What is the Clean Air Act?
The Clean Air Act is a Federal law that sets air quality standards for emissions from area, stationary, and mobile sources. This law states that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is authorized to set National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS) which protect human health and the environment. The Act was was amended in 1977 and then again in 1990. Amendments were made in order to address problems such as acid rain, ground-level ozone, upper level ozone depletion, and air toxics.
There are actually several Clean Air Act versions, with the earliest in the United States called the Air Pollution Control Act of 1955. Quite a bit of historical precedent exists for governments attempting to create better and healthier air, and these long predate our understanding of pollutants at present. People in England, for instance, were wont to complain of the poor “air” in England, and there was a time during the height of England’s Industrial Revolution when the Thames River ran black, and the air quality was so poor, that combined with fog, people would become covered in black soot when they entered certain parts of London. America was slightly behind on the Industrial Revolution, but not by far, and especially in urban areas that were crammed with people and factories, clean air was very hard to find. The earliest Clean Air Act, the 1955 Act, attempted to address air pollution. The Air Pollution Control Act didn’t do much to actually control pollution, but instead recognize
The Clean Air Act is a Federal law that sets air quality standards for emissions from area, stationary, and mobile sources. This law states that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is authorized to set National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS) which protect human health and the environment. The Act was was amended in 1977 and then again in 1990. Amendments were made in order to address problems such as acid rain, ground-level ozone, upper level ozone depletion, and air toxics. The Clean Air Act in full can be found on the EPA’s website.
The Clean Air Act is the federal law designed to make sure that all Americans have air that is safe to breathe. Public health protection is the primary goal, though the law also seeks to protect our environment from damage caused by air pollution. How does the Clean Air Act work? The Clean Air Act requires that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency set national health-based air quality standards to protect against common pollutants including ozone (smog), carbon monoxide, sulfur dioxide, nitrogen dioxide, lead, and particulate soot. State governments must devise cleanup plans to meet the heath standards by a specific date. (Areas with the worst smog have a longer time to meet the standards.) In addition, the EPA sets national standards for major new sources of pollution including automobiles, trucks and electric power plants. The agency also is charged with developing controls for major sources of such toxic pollutants as benzene. When was the Clean Air Act passed? Congress passed t
