Law Commons^™

Benefits, Costs, And Risks: Oversight Of Health And Environmental Decisionmaking, William H. Rodgers, Jr.

Articles

This article considers problems of "regulatory reform" in the context of environmental and health decisionmaking. Specifically, in Part I, this article defines cost-benefit analysis, explores its advantages and limitations, and assays cost-benefit practice in light of descriptive theoretical and practical demands of formal decisionmaking within administrative agencies.

The two remaining sections of this article focus on the question of how Congress and the courts can, do, and should structure environmental and health regulation. In Part II, the article explores legislative models for agency consideration of costs and benefits in promulgating regulations. It examines four alternative models, and identifies normative considerations …