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Resolution calling upon President George W. Bush and Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Christine Todd Whitman to value all people's lives equally with respect to current and future policy and regulations concerning point and non-point source pollution.
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WHEREAS, on behalf of the Bush Administration, John Graham, Director of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, of the U.S. Office of Management and Budget (OMB), last fall urged the Environmental Protection Agency to consider a conservative benefits scenario under which the life of a person 70, or older, would be demeaned and valued at 63% of a younger person's life; and
WHEREAS, the current federal policy of assigning a monetary price to a human life in a cost-benefit analysis raises serious ethical questions to begin with; and
WHEREAS, Pennsylvania has the second highest percentage of elderly citizens among the fifty states; and
WHEREAS, the new policy opens the Pandora's Box of characterizing different people's lives at different values based on the human characteristics of, not just age, but also, sex, race, national origin, religion, disability, income level, and sexual orientation; and
WHEREAS, in addition, this policy of “discounting” the life of an elderly person lowers the overall benefit of a pollution remediation program in a cost-benefit analysis, having the effect of reducing the reason, or logic, for private industry, or government, to spend the cost of cleaning up pollution or preventing pollution; and
WHEREAS, the 867-page snowmobile/large spark engine rule finalized last year used significantly lower human benefit than originally proposed, therefore setting an unwise and unfortunate precedent for numerous pollution rules to be decided; and
WHEREAS, on April 23, 2003, the Environmental Protection Agency will hold one of six national “listening hearings” in Pittsburgh, PA.
The Council of the County of Allegheny hereby resolves as fol...
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