What Is The Current Administration Doing To Support Or Undermine The Clean Air Act Abc

The Clean Air Act has a proven tape of public health and ecology protection since 1970.

Quick Overview

• For more forty-5 years the Make clean Air Human action has cut pollution as the U.S. economy has grown.

• Americans breathe less pollution and face lower risks of premature expiry and other serious health effects.

• Environmental damage from air pollution is reduced.

• The value of Clean Air Deed health benefits far exceeds the costs of reducing pollution.

• New cars, trucks, and nonroad engines utilise country-of-the-art emission control technologies.

• New plants and factories install modern pollution command technology.

• Ability plants have cut emissions that crusade acrid pelting and impairment public health.

• Interstate air pollution has been reduced.

• Mobile and industrial pollution sources release much less toxic pollution to the air than in 1990.

• Actions to protect the ozone layer are saving millions of people from peel cancers and cataracts.

• The scenic vistas in our national parks are clearer due to reductions in pollution-caused haze.

• EPA has taken initial steps to limit emissions that crusade climatic change and ocean acidification.

• The Act has prompted deployment of make clean technologies, and has helped provide impetus for technology innovations that reduce emissions and control costs.

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Detailed Summary: Clean Air Human activity Results

For more than forty-five years the Clean Air Act has cut pollution every bit the U.S. economic system has grown.

• Experience with the Clean Air Human activity since 1970 has shown that protecting public health and building the economy tin can go hand in hand.

• Clean Air Act programs take lowered levels of vi common pollutants -- particles, ozone, lead, carbon monoxide, nitrogen dioxide and sulfur dioxide -- too as numerous toxic pollutants.

• Betwixt 1970 and 2022, the combined emissions of the six common pollutants (PM2.v and PM10, SO2, NOx, VOCs, CO and Pb) dropped by 78 percent. This progress occurred while U.Due south. economic indicators remain potent.

• The emissions reductions have led to dramatic improvements in the quality of the air that we breathe. Between 1990 and 2022, national concentrations of air pollutants improved 73 percent for carbon monoxide, 86 percent for atomic number 82 (from 2022), 61 percent for annual nitrogen dioxide, 25 pct for ozone, 26 percent for 24-hour coarse particle concentrations, 41 percent for annual fine particles (from 2000), and 91 percent for sulfur dioxide. (For more than trends information, see EPA's Air Trends site.)

• These air quality improvements have enabled many areas of the country to meet national air quality standards set to protect public health and the environment. For instance, all of the 41 areas that had unhealthy levels of carbon monoxide in 1991 at present have levels that come across the health-based national air quality standard. A cardinal reason is that the motor vehicle armada is much cleaner because of Clean Air Human activity emissions standards for new motor vehicles.

• Airborne lead pollution, a widespread health business organisation before EPA phased out pb in motor vehicle gasoline nether Clean Air Human activity authority, now meets national air quality standards in most areas of the country.

• State emission control measures to implement the Act, as well as EPA'southward national emissions standards, take contributed to air quality improvements.

Because of the Act, Americans breathe less pollution and face lower risks of premature death and other serious health furnishings.

A peer-reviewed EPA study issued in March 2022 found that the Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990 are achieving large health benefits that volition abound further over time every bit programs take full consequence.

This chart shows the health benefits of Clean Air Human action programs that reduce levels of fine particles and ozone.

Health Effect Reductions (PM2.5 & Ozone But)	Pollutant(south)	Yr 2022	Yr 2022
PM2.v Developed Mortality	PM	160,000	230,000
PM2.5 Infant Mortality	PM	230	280
Ozone Bloodshed	Ozone	4,300	7,100
Chronic Bronchitis	PM	54,000	75,000
Acute Bronchitis	PM	130,000	180,000
Astute Myocardial Infarction	PM	130,000	200,000
Asthma Excaberation	PM	one,700,000	two,400,000
Infirmary Admissions	PM, Ozone	86,000	135,000
Emergency Room Visits	PM, Ozone	86,000	120,000
Restricted Activity Days	PM, Ozone	84,000,000	110,000,000
School Loss Days	Ozone	3,200,000	5,400,000
Lost Piece of work Days	PM	13,000,000	17,000,000

