Why The Clean Air Act Is The Greatest Act Ever Passed

This source features a report by Jill U. Adams on the dangers, and current regulations of air pollution and climate change. Holding a Ph.D. in pharmacology from Emory University, the author primarily writes a health column for the Washington Post. She has also been featured in the magazines Audubon, Scientific American and Science. Because this article covers climate change, there is an inherent liberal bias. However, this bias coincides with irrefutable scientific data proving the existence of climate change. The audience for this article is anyone effected by air pollution and climate change; just about everyone. This source upholds my speculation that human beings have a significant effect on the climate. Before reading this article, I wasn’t aware that 55 million people a year died from air pollution. I found this source on CQ Researcher while searching for ‘pollution.’

Before the Clean Air Act (CAA) was passed by Congress, the Air Pollution Act of 1955 and Motor Vehicle Act of 1960 preceded it. The two acts before the CAA did not really do much except jump starting research and throwing plenty of money at the research. When the research was released to Congress from the Motor Vehicle Act, Congress found out that approximately 60% of pollution was coming from vehicles; of the pollutants that were being emitted from vehicles, the most prominent that were found were Carbon Monoxide (CO), Nitrogen Oxide (NOx), and Hydrocarbons. These findings pushed Congress to pass another bill that would help to slow down pollution, especially from vehicles. However, when the CAA was passed, it did not mandate any reductions

The 1955 Air Pollution Control Act was the first U.S federal legislation that pertained to air pollution; it also provided funds for federal government research of air pollution.[4] The first federal legislation to actually pertain to "controlling" air

The clean Air Act deals with solving air pollution problems through science and new information. The purpose for this act is to decrease the amount of pollution that we give off, and work towards making the air cleaner for everyone. Although progress has been made to lower pollution levels, it still is a threat to people’s lives. A goal that was set in the year 1975 was going to try and achieve National Ambient Air Quality Standards in every state to keep people healthy.

Under the Clean Air Act, many of these air pollutants have been reduced, but there is still a threat to the quality of life in

Louis. When living in a hard up income area there is always a tightly packed space between older automobiles, busses, and trucks. This destroyed the ozone, which would bring about cardiovascular problems such as asthma attacks. In the article Gammon states that "In Southern California communities , exposure through air pollution and traffic emissions stunts children's lung growth ,according to USC research " This hints that if a child happens to live nearby or is nearby a polluted area he or she is unprotected and is exposed to having

Improved air quality wasn’t a subject of national concern until the mid 1900s. After decades of coal burning, unregulated gas emissions from cars and the excessive burning of fossil fuels, people started noticing bad air quality as a hazard to their lives. Over several decades, after seeing the costly effects air pollution was having on the environment and people’s health, interest groups like the Friends of The Earth club and the influences of Theodore Roosevelt and Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring finally came together to persuade the government to enforce legislation that would reduce air pollution. Because of these efforts, the policies of the Clean Air Act of 1963 and the Motor Vehicle Pollution Control Act of 1965, that aimed to control air pollution and raise air quality standards, helped create the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on December 2, 1970. Since then, the EPA has passed more air quality improvement acts, and amendments to previous acts passed, to increase restrictions on air pollutants, with their main policy concern being the Clean Air Act. Improved air quality acts imposed by the EPA have been successful in cleaning the United States’ air quality by reducing ground-level ozone pollution and reducing emissions, allowing for a decrease in pollution related deaths/illnesses and a better standard of living. The EPA, through regulations and the Clean Air Act, has delivered it’s promise to improve air quality in the United States.

To protect public health and welfare nationwide from different types of air pollution, The Clean Air Act of 1990 introduced a novel way; tradable permits. In other words, factories had to buy their rights to emit sulfur dioxide and also allowed factories to purchase and trade these permits, or even investing in new technology. Now with cooperation by the factories and regulations set by the Clean Air Act, factories emit a minimal amount of sulfur dioxide. One of the major breakthroughs in the 1990 Clean Air Act is a permit program for larger sources that release pollutants into the air. A source can be a power plant factory or anything that releases pollutants into the air. Cars, trucks, and other motor vehicles are also sources, but sources that stay in one place are called stationary sources. Under the new program, permits are issued by the states or by the EPA when the state fails to carry out the Clean Air Act satisfactorily. The 1990 Clean Air significantly improved the power and accountability of the federal government. For control of acid deposition (acid rain) and for the

