As part of efforts to reduce unnecessary regulatory burdens, the Consumer Product Safety Commission on Feb. 24 reversed a 2024 Biden administration regulatory policy that “drastically changed how the agency measured the benefits of safety regulations.”
According to the CPSC, the now rescinded guidance altered how the CPSC used the Value per Statistical Life, a tool for conducting cost-benefit analyses of safety regulations, by double-counting the lives of children to inflate artificially the projected benefits of new rules. The agency asserts that this methodology “made it easier to impose costly and burdensome regulations and exposed the agency’s lifesaving safety rules to significant legal risk.”
By rescinding the guidance, the CPSC is returning to a methodology that uses a single VSL estimate for all age groups, adjusted for inflation and economic factors. This is the same approach used across the federal government, it aligns with Office of Management and Budget guidance, and “is grounded in established economic research.”
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