• The 2022 report did not include the large benefits of the pre-1990 Clean Air Act. A peer-reviewed 1997 EPA Report to Congress reviewed the benefits of the Act from 1970 to 1990, and concluded that in 1990 alone, pollution reductions nether the Act prevented 205,000 early deaths, 10.four 1000000 lost I.Q. points in children due to lead exposure, and millions of other cases of health effects.
• Contained scientific enquiry shows that reductions in air pollution are associated with widespread public health benefits. For example, 1 study establish that reductions in fine particle pollution between 1980 and 2000 in U.S. cities led to improvements in average life expectancy at nascency of approximately seven months.¹

Environmental damage from air pollution is reduced.

• Lower air pollution levels mean less damage to the health of ecosystems.

• Ecology effects of air pollution include harm to plants and long-term forest health, soil food deterioration, aggregating of toxics in the food chain, damage to fish and other aquatic life in lakes and streams, and nitrogen enrichment of littoral estuaries causing oxygen depletion and resulting impairment to fish and other aquatic beast populations.

• Reducing air pollution as well improves crop and timber yields, a benefit worth an estimated $5.5 billion to those industries' welfare in 2022, according to the peer-reviewed March 2022 EPA study.  Better visibility weather in 2022 from improved air quality in selected national parks and metropolitan areas had an estimated value of $34 billion.

The value of Clean Air Act health benefits far exceeds the costs of reducing pollution.

• EPA's peer-reviewed 2022 study found that clean air programs established by the 1990 CAA amendments are expected to yield direct benefits to the American people which vastly exceed compliance costs.

• The study's central benefits estimate of $2 trillion in 2022 exceeds costs by a factor of more than than 30-to-1, and the loftier benefits estimate exceeds costs by ninety times. Even the low benefits guess exceeds costs by about 3-to-1.

• In addition to straight benefits vastly exceeding direct costs, economy-wide modeling conducted for the study found that the economic welfare of American households is amend with post-1990 make clean air programs than without them.

• Economical welfare and economic growth rates are improved because cleaner air means fewer air-pollution-related illnesses, which in turn ways less money spent on medical treatments and lower absenteeism among American workers. The study projects that the benign economic effects of these two improvements solitary more than offset the expenditures for pollution control.

• The EPA report received extensive review and input from the Council on Make clean Air Compliance Assay, an independent panel of distinguished economists, scientists and public health experts established by Congress in 1991.

New cars, trucks, and nonroad engines employ state-of-the-art emission command technologies.

EPA has required dramatic reductions in emissions from new motor vehicles and non-road engines - such as those used in construction, agronomics, industry, trains and marine vessels -- through standards that require a combination of cleaner engine technologies and cleaner fuels. In 2022, EPA estimated the benefits of five key standards to cutting emissions from vehicles, engines and fuel to 2030.

• Compared to 1970 vehicle models, new cars, SUVs and pickup trucks are roughly 99 percent cleaner for common pollutants (hydrocarbons, carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxides and particle emissions), while Annual Vehicle Miles Traveled has dramatically increased.

• New heavy-duty trucks and buses are roughly 99 percent cleaner than 1970 models. In Baronial 2022, EPA and the U.Due south. Department of Transportation'southward National Highway Traffic Condom Administration (NHTSA) jointly finalized standards for medium- and heavy-duty vehicles that will improve fuel efficiency and cut carbon pollution, while bolstering free energy security and spurring manufacturing innovation.

