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Federal investments and procurement choices can either reinforce the status quo, or provide a template for a broader societal shift toward a low-emissions economy. Improved GSA policies could reduce emissions across the entire federal government.

"I don't think cost-benefit analysis is something that can just be washed away," said Ricky Revesz, a New York University law professor whose name has been mentioned as a potential Biden OIRA administrator. Jason Schwartz, who works at NYU Law's Institute for Policy Integrity, added, "What we've seen from courts in recent years is almost a requirement: If you haven't meaningfully considered cost and benefit in some way, we are going to look at that very skeptically."

For decades, there has been a bipartisan consensus that federal agencies should base their decisions on evidence, expertise, and analysis. But under the Trump Administration, inconvenient evidence has often been ignored, experts have been sidelined, and analysis has been misused to intentionally obscure important truths. In this episode, we talk to Prof. Michael Livermore (University of Virginia School of Law) and Prof. Richard Revesz (New York University School of Law) to discuss current challenges as well as considerations for the road ahead. Their new book, Reviving Rationality: Saving Cost-Benefit Analysis for the Sake of the Environment and Our Health, offers analysis on critical aspects of the regulatory process and calls for the reinstatement of expertise, sound cost-benefit analysis, and the rule of law in public administration.

Without strong backing in Congress to carry out his campaign promises, Biden will need expert leadership over the little-known White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs. There are few people with the economics and policy expertise to take on the role. The likely candidates mentioned by academics and congressional staff for Biden’s OIRA administrator are familiar faces in the regulatory community, including Richard Revesz at New York University.

Team Trump lost a court battle that could have pushed our nation’s low-income elderly, disabled and blind out of their own homes and into deathtrap nursing homes during the pandemic. The defeat is yet another loss for Team Trump. Administrations usually win 70% of the cases brought against them, but the Trump administration won only about 16% of 132 decided lawsuits, according to research by Bethany Davis Noll, litigation director of the Institute for Policy Integrity at the New York University School of Law.

Trump began or completed the process of rolling back 125 environmental rules and regulations, according to an analysis by the Washington Post. Most of those initiatives came under legal attack. The Trump administration lost 82 of 100 legal decisions related to rule making on energy, the environment and natural resources, calculates the Institute for Policy Integrity of New York University's law school. Often these adverse rulings were based on the lack of a suitable administrative record to support the rules — the result of laziness or incompetence at the agency level.

In 2008, Michael Livermore and Richard Revesz wrote Retaking Rationality, a book arguing that cost-benefit analysis of regulations should be recognized not as an anti-regulatory weapon, but rather a nonideological tool for promoting good government. Now they return with a new book, Reviving Rationality, which analyzes developments since 2008, and proposes further reforms for cost-benefit analysis going forward. They discuss it with the C. Boyden Gray Center for the Administrative State’s Executive Director, Adam White.

Host Kristin Hayes talks with Michael Livermore and Richard Revesz, cofounders of the Institute for Policy Integrity at the New York University School of Law and coauthors of the new book, Reviving Rationality: Saving Cost-Benefit Analysis for the Sake of the Environment and Our Health. Looking forward, Livermore and Revesz contend that a Biden administration should review federal guidelines for conducting cost-benefit analysis and update the process based on the best available science.

EPA’s Science Advisory Board is moving closer to supporting the agency’s revised guidelines on counting the costs and benefits of rules with a draft review of the plan that includes caveats on the “discount” rate and other issues. Jason Schwartz, legal director of the Institute for Policy Integrity at the New York University School of Law, said the 7 percent discount rate is unwarranted, and the SAB panel should reject it.

Since many of Trump’s regulatory actions are being challenged in court the Biden team could settle the arguments. Although the Trump administration was aggressive in its deregulation, it has not had as much success in court. “The overall success rate right now is 15.6%” for cases on deregulation or policy making, which “stands in stark contrast to prior administrations,” Bethany Davis Noll, litigation director for the Institute for Policy Integrity at the New York University School of Law.