Welcome back to Gray Matters, the podcast of the Seaboard and Grey Center for the study of the administrative state.

I'm Jace LinkedIn, the Gray Center's Policy and Strategy director. With me again today is Bennett News,

our research director. Hello, Bennett. Hi, Jason. It's good to be back. Glad to have you. And we're

joined today by Caroline Seacott. Caroline's a law professor at the George Washington University,

and maybe most important for today's conversation. She's a former president of the Society for Benefit

Cost Analysis and a great friend of the Gray Center. She recently wrote an essay for the regulatory

review about recent changes the EPA is made to cost benefit analysis. Caroline, welcome back to

Gray Matters. Hi, Jay's great to be here. So first starting at a 30,000-foot view,

what got you into studying cost-benefit analysis in the first place? That's a great question.

I've been long interested in the role that regulation plays in all of our lives and how agencies

make those decisions.

And I've been a firm proponent that agencies should make those decisions in predictable ways

and ways that are based on the best available scientific and economic evidence to make sure

that folks on the grounds for transparency and accountability reasons also know

the basis for agency action.

So in thinking through ways for agencies to accomplish this and to allow for the development

of science over time and updates to regulations, et cetera, I just think that cost-benefit analysis offers the most

comprehensive tool for agencies to be able to do all of those things. Great. And it used to be that

people thought that cost-benefit analysis would only be deregulatory.

But how did it develop such that it is protective of the environment and human health?

I think the reason that, so just I guess maybe backing up, the origins of agencies doing cost-benefit analysis go even further.

But a lot of folks like to start

...