• Starting in the 2022 model year,  locomotives are 90 percent cleaner than pre-regulation locomotives. In March 2008, EPA finalized a three part program that dramatically reduces emissions from diesel locomotives of all types -- line-haul, switch, and passenger rail. The dominion cuts particulate emissions from these engines by as much equally 90 percent and nitrogen oxides emissions by as much every bit 80 percent when fully implemented. <Learn more nearly regulations for emissions from locomotives.>

• New commercial marine vessels (non-body of water-going) are xc percent cleaner for particle emissions than in 1970. Make clean Air Act and international standards for bounding main-going vessel emissions and fuels are reducing emissions from ocean-going vessels likewise. <Learn more about ocean vessels and large ships.>

• EPA is taking action to reduce emissions acquired by Shipping. In 2022, EPA finalized findings that GHG emissions from sure classes of engines used in aircraft contribute to the air pollution that causes climate change endangering public health and welfare nether section 231(a) of the Clean Air Deed. <Learn more about Regulations for Greenhouse Gas Emissions from Aircraft>

• Sulfur in gasoline has been reduced past ninety percent, and sulfur in diesel fuel has been reduced past 99 pct, from pre-regulation levels.

New power plants and factories utilize modern pollution control technology.

• The Deed requires that when new industrial facilities are designed and built, good pollution control must be role of the design. This means that equally new, cleaner facilities are built, the land's industrial base becomes cleaner overall. Public health is protected as economic growth proceeds. <Learn more than almost stationary sources of air pollution.>
  • In areas not meeting air quality standards, to avoid making pollution worse, new and modified large plants and factories must meet the lowest achievable emission rate and obtain offsetting emissions reductions from other sources.
  • In areas that meet air quality standards, new and modified big plants and factories must apply the best available technology because cost and avoid causing significant deposition of air quality or visibility impairment in national parks.
  • For example, new coal-fired power plants typically install control devices that capture up to 98 percent of the sulfur dioxide and in many cases 90 per centum of the nitrogen oxide emissions, relative to uncontrolled levels.
• These requirements are applied through pre-structure permitting programs that are administered past state, local, tribal, or EPA permitting government, depending on the location.
• State and local permitting authorities normally administrate the pre-construction permit programs that determine how to apply these requirements to facilities.

Power plants have cut emissions that cause acrid rain and harm public health.

• A national system of marketable pollution allowances has dramatically cutting power establish emissions of sulfur dioxide, reducing acid rain as well every bit secondary formation of fine particle pollution that contributes to premature expiry. Acid pelting, which includes moisture and dry deposition of acidic compounds from the atmosphere, results from emissions of sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides.
• Reducing acrid rain has significantly reduced damage to water quality in lakes and streams, and improved the health of ecosystems and forests.
  • Between the 1989 to 1991 and 2009 to 2022 observation periods, wet degradation of sulfate (which causes acidification) decreased by more than 55 percent on average across the eastern United States.
• The dramatic emissions reductions accomplished by the acid rain programme have helped to reduce atmospheric levels of fine particle pollution, avoiding numerous premature deaths.
• Regime and contained analyses accept concluded that the benefits of the programme far outweigh the costs, as detailed in the U.South. government's National Acid Precipitation Cess Programme (NAPAP) 2022 Report to Congress (PDF). (132 pp, 14.5 MB, About PDF)
• Multiple analyses show that the price of the fully implemented programme is a fraction of the originally estimated price - between $one-2 billion annually rather than the $vi billion EPA originally estimated in 1990, according to the NAPAP written report.

Interstate air pollution has been reduced.

Further reductions in ability plant pollution take been achieved by state and EPA efforts to cut interstate air pollution, achieving additional public wellness benefits and helping downwind states meet health-based air quality standards for fine particles and ozone.

