Clean air battle puts age in focus

Policies are often weighed by cost vs. value of lives saved. But putting value on older lives proves divisive.

By STEPHEN NOHLGREN, Times Staff Writer

When it comes to pollution, older people are the canaries in the coal mine. Their hearts and lungs have deteriorated through the years, so soot from tail pipes and power plants hits them harder. Medicare records show they head for emergency rooms whenever air quality takes a dive -- a fact that underpins some of the nation's toughest environmental protection laws.

Now, environmental activists and the Bush administration are sparring over the economic value of a senior's life.

Under President Bush, studies by the Environmental Protection Agency have begun to list two conflicting calculations for the monetary benefits of a cleaner world. The older method, used since Bush's father was president, puts the value of saving a life at $6-million, no matter whose life is saved or how healthy a person is.

A second method, recently added to EPA studies, places a lower monetary value on saving the life of an older person than on saving the life of a younger person. Someone over 65 with chronic lung disease could end up with an economic value as low as $130,000.

For one thing, older people have shorter life expectancies and won't enjoy as many cumulative health benefits, particularly if they are already sick. Studies also show that older people are less willing to pay for cleanup measures -- about 63 cents for every dollar that younger people would spend. In theory, that means older people place a lower value on their own lives.

The two methods yield widely different results. A recent EPA crackdown on snowmobiles and other off-road vehicles is expected to produce $77-billion in health benefits through the year 2030. At least that's what the older method showed. The newer method estimated the benefit at $9-billion.

Though environmental policy rarely hinges directly on costs vs. benefits, such economic tradeoffs can weigh heavily in congressional debate and public opinion. Activists see the lower calculations as an administration tilt toward industry and away from tough standards.

The new calculations "discount the value of a death of an elderly person, which we think is very callous and cynical," said Deborah Shprentz, a consultant for the American Lung Association. "It's not healthy young adults with no health problems who are suffering the brunt of pollution."

The issue prompted vigorous rhetoric last week at the University of South Florida in Tampa, where the EPA held the first of six nationwide "listening sessions" about the impact of environmental policy on a graying nation.

EPA Administrator Christie Todd Whitman was soliciting ideas for new research and policy initiatives geared to the elderly, such as Vanessa Dazio's suggestion that manufacturers of cleaning materials and household pesticides be required to print their directions and warnings in larger type.

But for every speaker with concrete suggestions, three or four took the Bush administration to task. Having Whitman in town with media coverage provided a prime opportunity for political lobbying.

The EPA's new cost-benefit analysis was target No. 1.

Soot from power plants and vehicles kills 1,740 Floridians every year, said Holly Binns of the Florida Public Interest Research Group.

"Justifying a relaxation of public health protection based on seniors' lives' worth is unconscionable."

Whitman tried to mute the debate. The Office of Management and Budget has urged many federal agencies to include the new cost-benefit analysis in their reports, but neither the old method nor the new one determines the strength of regulations, she says. Cost-benefit analysis does not make policy.

"I don't know how you put a dollar value on human life," Whitman said. "That's not how we do things."

John Graham, OMB's administrator for regulatory affairs, said the new cost-benefit method focuses on how many years of life are added by protection rules, not how many lives are saved. The new method actually places a higher value on an additional year for someone over 65 than for younger people, he said. It's just that younger people have more years left, so their cumulative value ends up higher.

Studying years rather than lives is how the Food and Drug Administration evaluates food and drug safety laws, he noted.

Both methods "offer insight to decision-makers and the public about benefits and costs," he said.

That's what worries John Walke of the National Resources Defense Council. During the snowmobile study, even the new method yielded a predicted benefit that far outweighed the cost: $9-billion to $216-million. But Walke fears that future environmental regulations will be weakened if the new cost-benefit method becomes the accepted standard.

"This is the foot in the door," he said. "If the OMB succeeds in driving up the cost they can attribute to regulations, at the same time low-balling the benefits the public receives, then the OMB can say your approach is not rational.

"It's ominous."