without explicit justification if the scenario considered in the study differs in significant ways from the regulatory scenario. The Circular describes the steps analysts should follow in conducting such transfers as well as the criteria for selecting studies, and indicates that the biases and uncertainties that result from the transfer should be acknowledged.

The Committee’s commissioned review of federal agency practices revealed diverse approaches to the valuation of health and safety improvements (Robinson, 2004). While the OMB guidance provides a general framework for assessing the impacts of regulations, it allows the agencies substantial leeway in determining the details of the approach to valuation for both BCA and CEA.

The Committee’s review suggests that regulatory analyses are usually completed under tight time frames with limited staff and budgetary resources. Analysts often must make many decisions about the analytic approach early in the rule development process, when they face substantial uncertainty regarding the regulatory requirements to be assessed, the overall schedule for the rulemaking, and the resources available for completing the analyses. The rulemaking schedule is usually too tight to allow time for new primary research on benefit values; analysts generally rely on preexisting studies, analytic methods, and quantitative models, as exemplified in the rules that were the basis of the Committee’s case studies (see Appendix A).

These available analytic resources in some cases resulted from longer term efforts to develop valuation methods for overall program evaluation, separate from particular rulemaking efforts. For example, NHTSA’s approach is based on its periodic studies of the national costs of motor vehicle accidents (NHTSA, 1996, 2002a), and EPA’s approach has evolved as a result of its prospective and retrospective studies of the Clean Air Act (EPA, 1997, 1999).

Most of the analyses reviewed by the Committee provided a range of measures of regulatory impact, including estimates of the numbers of cases of preventable mortality and nonfatal illness and injuries averted as well as information on uncertainty and nonquantified impacts. All of the analyses included estimates of the costs of regulatory compliance, focusing on those costs expected to be most significant in the context of individual rulemakings. These costs often consisted primarily of direct compliance costs (e.g., the costs associated with implementing pollution controls or administering a new program) and any resulting savings. In some cases, the agencies also assessed the market impacts of price changes associated with the rulemaking; such impacts were generally small.