• Twelve New England and mid-Atlantic states and the District of Columbia -- the Ozone Transport Region created past the 1990 Amendments -- worked together to create a nitrogen oxides (NO_x) Upkeep Programme and to adopt other controls that help improve ozone levels throughout the region.
• Building on that success, EPA issued a broader "NOx SIP Call" Rule creating a like NOx Budget Trading Program for much of the eastern United States, which ran from 2003 to 2008. As of 2008, the program cutting summertime NOx emissions from power plants past 62 pct from 2000 levels. These reductions, along with the NOx reductions from federal motor vehicle standards, are responsible for substantial improvement in ozone levels across the eastern Usa.
• The subsequent Clean Air Interstate Rule (CAIR) has achieved large reductions in power institute almanac SO2 and NOx emissions that contribute to fine particles, likewise as some boosted summertime NOx reductions beyond those required by the NOx SIP Call.
  • CAIR, which had initial compliance deadlines in 2009 and 2022, is a major reason that almost all areas in the East have met the 1997 and 2006 air quality standards for fine particles. In the 2005 CAIR Regulatory Impact Analysis, EPA estimated that the reductions from the CAIR requirements would avoid thirteen,000 premature deaths a year in 2022.
• CAIR was replaced by the Cross-State Air Pollution Dominion, equally of January 1, 2022 to address the 1997 ozone National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS).
• On September 7, 2022, the EPA revised the CSAPR by finalizing an update for the 2008 ozone NAAQS, known as the CSAPR Update. CSAPR Update will further reduce summer NO_X emissions from ability plants in the eastern U.S. and help downwind states to run into the new ozone standards.

Mobile and industrial pollution sources release far less toxic air pollution than in 1990.

• Stationary sources today emit about ane.5 million tons less toxic air pollution per year than in 1990.²
  • EPA has issued emissions standards to command toxic emissions from all 174 categories of major sources (e.g., chemical plants, oil refineries, aerospace manufacturing facilities, etc.), equally well as from 68 categories of minor "area" sources that correspond xc per centum of the worst urban toxic pollutants.³ States have elected to administer or enforce many of these federal standards.
• Toxic emissions from onroad and nonroad vehicles and engines likewise are dropping due to requirements for cleaner fuels and engines.⁴
  • These emissions are projected to be reduced by lxxx percent by 2030 from 1990 levels.
  • Onroad and nonroad diesel particulate affair emissions decreased by about 27 percent from 1990 to 2005 and are projected to be reduced an additional ninety percentage from 2005 to 2030.
  • Airborne levels of benzene, a carcinogen plant in gasoline, declined by 66 percent from 1994 to 2009 based on available air quality monitoring information.⁵
• Mercury emissions fell past about 80 percent betwixt 1990 and 2022.^{half dozen} EPA regulations for several large sources of mercury such equally municipal waste combustion and medical waste material incineration played a meaning role.
• Power plants remain the largest human being-made source of mercury emissions in the United States, emitting more than one-half of all emissions of certain air toxics.
• The 2022 Mercury and Air Toxics Standards for power plants crave power plants to reduce their emissions of mercury and other toxic air pollutants, protecting Americans from a host of avoidable illnesses and premature death.
  • The pollutants reduced nether MATS are associated with damage to the developing nervous systems of unborn babies and children, cancer, and with contributing to asthma and other respiratory diseases.
• The compliance date for MATS was in 2022, and ability plants have taken steps such as installing controls or updating operations to come across these standards that protect public health.
  • The technologies used to reduce toxic pollution also reduce sulfur dioxide and fine particle pollution, with additional benefits for public health.
    • MATS was estimated to prevent up to xi,000 premature deaths, 4,700 heart attacks and 130,000 asthma attacks annually beginning in 2022.
    • The value of the quantified air quality improvements from MATS for people's health lone totals $37 billion to $90 billion each twelvemonth. That means that for every dollar spent to reduce this pollution, Americans get $3-nine in health benefits. These pregnant health benefits practice not include the benefits associated with reducing air toxics emitted from power plants because EPA does not at this time take the ability to quantify such benefits. Thus, the Agency is likely underestimating the benefits of the rule.
    • The benefits of MATS are widely distributed and are especially important to minority and depression income populations who are disproportionately impacted by asthma and other debilitating health conditions.
    • Up to 540,000 missed work or "sick" days were estimated to be avoided each yr beginning in 2022, enhancing productivity and lowering wellness care costs for American families.

Actions to protect the ozone layer are saving millions of people from fatal skin cancers and eye cataracts.

