§2204e Office of Risk Assessment and Cost-Benefit Analysis

Summary

Creates an Office of Risk Assessment and Cost-Benefit Analysis inside the Department of Agriculture. The Secretary of Agriculture must appoint a Director to run the office. The Director must make sure any regulatory study includes a risk assessment and a cost-benefit analysis done the same way each time and based on sound, reasonably available scientific, technical, economic, and other data. Starting six months after October 13, 1994, for each proposed major rule made after October 13, 1994 whose main goal is to protect human health, safety, or the environment, the Secretary must publish in the Federal Register a detailed analysis. The analysis must cover the risk and its effects (including harms to groups who are more exposed or sensitive), the costs to carry out and follow the rule, when useful a comparison to similar risks regulated by USDA or other federal agencies, and the rule’s expected benefits including how much risk it will reduce. The report must say whether the rule will advance protection and whether it will reduce risks in a cost-effective way for governments and others. These requirements do not change any law, cannot be reviewed by courts, and do not create a right to sue. The Secretary must do the studies without delaying rules that a law or court already requires. A “major regulation” means one the Secretary thinks will affect the U.S. economy by $100,000,000 per year in 1994 dollars.