Posted by Jonathan Adler:
Heinzerling to EPA:
http://volokh.com/archives/archive_2009_01_25-2009_01_31.shtml#1233080273
Another legal academic is reportedly signing up with the Obama
Administration. According to [1]this report, Georgetown University's
Lisa Heinzerling is joining the Environmental Protection Agency to
advise EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson. Heinzerling was the lead author
of the [2]Commonwealth of Massachusetts' merits brief in Massachusetts
v. EPA. While I disagreed with much of her argument, I recognize that
the brief was a sterling example of effective legal advocacy -- and
her side did win the case, which should say something.
One interesting aspect of this appointment is that Heinzerling is a
prominent opponent of reliance upon cost-benefit analysis to evaluate
environmental regulations. She has written several articles (many of
which are available [3]here) and a [4]book criticizing cost-benefit
analysis and [5]testified against confirmation of John Graham to be
Administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs in
the Bush Administration. Heinzerlng's views on cost-benefit analysis
put her at odds with President Obama's own pick to head OIRA, [6]Cass
Sunstein. Heinzerling has critiqued Sunstein's support for
cost-benefit (as in [7]this paper), and Sunstein has critiqued her
work as well. Concluding [8]a review of Heinzerling's book Priceless
(written with Frank Ackerman), Sunstein wrote:
In the end, Ackerman and Heinzerling's argument seems to me to
suffer from the authors' anachronistic and even Manichaean view of
the regulatory world. In their rendition, regulators can either
stop evildoers from hurting people or prevent serious threats to
human health and the environment. That is the right way to think
about some environmental problems, to be sure--but most of the time
environmental questions do not involve evildoers or sins. They
involve complex questions about how to control risks that stem both
from nature and from mostly beneficial products, such as
automobiles, cell phones, household appliances, and electricity. In
resolving those questions, we cannot rely entirely on cost-benefit
analysis, but we will do a lot better, morally as well as
practically, with it than without it.
References
1.
http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2009/01/report-lawyer-in-ca-emissions-case-to-join-epa.php
2.
http://www.abanet.org/publiced/preview/briefs/pdfs/06-07/05-1120petitioners.pdf
3. http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/cf_dev/AbsByAuth.cfm?per_id=39415
4.
http://www.amazon.com/Priceless-Knowing-Price-Everything-Nothing/dp/1565849817/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1233079524&sr=1-3
5.
http://www.citizen.org/congress/regulations/graham/heinzerling_testimony.html
6. http://volokh.com/archives/archive_2009_01_25-2009_01_31.shtml#1233000911
7. http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=966457
8.
http://www.tnr.com/story_print.html?id=3789f673-b673-4d42-be4b-99972de2ae5c
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