E&E News: “Trump’s 10-for-1 Regs Order Jettisons Rulemaking Revamp”
RFF President and CEO Billy Pizer comments on the revision of Circular A-4, an important piece of federal guidance for cost-benefit analysis.
Billy Pizer, president and CEO of Resources for the Future, an environmental and energy think tank, said the last Trump administration also reverted back to earlier methodologies for calculating the social cost of carbon, pulling back Obama-era changes. Trump did the same with the Circular A-4 this time.
Pizer said the revised guidance made a number of significant changes to cost-benefit analysis at agencies, including lowering the discount rate from 3 percent to 2 percent, meaning benefits for climate and public health rules preventing illness and death were more attractive. Further, it also weighted the impacts for different people based on income.
"Circular A-4 is more important — it applies to all cost-benefit analysis, not just computation of the [social cost of carbon]," Pizer said.
But the revised guidance is no longer in use. Dudley, now f
