agency has decided that an American life isn't worth what it
used to be.

The "value of a statistical life" is $6.9million in today's dollars, the
Environmental Protection Agency reckoned in May - a drop of nearly $1
million from just five years ago.

The Associated Press discovered the change after a review of
cost-benefit analyses over more than a dozen years.

Though it may seem like a harmless bureaucratic recalculation, the
devaluation has real consequences.

When drawing up regulations, government agencies put a value on human
life and then weigh the costs versus the lifesaving benefits of a
proposed rule. The less a life is worth to the government, the less the
need for a regulation, such as tighter restrictions on pollution.