Experience with the Clean Air Act since 1970 has shown that protecting public health and building the economy can go hand in hand. Clean Air Act programs have lowered levels of six common pollutants — particles, ozone, lead, carbon monoxide, nitrogen dioxide and sulfur dioxide — as well as numerous toxic pollutants.

The Clean Air Act (CAA) is the comprehensive federal law that regulates air emissions from stationary and mobile sources.

The primary goal of the CAA is to achieve national ambient air quality levels protective of public health and welfare by establishing air quality standards and imposing limitations on air pollutant emissions from both stationary and mobile sources.

The Clean Air Act has proven a remarkable success. In its first 20 years, more than 200,000 premature deaths and 18 million cases of respiratory illness in children were prevented. There is more that needs to be done to fulfill the Clean Air Act’s promise.

From 1990 to 2010, total emissions of the six principal air pollutants decreased by more than 41 percent, while the Gross Domestic Product increased by more than 64 percent. Through continued innovation and successful implementation, the Clean Air Act will deliver even more benefits over the next 40 years.

The analysis finds that the Clean Air Act regulations will reduce in air pollution and create sizeable health benefits. The annual costs of the regulations analyzed in the study increase from $20 billion in the year 2000 to $65 billion by 2020.

Clean Air Act grant funding is available for federally recognized tribes and tribal consortia within Region 10. In previous years, approximately $2.25 million has been available for individual awards that typically range from $20,000 to $250,000. EPA Region 10 expects similar funding levels for fiscal year (FY) 2021.

For cars, the Act required a 90-percent reduction in hydrocarbons (HC) and carbon monoxide (CO) emissions over 1970 vehicle levels by the 1975 model year and a 90-percent reduction of nitrogen oxides (NOx) over 1971 vehicle levels by the 1976 model year. In 1990, Congress again strengthened the motor vehicle program.

The Clean Air Act gives the Environmental Protection Agency the necessary tools to protect our families from a number of harmful pollutants that can cause asthma and lung disease – especially in children. Weakening these standards would allow more pollution in the air we breathe and threaten our children’s health.

Clean Air Act (CAA), U.S. federal law, passed in 1970 and later amended, to prevent air pollution and thereby protect the ozone layer and promote public health. The Clean Air Act (CAA) gave the federal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) the power it needed to take effective action to fight environmental pollution.

President Lyndon Johnson

It was an act to make the nation more aware of this environmental hazard. Eight years later, Congress passed the nation’s Clean Air Act of 1963. This act dealt with reducing air pollution by setting emissions standards for stationary sources such as power plants and steel mills.

The first federal legislation to pertain to “controlling” air pollution was the Clean Air Act of 1963. The 1963 act accomplished this by establishing a federal program within the U.S. Public Health Service and authorizing research into techniques for monitoring and controlling air pollution.

the White House

Translated into real-world rules by the newly established Environmental Protection Agency, the act has since reduced air pollution in the United States by 70 percent—even as the population, the economy, and the number of cars on roads have grown.

It mandated the gradual phasing out of chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) and other ozone-depleting chemicals. The Clean Air Act of 1990 also placed new regulations on automobile emissions. It set targets for reducing the emissions of hydrocarbons and nitrogen oxides by vehicles and assembly plants.

The act establishes federal standards for mobile sources of air pollution and their fuels and for sources of 187 hazardous air pollutants, and it establishes a cap-and-trade program for the emissions that cause acid rain. It establishes a comprehensive permit system for all major sources of air pollution.

Trump pulled the United States out of the Paris climate accord, leaving the U.S. the only nation that is not part of the agreement. In September 2019, the Trump administration replaced the Obama-era Clean Power Plan with the Affordable Clean Energy rule, which does not cap emissions.

160,000 lives