Clean Air Act

1
Clean Air Act

• First of a series of pollution acts in the 1970s
  that was influenced by moral and ethical outrage
• First modern pollution law with a wide range of
  policy approaches
• Passed in 1970 by amending a 1963 Clean Air Act
  (Clean Air Act Amendments of 1970) amended in
  1977 and 1990
• Massive piece of legislation

2
Clean Air Act

• Balance between federal standard setting and
  state implementation
• Core are uniform, national standards covering a
  wide range of pollutants and sources
• Incorrectly assumed that nations clean air
  problems would be solved within a decade
• Air pollution combination of many different
  problems

3
Clean Air Act

• Mobile, reactive, toxic, chronic exposure
• In cities
• Smog
• CO
• Nitrogen oxides
• Fine particulate matter
• 30 million Americans suffer from chronic lung
  disease

4
Clean Air Act

• Volatile organic compounds (VOC)
• Acid rain
• Pollutants mix in the atmosphere
• Arise from many different sources
• Vehicle emissions CO, NO, VOC
• Power plants SO2, NO
• Incinerators, industrial sources

5
Clean Air Act

• Identified which air pollutants to regulate and
  in what priority
• Questions
• Optimal point of regulation
• How to regulate
• What to regulate

6
Clean Air Act

• Keystone is treatment of common pollutants of
  concern in outside air (criteria pollutants)
• O3, NOx, CO, particulates, SO2, lead
• Not to exceed uniform levels at any outside point
  to which the public has access
• National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS) to
  protect the public health with an adequate
  margin of safety
• Based on health not cost

7
Clean Air Act

• Two types of NAAQS
• Primary standards to protect human health
• Secondary standards protect public welfare to
  include effects on animals, wildlife, water, and
  visibility
• EPA reviews and revises every 5 years
• Not as often because of political and economic
  costs
• Only 7 NAAQS established
• Usually decide to retain current standards

8
Clean Air Act

• Uniform application of NAAQS has been criticized
• Easier for an agency to establish, monitor, and
  enforce than varying from site to site
• Eliminates interstate competition for industry

9
Clean Air Act

• Implementation
• EPA sets ambient air quality standards nationwide
• Each state has the responsibility of setting
  emission standards that will result in attainment
  and maintenance of those standards
• State Implementation Plan (SIP)
• Demonstrates how the NAAQS will be achieved

10
Clean Air Act

• 250 Air Quality Control Region to monitor
  pollutants
• States provide permits EPA monitors at state
  level not permit level
• If SIP will not achieve NAAQS then EPA requires
  compliance with Federal Implementation Plan (FIP)

11
Clean Air Act

• Non-attainment
• Unable to achieve standards
• Southern California, Houston
• For each criteria pollutant, you either are in an
  attainment area or non-attainment area
• 1970 CAA called for states to meet NAAQS by 1975,
  in 1977 pushed to 1980s, in 1990 pushed into the
  future again

12
Clean Air Act

• New Source Performance Standards
• Establish federal standards for new sources and
  major modifications of existing sources
• Section 111
• Have been determined for gt70 categories of
  facilities and apply to major sources or major
  modifications

13
Clean Air Act

• Mobile Sources technology forcing
• Cars, trucks, buses major sources of air
  pollution
• Title II regulates mobile sources
• EPA has authority to set uniform standards
• Auto industry wanted this
• Technology forcing or aspirational commands
• CAFÉ corporate average fuel economy mandated by
  1975 Energy Policy and Conservation Act

14
Clean Air Act

• Prevention of Significant Deterioration (PSD)
• CAA requires EPA to protect and enhance air
  quality
• Air quality has improved greatly since 1970, but
  not to levels envisioned
• To really improve air quality we must address
  basic lifestyle issues

15
Clean Water Act

• Water Pollution Control Act of 1972
• Reduces significantly the volume of effluents
  discharged from factories and sewage treatment
  facilities into the nations rivers, lakes,
  estuaries, and other waterways
• 1996 ¾ of nations watersheds surveyed
• 22 good water quality
• 50 moderated water quality problems
• remainder with serious problems

16
Clean Water Act

• CWA focuses primarily on discharge of pollutants
  into waterways
• Ignores hydrological changes to waterways
• Poor job in reducing effluent from farms, mines,
  construction sites
• CWA imposes uniform effluent limitations on all
  companies within an industry
• Little flexibility

17
Clean Water Act

• Sources of water pollution
• Point sources factories, commercial facilities,
  and sewage plants discharging directly into
  waterways
• Indirect sources facilities that discharge
  wastes into local sewage system
• Nonpoint source farms, mines, construction
  sites, parking lots, storm sewers
• Air pollution acid rain

18
Clean Water Act

• Current water quality impairment
• Agriculture is the major source of pollution for
  the nations rivers and lakes
• Hydromodification
• Urban runoff/storm sewers
• Nonpoint source most important because CWA has
  improved point source

