Federal agencies’ cost-benefit analyses do not capture animals’ interests. This omission matters. Cost-benefit analysis drives many regulatory decisions that substantially affect many billions of animals. That omission creates a regulatory blind spot that is untenable as a matter of morality and of policy. After briefly outlining the regulatory system and explaining why cost-benefit analysis matters within it, Mr. Stawasz will argue why federal agencies should reject the status quo. He will also lay out tractable options for implementing that vision. 

Andy Stawasz holds a J.D. cum laude from Harvard Law School, where he was part of the inaugural cohort of Brooks Institute Emerging Scholars Fellows, served as co-President of the Animal Law Society, and received the Animal Law & Policy Program Writing Prize. He will soon begin a two-year Faculty Fellowship at the University of Michigan Law School. He was recently a Legal Fellow at the Institute for Policy Integrity, a regulation-focused think tank at New York University School of Law. From 2022 to 2023, he served as an Advisor at the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, where he worked on regulatory policy and cost-benefit analysis.