Publications

Federal agencies’ cost-benefit analyses do not capture nonhuman animals’ interests. This omission matters. Cost-benefit analysis drives many regulatory decisions that substantially affect many billions of animals. That omission creates a regulatory blind spot that is untenable as a matter of morality and of policy. Valuing animals could have mattered for many cost-benefit analyses, including those for pet-food safety regulations and a rear backup camera mandate. As a sort of “proof of concept,” this Article shows that even a simple breakeven analysis from affected animals’ perspective paints even the thoroughly investigated policy decision at issue in Entergy Corp. v. Riverkeeper, Inc. in an informative new light.

In June 2022, the Supreme Court handed down its landmark decision in West Virginia v. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), which marked the first time the Court named and expressly relied on the major questions doctrine. This Article surveys how lower federal courts have interpreted West Virginia and applied the major questions doctrine. There is no one major questions doctrine in the lower courts. Judges have taken vastly different approaches to defining and applying the doctrine both within and across circuits. These differences illustrate that many judges may view the doctrine as a little more than a grab bag of factors, which they seem to be choosing from at their discretion. Lower court judges do not appear to be constrained in how they apply the doctrine. In a majority of cases concerning Biden Administration agency actions and executive orders, judges applied the doctrine to reach outcomes that aligned with the political party of their appointing President.

Recently completed and draft guidance is ushering in updated practices for federal benefit-cost analysis. This policy brief examines the impact of two of the most significant upcoming changes: to the discount rate and the social cost of greenhouse gases.

To achieve the Biden administration’s ambitious commitments to equity and environmental justice, agencies will need guidance on how to assess and weigh the distributional effects of policy options. This report recommends steps that the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) can take to mainstream equity into agencies’ decisionmaking.

In light of recent evidence, a new range of discount rates appropriate for calculating the social cost of greenhouse gases could be conservatively estimated as between 0.5%-2.5%, with a central estimate of 1.5%. Agencies should follow the Interagency Working Group’s guidance on applying new social cost of greenhouse gas estimates based on updated discount rates—and will need to justify their choices, including any departures from prior practices.