• Deportment to protect the stratospheric ozone layer volition save millions of American lives from skin cancer between 1990 and 2165. The deportment besides will avoid hundreds of millions of non-fatal skin cancers and tens of millions of cases of eye cataracts for Americans built-in between 1985 and 2100, according to a peer-reviewed 1999 EPA report.
• The The states is one of 197 countries that are parties to the Montreal Protocol, an international treaty to protect the ozone layer. In 2022 the treaty marked its 25th anniversary. Helping developing countries comply through mechanisms like the Montreal Protocol'southward Multilateral Fund (MLF) will help assure success in restoring the ozone layer. Scientists estimate recovery by the middle of the 21st century. <Acquire more about the Montreal Protocol.>
• Consistent with the Montreal Protocol, the Clean Air Human activity requires that EPA develop and implement regulations for the responsible management of ozone-depleting substances in the Usa to assist restore the ozone layer. The law uses multiple tools including the phase-out of sure chemicals, bans on nonessential products containing or made with such chemicals, and prohibition of the release of ozone-depleting refrigerants during the service, maintenance, and disposal of air conditioners and other refrigeration equipment.
• The United States already has phased out the ozone depleting substances that Congress identified as "most damaging," such equally CFCs and halons.
• The phase-out for Course I substances was implemented iv-vi years faster, included 13 more than chemicals, and cost 30 per centum less than was predicted at the time the 1990 Clean Air Act Amendments were enacted. EPA's peer-reviewed 1999 written report found that nether the main gauge, every dollar invested in ozone layer protection provides $xx of societal health benefits in the United states, and that after accounting for uncertainties, the benefits still far outweigh the costs.

The scenic vistas in our national parks are clearer due to reductions in pollution-caused haze.

• The acid rain programme, interstate air pollution rules, motor vehicle rules and diesel sulfur rules have dramatically cutting sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide emissions that contribute to fine particle pollution. This has improved visibility over broad regions, including many of our national parks. <Learn more nearly Protecting our Nation'south Treasured Vistas .>
• Farther visibility improvements are anticipated from the regional haze programme mandated by Congress. Equally of January 15, 2022, EPA has taken more than than 100 proposed or final deportment on Regional Brume State Implementation Plans. Out of 52 required plans, in that location are 45 plans in place to ensure control of emissions that impair visibility in national parks and wilderness areas.
• States, tribes, and five multi-jurisdictional regional planning organizations worked together to develop the technical basis for these plans. Comprehensive periodic revisions to these initial plans are currently due in 2022, 2028, and every 10 years thereafter.

EPA has taken initial steps under the Human activity to limit emissions that crusade climate change and sea acidification.

• Consistent with a 2007 Supreme Court conclusion, EPA in 2009 completed a scientific determination that greenhouse gases in the temper are reasonably anticipated to endanger the public health and welfare of current and future generations and that emissions of greenhouse gases from new motor vehicles contributes to this air pollution.
• EPA'due south beginning steps to reduce harmful greenhouse gas pollution focused on motor vehicles. Transportation sources in 2022 were responsible for more than than a quarter of U.South. greenhouse gas emissions.⁷
  • EPA and the National Highway and Traffic Condom Administration worked together to gear up greenhouse gas and fuel economy standards for passenger vehicles in model years 2022-2016 and 2022-2025.
  • Over the life of these vehicles, the standards volition save an estimated $1.7 trillion for consumers and businesses and cut America's oil consumption past 12 billion barrels, while reducing greenhouse gas emissions by vi billion metric tons.
• EPA's and NHTSA's standards for heavy-duty trucks and buses, which were issued in Baronial 2022, present large similar benefits. The final phase two plan, finalized in August of 2022, promotes a new generation of cleaner, more than fuel-efficient trucks by encouraging the wider application of currently available technologies and the development of new and advanced price-effective technologies through model year 2027.
• In January 2022, states and EPA initiated Clean Air Act permitting of greenhouse gas pollution from the largest new and modified stationary sources. In the first year of permitting, dozens of large sources such equally power plants, cement plants, refineries and steel mills received pre-construction permits for greenhouse gas emissions.
• On August 3, 2022, President Obama and the EPA unveiled the Clean Ability Programme -- a historic and important step in reducing carbon pollution from power plants. On February 9, 2022, the Supreme Court stayed implementation of the Clean Ability Programme pending judicial review. The Court's decision was not on the merits of the dominion. EPA firmly believes the Make clean Power Plan will be upheld when the claim are considered because the rule rests on potent scientific and legal foundations.
• On May 12, 2022 EPA issued 3 final rules that together will curb emissions of methyl hydride, smog-forming volatile organic compounds (VOCs) and toxic air pollutants such as benzene from new, reconstructed and modified oil and gas sources.

