EPA Pats Itself on the Back

Abstract

The Environmental Protection Agency's report to Congress on the benefits and costs of the Clean Air Act from 1990 to 2010 is uninformative and unreliable. It considers no regulatory alternatives, overstates likely benefits and understates costs. Successive reviews under the auspices of EPA's Science Advisory Board and the Office of Management and Budget did not prevent these shortcomings. We recommend that Congress should ask for major reviews of regulatory programs only from entities that are independent of the agencies that administer the programs.Environment, Regulatory Reform