Reviewers Question OMB’s Discount Rates In Draft Cost-Benefit Guide

Peer reviewers assessing the Office of Management & Budget’s (OMB) draft cost-benefit guidance update are questioning officials’ plan to significantly reduce discount rates used to limit estimated future benefits of federal rules, offering suggestions that could spur a more moderate increase to estimated climate rule benefits. The suggestions are part of a broader comments to OMB about its proposed updates to 2003 cost-benefit guidance -- known as Circular A-4 -- that lays out procedures for how EPA and other agencies...