19
Clean Water Act

• History
• By 1930s most states had administrative programs
  to control water pollution, but the measures were
  weak
• 1965 Water Quality Act
• Relied on the states to improve water quality
• Failed states lacked political willpower, lack
  of scientific information to set standards
• By 1970, ½ states had done nothing, lt 1/3 of
  industry treated wastes

20
Clean Water Act

• 1972 CWA
• Extremely ambitious goals
• Provide for the protection and propagation of
  fish, shellfish, and wildlife and for recreation
  in and on the water by July 1, 1983
• Eliminate all discharges of pollutants into the
  nations waterways by 1985
• Has not met these goals
• 1998 gt1/3 of waters not fishable or swimable
• Wanted to make a moral statement

21
Clean Water Act

• Provisions fall into 3 categories
• Regulate point source pollution through a diverse
  array of effluent limitations and technological
  standards
• Develop plans for regulation of nonpoint
  pollution
• Require states to set water quality standards for
  the waterways within their borders and limit
  discharges to achieve standards

22
Clean Water Act

• CWA applies only to navigable waters by defines
  these expansively as the waters of the United
  States, including the navigable seas
• Section 404
• Restricts filling of wetlands

23
Clean Water Act

• Principal goal
• Reduce discharges from point sources
• EPA established effluent standards for each type
  of point source, based on what the available
  technology could accomplish
• CWA starts with individual effluent levels

24
Clean Water Act

• National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System
  (NPDES)
• Discharge of any pollutant by any person is
  unlawful without an NPDES permit
• Discharge of a pollutant is any addition of any
  pollutant to navigable waters from any point
  source
• Permits are good for 5 years

25
Clean Water Act

• National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System
  (NPDES)
• Provides for effective enforcement
• Each point source must report discharges on a
  regular basis
• Publicly Owned Treatment Works
• Sewage Plant
• Passive receivers of pollution
• Requires simple to use a specific level of
  technology

26
Clean Water Act

• Publicly Owned Treatment Works
• Primary treatment separate solid waste using
  filters, screens, and settlement tanks
• Secondary treatment use microorganisms to break
  down organic matter biologically
• Tertiary treatment polish any remaining
  contaminants out of the water using physical
  methods such as sand filters or membrane
  microfiltration or by using UV light to kill
  bacterial

27
Clean Water Act

• Publicly Owned Treatment Works
• Required to use secondary treatment by 1977 and
  by 1983 to use the best practicable waste
  treatment technology over the life of the works
• Provided grants for up to 85 of costs
• Did not work, used money to expand systems not
  improve
• 1983 waived strict standard and allowed some
  sludge discharge into coastal waters loan system

28
Clean Water Act

• Industrial Point Sources
• Must meet technology-based effluent limits
• Industry free to pick technology as long as
  discharge standards are met
• Existing Point Sources
• Must use best practicable control technology
  currently available (BPT) by 1977 and best
  available technology economically achievable
  (BAT) by 1983

29
Clean Water Act

• Existing Point Sources
• Backed away and abandoned health-based approach
  to toxic pollutants
• Effluent limits now based on categories
• Toxic pollutants 126 use BAT standard to
  calculate effluent limits
• Conventional pollutants use best conventional
  pollutant control technology (BCT)
• Nonconventional pollutants BAT standard but can
  be adjusted

30
Clean Water Act

• New Point Sources
• New plants have tighter effluent limitations
• Must reflect the greatest degree of effluent
  reduction which the EPA determines to be
  achievable through application of the best
  available control technology, processes,
  operating methods, or other alternatives
  including a standard permitting no discharge of
  pollutants (BCT)

31
Clean Water Act

• Supreme Court stated that EPA can set
  industry-wide standards for effluent limitations
• Now has technological standards for more than 50
  major categories of industrial facilities
• Regulates indirect sources

32
Clean Water Act

• Nonregulation of nonpoint sources
• Poor record with nonpoint sources
• Leaves regulation up to states
• Section 208 requires states to designate lead
  agencies to head up pollution control efforts in
  waterways with substantial water quality
  problems
• Most states have not complied

33
Clean Water Act

• 1987 Section 319
• Required states to implement a nonpoint sources
  management program
• Reduce, to the maximum extent practicable, the
  level of pollution
• Failed
• Nonpoint more difficult to regulate than point
  sources, but far outnumber

34
Clean Water Act

• Water Quality Standards
• Despite technological approach, retained water
  quality standards as a backup or safety net
• Section 303 Multi-step regulator process
• State designates specific beneficial uses for
  each of its waterways
• Determines water quality standards needed to
  support the designated uses quantitative, use
  latest scientific information
• Identify quality-limited waterways and determine
  total maximum daily load (TMDL) for discharge

35
Clean Water Act

• Water Quality Standards
• Despite technological approach, retained water
  quality standards as a backup or safety net
• Section 303 Multi-step regulator process
• State designates specific beneficial uses for
  each of its waterways
• Determines water quality standards needed to
  support the designated uses quantitative, use
  latest scientific information
• Identify quality-limited waterways and determine
  total maximum daily load (TMDL) for discharge