Air Pollution Policy

1. What is the Clean Air Act

2. What are the impacts of the Clean Air act

3. What is the Montreal Protocol

4. How does the Clean Air Act impact climate change

5. What is the denial machine

6. What US policies have sought to address climate change

Before the Clean Air act

• Skies were much much darker than they are now

Clean Air Act

3 Primary Goals

• Reduce outdoor concentrations of air pollutants that cause smog, haze, acid rain and other problems

• Reduce emissions of toxic air pollutants that are known or suspected to cause cancer/ other health effects

• Phase out the production and use of chemicals that destroy the stratospheric ozone

• How it works: regulates emissions from stationary and mobile sources

  • Like point and non-point sources (most are point source)

    • Stationary: factories

    • Mobile: cars

• 6 criteria

  • Sulfur dioxide

    • Burning coal and oil

    • Emitted by power plants

  • Nitrogen dioxide

    • Burning fuel via vehicles

    • Harmful to ozone

  • Carbon Monoxide

    • Colorless, odorless

    • Vehicles and machinery that burns fossil fuels

  • Particulate Matter 2.5

    • Size of pollutant

    • Smaller and can be inhaled

  • Ground level ozone

    • Odorless, colorless

    • Aboce the earth's surface

    • Produced when NO's and VOC's react with sunlight and stagnant air

  • Lead

    • Ore, processed metals, leaded aviation fuel, incinerators, utilities

    • We worry less about lead since the clean air act

    • They used to put lead in gasoline

• 187 Regulated Air Pollutants

• Where do most emissions come from

  • Stationary fuel combustion

  • Industry (largest contributor)

  • Highway vehicles

  • Non-road mobile

• Huge decline in all pollutants from 1990-2022

  • We can only regulate what we can actually measure

  • Only regulate what you’re actually authorized to regulate

  • We have increased, GDP, Population, and energy consumption all while lowering aggregate emissions

• Between 2010-2020, 100,000 lives were saved because of the Clean Air Act

• Pollution does not impact everyone equally

• Ozone and the Montreal (Canada) Protocol

  • Hairspray causing hole in the ozone layer

  • Refrigeration and air conditioners as well

• Ever so slightly starting to go down

• CFCs (long lived chemical compounds that rise into the stratosphere) coming out of the atmosphere

• Its tricker when it comes to climate and CO2 emissions 

• 1988 James Hansen Testimony

  • We agreed that we should do something about climate change

  • James Hansen brought the issue before congress

    • Hottest day of the year

    • Courtroom with windows open

    • If Hansen hadn't said it, we wouldn’t have modern climate control today

• 1992 Rio Earth Summit

  • George Bush goes to the summit and signs onto the agreement

• 1993 BTU Tax

  • Republicans get elected out of office and democrats into office

  • Bill Clinton comes into power

    • Puts forward plan to do what Bush signed on to

    • Implementing BTU tax 

    • It would tax based upon the head units emitted from burning carbon based fossil fuels

• 1995: Campaign to Create Doubt Begins

  • Advocating against climate change

  • BTU tax crashes and burns

• 1997 Kyoto Protocol

  • Global agreement like the Montreal Protocol

  • 180-90 countries sign on

  • Set targets to reduce CO2 emissions

• 2000-2001 Bush Era Actions Take 1: Mandatory Emissions Cuts

  • Campaigning on a climate ticket

  • Bush puts christine todd whitman in charge of the EPA

    • Attending climate treaty talks

  • Cap on carbon emissions

  • America has had a significant growth of fossil fuel extraction and now we are the #1 oil producer in the world

• 2001-2008 Bush Era Actions Take 2: The Suppression of Scientific Data

  • Enhanced the level of doubt in scientific reports

• (2006) Massechussetts vs. EPA

  • Greenhouse gasses fit well within the Clean Art Act's definition of an air pollutatnt

  • EPA can regulate CO2 emissions

• (2009): EPA "Endangerment Finding"

  • 6 GHGs potentially harmful to public health and welfare

• (2010): EPA begins to regukate GHGs

• (2011):Increase Corporate Average Fuel Economy to 54.5mpg by 2025 by cars and trucks

• (2014): Clean Power Plant

  • Must reduce CO2 emissions by %32 by 2030

  • Made it hard for coal miners

• 2006: Campaign to Increase Doubt Intensifies

  • Pouring money into lobbying climate change expendatures

  • Republicans continue to disbelieve in climate change

• Trump becomes president in 2016 and pressures EPA to drop rules

  • States sue EPA over new power plant rules

  • Trump will relax car pollution laws

• 2020

• Inflation Reduction Act & Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act

  • Adressing social inequality withini the system while also tacking climate crisis

  • Boom in electric vehiucles because you could geta 75% tax rebate

  • Heating and cooling pumps

  • Expansion of clean energy in the United States

    • It costs less to create a unit of energy from solar and wind power than it does from existing coal/fire power

    • GREEN ENERGY IS CHEAPER THAN COAL.

      • Partly due to economics, partly due to these laws