Re the first bullet -- economics watchers beware -- the AP writer seems to fundamentally misunderstand how comparable different economic analyses are across EPA.  He's comparing apples and oranges, and it's leading him to conclude that something nefarious is going on.  While lots of nefarious policy changes have come out of EPA recently, this may not be one of them.

The reason I'm counseling caution here is that different monetary values per life saved have fundamental bases that are inherently different across EPA rules.  For example:

 the year for which you're adjusting -- i.e. are you looking at 1999 dollars, 2002 dollars, 2006 dollars, etc. (The inflation rate used varies less across EPA rules than the dollar year does).

 the compliance year of the regulation - i.e. the year the pollution reductions mandated by a rule are realized.  The dollar figure for a rule that has a 2015 compliance year is going to be different than the dollar figure for a rule with a 2020 compliance year.  

I believe this may be the biggest mistake in the AP story -- he seems to have compared rules with different compliance years, and lo and behold, the dollar figures were significantly different.

God knows the Administration has wreaked havoc with EPA rules over the last eight years -- but reporters still need to do their homework lest they look stupid.  I think this guy just got it wrong.

Incomplete information is as bad as incorrect information.  I think what the reporter was saying is that a born or naturalized citizen of the United States of America is worth $6.9M.  At least those of us with degrees, good income, and comfortable lifestyles.  Obviously, the Salvadorean who cleans toilets and mops the floors at the EPA buildings is not worth anything close to that figure.  And the "illegal" Mexican who picks tomatoes sprayed with EPA-regulated pesticides is probably worth even less...in terms of dollars.

Are kids that live in New Orleans neighborhoods on top of pesticide dumps worth $6.9M each?  I think there is an assumption here that we live in an economic democracy.  Perhaps $6.9M is the "average"...and, like everything else, since 10% of our population controls 80% of our wealth, I'm sure the "value", in terms of dollars, of that top 10% has gone up considerably in the past few years.  In fact, the people at the top are probably "worth" $100 million or so each, maybe a lot more....which definitely entitles them to living in protected, clean, safe communities.  If the value of the other 90% of us has gone down to...say...$1 million each, then I suppose it would follow that it's not so worthwhile to stop construction of a new coal-fired power plant upwind of our working-class communities, to limit the use of pesticides toxic to the human beings who pick our tomatoes, or to make a chemical plant upriver from a poor community clean up their act.  A poor kid who gets leukemia is worth less than a rich kid.

All of this economic news makes it clearer and clearer to me that environmental issues and social issues cannot be disconnected.  As MLK said, we will never have true democracy until we have economic democracy.  

When we see numbers like this....that the average American (not counting illegals who do all the dirtiest work, I'm sure) has gone down in value, I would say it's safe to assume that what has really happened is that the value of working-class Americans has plummeted, working poor and immigrants has hit rock-bottom, and the rich are more "valuable" than ever before.

Il faut cultiver notre jardin.

I'm not saying you're wrong about what the Administration thinks, and god knows these economic analyses are a good bit fun with numbers....

...but the economists at EPA doing the analyses use Census figures and national average earnings estimates -- they're not calling out specific groups of people or devaluing anyone.  

For better or for worse, you can't get a regulation through the political system without a monetary estimate attached to it, and the EPA economists -- who are career people, not politicos - do the best they can.  Under (god willing) President Obama, you'll still see dollar values attached to regulations, and they won't look all that different.