Assessing the Benefits of U.S. Customs and Border Protection Regulatory Actions to Reduce Terrorism Risks

Executive Order E.O. 12866, as supplemented by E.O. 13563, requires federal agencies to evaluate the benefits, costs, and other impacts of major regulations prior to promulgation. For regulations intended to confer benefits under circumstances of extreme uncertainty, such as commonly arise in the context of homeland security, this requirement has proven especially challenging. To assist U.S. Customs and Border Protection CBP, a key component of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security DHS, in meeting these challenges, the RAND Corporation and Industrial Economics, Inc., conducted a workshop in November 2011, titled Assessing the Benefits of U.S. Customs and Border Protection Regulatory Actions to Reduce Terrorism Risks, that drew together leading experts in the field of regulatory analysis and terrorism risk. Most of the ideas that emerged from the workshop pertained to qualitative modeling, quantitative modeling, or data collection. A distillation and synthesis of the emerging ideas, recurring themes, and points of contention among the participants suggested several recommendations to assist CBP in meeting the challenges of improving the benefit-cost analysis of terrorism security regulations. The appendix contains the four invited presentations and an overview Overview of Challenges Identified During the Development of Estimates of the Benefits of U.S. Customs and Border Protection Regulations, by Jennifer Baxter Applying Modeling and Simulation to Estimate Risk Reduction Benefits for Regulatory Benefit-Cost Analysis, by Tony Cheesebrough and Ryan Wise Using Logic Models to Assess Security Benefits, by Victoria A. Greenfield, Henry H. Willis, and Tom LaTourrette Characterizing Benefits of Anti-Terrorism Rules, by James K. Hammitt and Improving Estimation of the Benefits of Terrorism Risk Reduction Learning from Environmental Economists by Carolyn Kousky. Briefing charts of each presentation are included.