2026-03655: Withdrawal of Final Guidance for Estimating Value per Statistical Life
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The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (Commission or CPSC) is withdrawing its Final Guidance for Estimating Value per Statistical Life, published in the Federal Register on April 18, 2024. After further review, the Commission has determined that the methodology assigning a Value per Statistical Life (VSL) for individuals under 18 years of age at twice the VSL for adults creates significant legal, analytical, and policy issues. These issues include misalignment with prevailing federal guidance of VSL, methodological deficiencies in the supporting evidence, heightened litigation risk, and the appearance of improperly inflating benefits in order to support desired regulatory outcomes. The Commission is returning to its prior VSL methodology, which is consistent with methodologies used by other federal agencies, and committing to a process that is empirically supported, analytically rigorous, legally defensible, and publicly credible.
The agency’s own summary, as published.
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