THE CLEAN AIR ACT
The Clean Air Act has protected the air we breathe for four decades. By curbing air pollution, it is directly responsible for saving many thousands of lives and improving health. The Act has achieved these successes while saving us money and protecting our economy.
The Clean Air Act’s comprehensive system of pollution control, with a proven track record of success, must now be applied to the grave problem of carbon pollution and global warming. The Act can work immediately by itself or in conjunction with new climate legislation. Now is the time to enforce the Clean Air Act — not gut it — and the Center is working hard to make sure it’s enforced as it should be.
The Clean Air Act requires the Environmental Protection Agency to regulate air pollutants in order to protect public health and welfare. In 1999, the International Center for Technology Assessment petitioned to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from automobiles pursuant to the Clean Air Act. In 2003, the Center joined a large coalition of conservation groups, states, and cities in challenging the Bush administration’s response that CO2 is not an “air pollutant” within the broad definition of the Act. In April 2007 the Supreme Court ruled in Massachusetts v. Environmental Protection Agency that CO2 is in fact an “air pollutant” — and accordingly, the EPA must move forward with its regulatory process.
The Center continued to press for rapid regulation under the Act in the face of continued stubbornness from the Bush administration, and petitioned for regulation of emissions from ships pursuant to section 213 and from airplanes under section 231.
And, on December 2, 2009, the Center and 350.org took an historic step by petitioning the EPA to set a national pollution cap on greenhouse gasses pursuant to the National Ambient Air Quality Standards program of the Clean Air Act.
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