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When conducted on a societal level, cost-benefit analysis (CBA) can indicate policies that best allocate scarce public resources. Done incompletely, CBA can produce spurious, biased results. To estimate the potential health benefits of EPA's recent Lead and Copper Drinking Water Rule Revision (LCRR), we used EPA's exposure, compliance, and effect coefficient estimates to monetize 16 of the health endpoints EPA has determined are causally related to lead exposure. In addition, we monetized one health endpoint that EPA has used elsewhere: preterm birth. We estimated that the total annual health benefits of the LCRR greatly exceed EPA's estimated annual costs: $9 billion vs $335 million (2016$). Our benefit estimates greatly exceed EPA's benefit estimates.

There are also nonhealth benefits because lead generally contaminates drinking water through the corrosion of plumbing components that contain lead …