...to keep people safer from TCE, please encourage them to contact:



Jody Milanese (millaneese) in Congresswoman Sue Kelly's office at 202-225-5441

Another interesting report from Environmental Valuation and Cost-Benefit News:

In practice, hedonic price functions have proven difficult to estimate because the amenity of interest is typically not distributed randomly across locations. For example, locations with health risk due to air pollution tend also to be urban, industrial areas with particular labor market characteristics. When differences between locations are imperfectly measured and covary with health risk and housing prices, it becomes difficult to disentangle the price effects of health risks from the price effects of other locational amenities. The problem of omitted variables is compounded by an important sorting issue. Households move to locations endowed with amenities that match their preferences. When households near the amenity of interest are not representative of the population at large, it becomes difficult to interpret observed price differentials.

This paper measures the effect of health risk on housing values by exploiting a natural experiment that mitigates both econometric problems. The analysis focuses on an isolated county in Nevada where residents have recently experienced a severe increase in pediatric leukemia. Housing prices are compared before and after the increase with a nearby county acting as a control group. The variation in health risk over time makes it possible to control for unobserved differences across locations. In addition, because the leukemia cases were unanticipated there is no reason to expect sorting of households according to preferences prior to the increase. Finally, because many houses were sold repeatedly during the sample period it is possible to control for unobserved property- [sic]

The results provide a robust estimate of the MWTP [marginal willingness to pay] to avoid pediatric leukemia risk. Housing prices in the affected county closely followed trends in housing prices for the control county and the rest of the state of Nevada during the period leading up to the leukemia increase. Then, beginning when eight children were diagnosed in 2000, housing prices in the affected county declined significantly. Least-squares estimates indicate that houses sold during the period of maximum risk sold for 15.6 percent less than equivalent houses not affected by the leukemia increase. Fixed effects estimates indicate a 14-percent differential. The estimated MWTP to avoid pediatric leukemia risk is used to calculate the value of a statistical case of pediatric leukemia.

...In 2002 the budget for the Environmental Protection Agency included $3.2 billion for safe drinking water, $1.7 billion for waste management, and $598 million for clean air. A primary motivation for this spending is to protect households from cancer-causing substances and other environmental health risks. Reliable estimates of household valuations of these risks are imperative if programs are to be funded at cost-effective levels.

Original Source: a report by Lucas W. Davis, Department of Economics, University of Wisconsin,THE AMERICAN ECONOMIC REVIEW DECEMBER 2004, Volume: 94 Number: 5 Pages: 1693 -- 1704

More from the GAO Report, as promised. Please bear in mind:

· 85% of the sites below were discovered 15 yrs ago or more
· over 60% of the potentially eligible sites and over 35% of all sites below report no clean-up activities

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Table IV.1: Sites Classified as Awaiting an NPL Decision in Each State, by Eligibility for Listing and Status of Cleanup Progress
+
Table VI.1: State Officials’ Assessments of States’ Financial Capabilities to Clean Up Potentially Eligible Sites

State	Number of sites classified as awaiting an NPL decision	Number of sites unlikely to become eligible for the NPL	Number of potentially eligible sites with some cleanup activities	Number of potentially eligible sites with no reported cleanup activities	Number of sites for which no surveys were received	State officials’ assessment of state’s financial capability to clean up potentially eligible sites
Alabama	25	10	7	8	0	Very poor
Alaska	28	14	8	6	0	Excellent
Arizona	34	16	10	8	0	Excellent
Arkansas	4	3	0	1	0	Good
California	a 189	64	51	74	0	Fair
Colorado	30	12	10	6	2	Very poor
Connecticut	290	74	98	118	0	Poor
Delaware	1	1	0	0	0	Excellent
District of Columbia	a 1	0	0	1	0
Florida	269	74	85	110	0	Fair
Georgia	74	39	8	27	0	Poor
Guam	2	2	0	0	0
Hawaii	17	12	4	1	0	Fair
Idaho	16	5	5	6	0	*
Illinois	207	95	43	69	0	Fair
Indiana	54	21	15	18	0	Very poor
Iowa	33	29	4	0	0	Very poor
Kansas	37	28	4	5	0	Very poor
Kentucky	20	15	2	3	0	Good
Louisiana	10	6	4	0	0	Poor
Maine	56	28	17	11	0	Poor
Maryland	20	8	4	8	0	Other b
Massachusetts	a 201	11	19	171	0	Fair
Michigan	50	22	18	10	0	Excellent
Midway Island	1	1	0	0	0
Minnesota	17	6	6	5	0	Good
Mississippi	9	4	1	2	2	Very poor
Missouri	91	73	7	11	0	*
Montana	11	2	7	2	0	Very poor
Navajo Nation	14	0	0	14	0
Nebraska	a 36	16	4	15	1	Very poor
Nevada	12	8	3	1	0	Poor
New Hampshire	42	24	9	9	0	Poor
New Jersey	172	60	49	63	0	Good
New Mexico	15	7	6	2	0	Very poor
New York	a 192	135	15	41	1	*
North Carolina	57	18	21	18	0	Poor
North Dakota	4	2	1	1	0	Poor
Northern Mariana Islands	1	0	1	0	0
Ohio	79	25	23	31	0	Very poor
Oklahoma	7	4	1	2	0	Very poor
Oregon	29	7	6	16	0	Fair
Pennsylvania	73	35	18	20	0	Excellent
Puerto Rico	16	3	4	9	0
Rhode Island	121	14	23	84	0	Poor
South Carolina	45	32	8	5	0	Good
South Dakota	8	6	2	0	0	Other b
Tennessee	102	51	19	32	0	Poor
Texas	21	18	1	2	0	Poor
Utah	48	17	8	16	7	*
Vermont	30	16	5	9	0	Poor
Virginia	22	8	2	12	0	*
Washington	28	11	8	9	0	Fair
West Virginia	11	7	4	0	0	Other b
Wisconsin	53	34	8	11	0	Excellent
Wyoming	1	1	0	0	0
Total	3,036	1,234	686	1,103	13

a California, the District of Columbia, Massachusetts, and Nebraska did not respond to surveys. For these states, the data in table IV.1 are based on EPA’s survey responses alone and, for that reason, may be less reliable than for states having responses from both EPA and states. New York provided responses to only a few questions in our survey.

b “Other” indicates that the respondent was uncertain about the state’s financial capability.

* State officials in Idaho, New York, Missouri, Utah, Virginia, and Wyoming declined to participate in [the] telephone survey.

U.S. EPA's Region 9 (serving Arizona, California, Hawaii, Nevada, and the Pacific Islands) recently clarified the health standard they are using for TCE in indoor air. You can read about it here. Thanks to CPEO for the tip.