The Clean Air Act has not experienced much revision since its conception in 1970. Recently, there have been attempts to include greenhouse gases, like carbon dioxide, in the legislation and execution of the Clean Air Act to make the list of criteria pollutants more comprehensive while simultaneously battling the emerging threat of climate change. This movement was initially sparked by the Montreal Protocol, which aims to eliminate the production and consumption of ozone depleting substances to limit damage to the ozone layer (International Actions, 2016). However, there has not been an official movement to include greenhouses gases into the Clean Air Act, because stakeholders have not been able to agree on a comprehensive market-based legislation

Therefore, state laws do not interfere with the federal regulations. However, the state has the freedom to standardize any laws as long the federal government doesn’t specifically set its own law. Nonetheless, federal governments and state governments need to join together and address the Clean Air Act in congress. The environment is a should be a concern for both parties, by having different regulations for each state sets a confusing tone there needs to be some standardized uniformity put into

Asthma has become a rising issue at hand, especially in Oakland, California. Asthma is at an all time high in Oakland because of the factories and smog that surrounds the local communities. After conducting research, I decided to dig deeper in asthma in Oakland because I wanted to learn more and to see if there was a way to reduce the rise of asthma. Asthma in Oakland is an issue for all ages, especially the younger ones because their lungs are still developing. For my term paper, I plan to explore the disproportionate burden of hazard of the population of air quality in Oakland, California, an area that is impacted by factory smoke, which can lead to asthma in children who are 18 years of age or younger.

The first legislation for air pollution was the Air Pollution Control Act of 1955. Although air pollution was not a new phenomenon this legislation was the first to fund research to investigate the sources of air pollution, and raise public awareness. This legislation followed the 1948 incident in Donora, Pennsylvania of industrial smog that killed 21 people and sickened over 6000 people, and the international incident in London where smog killed over 4000. After research and investigation the Air Pollution Control Act was expanded into the Clean Air Act of 1963 and this Act was amended up until 1990. I believe that political/governmental reactions has been the biggest influence on reducing air pollution. Once the data and research was available the potential health risks were obvious. The CAA identified the largest contributors and imposed limits and subjected them to monitoring. The CAA has reduced emissions, removed lead from gasoline, reduced byproducts of fossil fuel combustion (SO2,NO2), increased fuel economy standards, and reduced the use of hydrofluorocarbons (HFC's) and chlorofluorocarbons (CFC's). A lot of these help regulate one of the biggest human contributors to air pollution, DRIVING. Big cities all suffer from traffic and congestion so my city (DC) implemented an anti-idiling law where vehicles are not allowed to idle for more than three minutes. My city also offers education and outreach services for air quality issues. The government in my opinion is the

A federal law known as “The Clean Air Act” is intended to protect the environment from air pollution and its effect on human health (UCSUSA). This act is enforced by creating direct commands to firms know as standards, these standards are able to reduce emissions, by requiring people to do things that result in less pollution. For example, one way pollution can be reduced is through public transportation, which saves money and energy. Four standards that can be used are ambient standards, emission standards, input standards, and a technology standards. These control standards can be evaluated to see which is more effective, this is done by comparing three things, which are technological improvement incentives, technological feasibility and

Asthma is a chronic respiratory disease that is not to be underestimated; it affects approximately 12.1% of children in the United States (English et al. 2006). Asthma is particularly concerning and threatening to children for multiple reasons, one being the anatomy of children. Asthma has no cure however there are some ways to treat asthma. If gone untreated, asthma could be deadly. Many causes of asthma cannot be exterminated however they can be reduced. Air pollution, being one of them, is something that many people may consider to be unavoidable, but in reality it is an unfortunate result of a luxury that the majority of the population consider a necessity.

12.) The Clean Air Act is a United States federal law designed to control air pollution on a national level. It is one of the United States' first and most influential modern environmental laws, and one of the most comprehensive air quality laws in the world. The Clean Air Act is important because we can't live without it. Depending on the building, windows aren't allowed to open for security and if it is a highrise, we don't want the windows to open. Laws change to protect the