Recently, the Center for Progressive Reform (CPR) launched its Beyond 12866 initiative, which seeks to promote progressive regulatory reform as a key component of the progressive movement’s efforts to build a more socially just and equitable America. To accomplish this goal, though, we must come to grips with how the regulatory system is perpetuating racial injustice and reinforcing race-based inequities. In a new web article, I take this first step by sketching out some of the ways in which cost-benefit analysis has contributed to structural racism in the broader regulatory system.
As the piece explains, regulatory cost-benefit analysis purports to adhere to a kind of “moral objectivity,” which precludes considerations of important American values like equity, justice, and fairness. Conveniently, this studied “see no evil” approach has rendered the methodology an effective conduit for injecting racism into regulatory decision-making – much as facile claims of “color blindness” have helped provide cover for policies with racist effects. In particular, false objectivity enables racism to be smuggled in at two key steps in the cost-benefit analysis process: (1) constructing the analytical baseline and (2) the identification and evaluation of discrete potential policy impacts.
Another defining feature of cost-benefit analysis contributes to its inherent racism: monetization. In order to compare costs and benefits, economists conducting analyses try to convert things like health, clean air and water, a pollution-free environment, and other things not fundamentally monetary in nature into dollar figures, so that they can be squeezed into a spreadsheet and balanced against monetary costs. Because money is the common metric for evaluating the pros and cons of regulations, cost-benefit analysis is thus systematically skewed to favor those who have of a lot of it. This bias is further reinforced by the arbitrary methodological techniques that it employs to convert such non-market goods as the protection of a human life into dollars-and-cents terms. Notably, the methodology has defaulted to “willingness to pay” measures, which, to the extent they are constrained by one’s ability to pay, disadvantages the poor. Given the structural links between poverty and race in the United States, these kinds of biases likewise take on a racist dimension.
Finally, the dividing line that separates those policy milieus that have been historically subjected to cost-benefit analysis from those that have not is itself a revealing indicator of the methodology’s racism. Thus, whereas policy arenas that have a strong potential for remediating racial injustice – such as worker’s rights or public health – are subject to its strict constraining forces, others that are noteworthy for their contributions to racial oppression – namely, local law enforcement and national security – have been categorically exempted from the practice.
The article offers just an initial exploration of the structural racism of cost-benefit analysis. I hope it inspires others to investigate how the regulatory system, as well as the key institutions it comprises, currently serve to reinforce racial injustice.
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James Goodwin | October 15, 2020
Recently, the Center for Progressive Reform (CPR) launched its Beyond 12866 initiative, which seeks to promote progressive regulatory reform as a key component of the progressive movement’s efforts to build a more socially just and equitable America. To accomplish this goal, though, we must come to grips with how the regulatory system is perpetuating racial injustice and reinforcing race-based inequities. In a new web article, I take this first step by sketching out some of the ways in which cost-benefit analysis has contributed to structural racism in the broader regulatory system.
Darya Minovi | October 5, 2020
Amidst the president and First Lady testing positive for COVID-19, an embarrassing spectacle of a presidential "debate," and a pandemic that has now claimed more than 200,000 lives in the United States and 1 million worldwide, the West Coast wildfires have lost the attention of the national news cycle. But California and nearby states are still very much ablaze.
James Goodwin | October 1, 2020
In a previous post, I discussed the essentially undemocratic ways that conservatives have come to the brink of a 6-3 majority on the Supreme Court and examined one significant implication for regulatory policy: the likely effect on the Court's view on Chevron deference. In this second post, I explore several other ways the Court could undermine the essential democratic character of the regulatory system.
James Goodwin | September 30, 2020
Last week, Matthew Yglesias published an important piece at Vox explaining the many ways conservatives have succeeded in exploiting fundamentally undemocratic features of our constitutional structure of government to advance their policy agenda. This strategy will have reached its grotesque culmination if they manage to seat Judge Amy Coney Barrett on the U.S. Supreme Court. He’s rightfully angry about the situation -- as should we all be -- but the story he tells, thorough and infuriating as it is, misses an important point: It could actually get much worse.
Michele Janin | September 28, 2020
As many of our allies and supporters know, CPR is now in the midst of a nationwide search for our next executive director. We're looking for a dynamic leader prepared to guide our nearly 20-year-old organization into its next stage of growth and impact.
Robert Verchick | September 25, 2020
For the Member Scholars and staff of the Center for Progressive Reform, Justice Ginsburg's passing is a moment for reflection, a time to celebrate her achievements, mourn what has been lost, and gird for what is to come. Because her death has triggered such an outpouring of emotion, we asked the CPR family to offer reflections on her life and legacy and have gathered them on our website. I encourage you to take a few moments to read them.
David Flores | September 25, 2020
On September 24, CPR and Waterkeeper Alliance convened the first in a series of webinars on climate-driven pollution and chemical disaster. The toxic floodwaters phenomenon only exists because of a set of intersecting policy failures, and it will take a bold and sophisticated community of activists to achieve intersecting reforms that prevent the harm of climate-driven pollution. Panelists Jamie Brunkow, Jordan Macha, and Victor Flatt are but a few within that community of climate and environmental advocates and scholars.
James Goodwin | September 24, 2020
An underappreciated side effect of the modern conservative movement now epitomized by Trumpism is its dogged pursuit of any legal argument to support “the cause,” no matter how ridiculous or specious. Long-settled questions like nondelegation and the constitutionality of independent regulatory agencies are suddenly, if bizarrely, up for grabs again. Add to this list a new line of argument – now germinating like a mushroom spore in horse manure – that posits that citizen suit provisions, such as those included in the Clean Air Act and Clean Water Act, are unconstitutional infringements upon the so-called unitary executive.
Daniel Farber | September 22, 2020
With Sen. Mitt Romney's announcement that he would support consideration of a nominee before the election, it now seems virtually certain that President Trump will be able to appoint a sixth conservative justice. How will that affect future climate policy? Here is a preliminary threat assessment.