• On October xv, 2022, with the U.s.a.' leadership, 197 countries adopted an subpoena to phase downward HFCs nether the Montreal Protocol in Kigali, Rwanda. HFCs are greenhouse gases which can accept warming impacts hundreds to thousands of times more strong than carbon dioxide. Nether the amendment, countries committed to cut the production and consumption of HFCs past more than eighty percentage over the next 30 years.

The Human action has prompted deployment of clean technologies, and has helped provide impetus for engineering innovations that reduce emissions and control costs.

• Catalysts, scrubbers, and low-VOC paints and coatings, are part of a long listing of technologies that were not known in 1970, but are proven and widely deployed today. Examples include:
  • Selective catalytic reduction (SCR) and ultra-low NOx burners for NOx emissions
  • Scrubbers which achieve 95 percentage and even greater SO2 command on boilers
  • Sophisticated new valve seals and leak detection equipment, including cameras that can run across leaks, for refineries and chemic plans
  • Low or zippo VOC paints, consumer products and cleaning processes
  • Chlorofluorocarbon (Chlorofluorocarbon) and hydrochlorofluorocarbons (HCFC)-free air conditioners, refrigerators, droplets sprays and cleaning solvents
  • H2o and powder-based coatings to replace petroleum-based formulations
  • Vehicles far cleaner than believed possible in the late 1980s due to improvements in evaporative controls, catalyst design and fuel control systems for light-duty vehicles; and treatment devices and retrofit technologies for heavy-duty engines
  • Idle-reduction technologies for engines, including truck end electrification efforts
  • Market penetration of gas-electric hybrid vehicles, and clean fuels
  • Routine utilize of continuous monitoring technology that provides information more than speedily
  • Multi-pollutant monitors that helps us to better empathise the complex nature of air pollution

<Acquire more about the CAA and the economic system>

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References

¹ Pope, C.A. 3, E. Majid, and D. Dockery, 2009. "Fine Particle Air Pollution and Life Expectancy in the United States," New England Journal of Medicine, 360: 376-386.

² EPA, Air Toxics Web Site, About Air Toxics. (For the latest information nearly reducing air toxics, see the webpage, Reducing Emissions of Hazardous Air Pollutants.

³ EPA, Air Toxics Spider web Site, Rules and Implementation.

^four Mobile emissions estimates are based on modeling runs conducted using the MOVES2010 highway vehicle emissions modeling system and the NONROAD2008 emissions model for nonroad sources, too as historical and projected activity and emission rate information for shipping, marine vessels and locomotives.

⁵ Estimates of the alter in national benzene emissions are based on benzene ambience air monitoring data in EPA'due south Air Quality System (U.South. EPA, 2022), using the subset of benzene monitoring stations that have sufficient information to assess trends since 1994.

⁶ Mercury emissions data for 1990, 2005, and 2008 featured in table seven in the EPA 2008 National Emissions Inventory, Version 2  Technical Support Document,  June 2022 typhoon.

^seven EPA, (April 2022) Inventory of U.S. Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Sinks; 1990-2010.

Source: https://www.epa.gov/clean-air-act-overview/progress-cleaning-air-and-improving-peoples-health

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