Economics, Technology, and the Clean Air Amendments of 1970: The First Six Years

Abstract

The 1970 Clean Air Act set a three-year deadline for achieving primary ambient air quality standards which Congress designed to protect public health even at great economic cost. Yet it has taken more than five years simply to resolve in the courts the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) limited responsibility to weigh the economic, technological, and social feasibility of the measures polluters must take to meet these standards. The achievement of the primary standards is only one program in which the controversial role and character of economic, technological, and social factors has had to be specified before effective implementation could proceed. This Article studies the place of these three factors in five programs under the Clean Air Act: the setting of primary (health) and secondary (welfare) ambient air quality standards; the drafting, approving, and enforcing of State Implementation Plans (SIPs) for achieving these standards; the setting of new source performance standards (NSPSs)--emission standards for categories of large industrial facilities; the achievement of automobile emission standards and fuel additive regulations; and the prevention of significant deterioration of air cleaner than primary and secondary standards.