U.S. regulatory agencies have been required to consider the equity and distributional impacts of regulations for decades. This paper examines the extent to which such analysis is done and provides recommendations for improving it. We analyze 187 cost-benefit analyses (CBAs) prepared by agencies...

The Biden Administration has signaled an interest in ensuring that regulations appropriately benefit vulnerable and disadvantaged communities. Prior presidential administrations since at least the Reagan Administration have focused on ensuring that regulations are efficient, maximizing the net...

Cost-benefit analysis (“CBA”) is widely used in agency decisionmaking, summarizing the impacts of an agency's chosen policy. As agency rulemakings have increased in quantity and importance, there has been renewed interest in improving transparency in decisionmaking, especially with respect...

Cost-benefit analysis (“CBA”) has faced significant opposition during most of its tenure as an influential agency decisionmaking tool. As advancements have been made in CBA practice, especially in more complete monetization of relevant effects, CBA has been gaining acceptance as an essential...

Across the United States, local governments and states have adopted measures to restrict shale development that uses high-volume hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling (collectively, fracking) within their borders, hindering a national energy policy that relies on continued access to...

Debates about the desirability of widespread shale development have highlighted outstanding uncertainty about its health, safety, and environmental impacts—most prominently, its water-contamination risks—and the ability of current institutions to deal with these impacts. States, the primary...

Governments and private landowners have collected royalties on mineral resources for centuries. When comprehensive measures to account for the environmental externalities of mineral extraction are politically or practically unavailable, federal and state governments might consider adjusting...

The profitability of extracting oil and gas trapped within the nation's extensive shale formations has generated a boom in the oil-and-gas industry. Operators are pushing to drill close to populations and sensitive resources, and many states are facilitating such extensive drilling with laws...

This Article evaluates judicial review of agency benefit-cost analysis ("BCA") by examining a substantial sample of thirty-eight judicial decisions on agency actions that implicate BCA. Essentially, the Administrative Procedure Act tasks federal courts with ensuring that federal agency action is...