Pittsburgh ? Some seniors and environmentalists are accusing the Bush administration of discriminating against older people by telling agencies calculating the value of environmental programs to take the age of those benefiting into account.

Critics say it’s unfair to place a lesser value on environmental regulations that help people who have fewer years to live. They plan to raise questions about the idea Wednesday, when the EPA holds a town meeting in Pittsburgh.

“How can they say my life is less valuable than an infant’s?” said Jo Ann Evansgardner, a 78-year-old in Pittsburgh. “It’s like they’re playing God, to claim they can put a dollar value on me that differs from someone else.”

The White House Office of Management and Budget has directed the Environmental Protection Agency and other regulatory agencies to factor age into cost-benefit analyses, but also to continue the traditional process of calculating benefits regardless of age.

Using both methods will provide better perspective on the worth of regulations, said the OMB’s regulatory chief, John D. Graham.

In some cases, taking age into account could increase the value placed on older lives, Graham said. In a recent EPA proposal, the life of a person under 65 was valued at $172,000 a year, compared with $434,000 for people 65 and older.

Environmentalists say the method still values seniors less because it counts the per-year value for fewer years.

They point to an EPA cost-benefit analysis on a proposal to cut snowmobile pollution in national parks. The worth of the proposal, which was ultimately dropped, fell considerably when the benefit to a person over age 70 was cut by one-third.

Heather Sage, outreach coordinator for Citizens for Pennsylvania’s Future, said lowering the value placed on seniors “would be a major setback, given that seniors are a susceptible population to soot and particulates.”