Last night, the House of Representatives gave its final approval to a bill to give more resources and authority to the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC). House members approved a package, negotiated among House and Senate leaders earlier this week, by a vote of 424-1.

Last week, Reg•Watch blogged about a recent Associated Press investigation that shows the Environmental Protection Agency has been using new statistics to assign monetary values to the lives potential regulations will save. AP found EPA's most recent value, $6.9 million, is about $1 million lower than it was five years ago. The figure in question is called a Value of a Statistical Life (VSL), which is a number that attempts to place a dollar figure on individuals by studying market data. EPA isn't the only agency that uses a VSL. Lots of public health and safety agencies go through the ridiculous process of valuing human life in order to comply with White House requirements on cost-benefit analysis. But agencies don't necessarily use the same VSL. Some agencies even use a different VSL for different rules. If you're wondering how much different sectors of the federal government think your life is worth, take our journey around the beltway, complete with an interactive map.

In a few minutes, members of the House and Senate are set to meet to work on sorting out differences between their respective versions of consumer product safety legislation. Both versions of the bill would expand the budget and authority of the beleaguered Consumer Product Safety Commission, but other provisions have proved contentious. Congress Daily (subscription) reports: The House passed its CPSC reauthorization in December and the Senate approved its version in March. Conferees first met last month, when they agreed on 21 items. They left the more troublesome measures for today.

The New York Times has an article this morning further underscoring the problems the FDA has tracking the sources of food-borne illness outbreaks. The toll of the current salmonella outbreak has exceeded 1,000 victims "in what officials said Wednesday was the largest food-borne outbreak in the last decade."