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| DEFENDING THE CLEAN AIR ACT
Take Action: Defend the Clean Air Act!
The Clean Air Act, enacted in 1970 and updated in 1977 and 1990, candates pollution control requirements for sources of air pollution. Both states and the federal government, through the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), are responsible for compliance. The Administration has proposed an air pollution plan that would weaken the Clean Air Act and benefit big polluters.
Clean Air Act Facts
Dangerous levels of soot and smog cause thousands of premature deaths, millions of asthma attacks, and other illnesses each year. Under the federal Clean Air Act, the EPA and states must clean up dangerous soot and smog and provide most citizens with air that meets public health standards by 2010. Current law requires deep reductions in power plants’ sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide emissions within this decade in order to meet these public health standards.
The Administration’s Air Pollution Plan: Hurts Public Health, Helps Big Polluters
The Administration’s air pollution plan would weaken public health protections of the current Clean Air Act. The administration plan would hurt public health and help big polluters by weakening, delaying and diluting cuts in power plants’ sulfur, nitrogen and mercury pollution compared to timely enforcement of current law. The administration plan would roll back the current law’s public health safeguards to protect local air quality, curb pollution from upwind states, and protect our national parks. Tens of millions of people would be denied clean air, even as late as 2020 and beyond.
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CURRENT CLEAN AIR ACT PROVISIONS
- Cut power plants’ soot-forming SO2 pollution from 11 million tons today to 2 million tons by 2012
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ADMINISTRATION PROPOSAL
- Delays and dilutes cuts in power plants’ SO2 emissions
- Allows for more than twice as much SO2 for nearly a decade longer (2010-2018)
- Full pollution reductions likely to be delayed, to as late as 2025, because of emissions “banking” provisions through which power plants earn credits for limited reductions and extend their deadlines for coming into full compliance
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- Cut power plants’ smog- and soot-forming NOx pollution from 5 million tons today to 1.25 million tons by 2010
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- Allows more than one and a half times as much NOx for nearly a decade longer (2010-2018)
- Allows one-third more NOx even after 2018
- Full pollution reductions likely to be delayed, to as late as 2025, because of emissions “banking” provisions through which power plants earn credits for limited reductions and extend their deadlines for coming into full compliance
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- Requires new power plants to install state-of-the-art pollution controls
- Requires older “grandfathered” plants to install modern pollution controls when rebuilt or expanded in ways that increase their pollution output. (In areas with dirty air, new or expanded plants must offset their pollution increases.)
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- Effectively repeals these current air quality safeguards
- Exemptions are not limited to power plants, but are available to plants in any industry sector
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- When power plants in upwind states cause violations of air pollution health standards in downwind states, the downwind states can force those plants to cut their pollution
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- Effectively repeals this “state’s rights” provision
- Prohibits downwind states from pursuing any pollution reductions from power plants in upwind states before 2012
- Increases the burden of proof after 2012, making it nearly impossible to prove that upwind states’ power plants are causing downwind pollution
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- Existing power plants must install modern pollution control equipment to curb the haze they cause in national parks and wilderness areas. New major industrial sources including power plants must not degrade air quality in national parks and wilderness areas
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- Repeals cleanup requirements for existing sources
- Fails to protect clean air in our parks by also ignoring potential impacts on national parks when siting most new major sources of industrial pollution, including power plants
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- Each power plant must install maximum achievable control technology for mercury emissions and other toxic air pollutants by 2008, and then further limit any unacceptable health risks that remain
- Enforcing current law could cut power plant mercury pollution by nearly 90 percent, from 48 tons today to about 5 tons by 2008
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- Eliminates current law’s health protections for mercury and other toxic air pollutants
- Delays and dilutes mercury reductions
- Allows more than five times as much mercury for a decade longer (2010-2018) and three times as much after 2018
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For nearly 100 years, the American Lung Association and Lung Association affiliates throughout the United States have worked together in the fight against lung disease. We need your support to fight lung disease, the third leading cause of death in the U.S. Contact your local American Lung Associationto find out how you can help.
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