The New Clean Air Act: An Environmental Milestone

by William K. Reilly

After signing the Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990, President Bush presents a ceremonial pen to EPA Administrator Reilly as Energy Secretary James Watkins looks on. The new law sets an example for economically sound environmental stewardship.

510 (Reilly is Administrator of EPA.)

Twenty years ago, with a law whose modest size belied its revolutionary impact, Congress made a promise to all Americans: the promise of clean air. Now, as EPA takes on the challenge of carrying out the sweeping and complex changes in the clean air law adopted last fall, that promise is finally back on the path to fulfillment.

The 1970 Clean Air Act was a legislative landmark in many ways. It marked a high point in Congressional concern for the environment up to that time, and it incorporated what were then major departures in the nation's approach to regulation, including national, as opposed to regional, air quality standards and statutory deadlines for compliance. In fewer than 50 pages - tiny compared to the nearly 800 pages of the 1990 law - the 1970 Clean Air Act also sent a compelling message to the nation: The time had come for us to get serious about protecting the environment. Much of this country's environmental progress over the last two decades can be credited to the changes in attitude signaled by the 1970 Clean Air Act.

But while this clean air law accomplished a great deal - substantially reducing emissions of such pollutants as sulfur oxides, volatile organic compounds, carbon monoxide, particulates, and especially lead - we are not yet able to say we achieved its goals. Ninety-six of our cities have still not attained the national standard for ozone, the primary ingredient in smog. Forty-one cities do not meet the standard for carbon monoxide, and 72 do not meet the standard for particulate matter. And since 1970, EPA has been able to regulate only seven hazardous air pollutants, out of a potential list of several hundred, because of controversy and legal challenges over provisions of the 1970 law.

It has been obvious for nearly a decade that the Clean Air Act would have to be revised, and revised substantially, before its promise could be realized. Yet it was not until last year that Congress, responding to the determined leadership of President Bush and Congress members who had long championed clean air, finally was able to overcome paralyzing regional and sectoral differences and follow through on the initial burst of environmental enthusiasm that had produced the hope, but not yet the reality, of clean air.

Like the 1970 law, the Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990 represent a significant departure from the past. In its innovative approaches to pollution control, in the extent to which its implementation envisions an unprecedented degree of cooperation between government and the private sector, and in its promise of a renewed national commitment to environmental protection, the new law is a major milestone in the evolution of environmental protection in the United States.

The law also presents one of the most daunting regulatory tests yet faced by EPA. The Agency is required to publish more than 55 new rules in the next two rules as our average until now. To meet this challenge, we have committed 70 percent of the proposed increase in Agency operating funds for Fiscal Year 1992 to Clean Air Act programs; and we are hiring 2090 new employees to work in the air program, including scientists, engineers, public policy experts, analysts, and writers.

In the face of this monumental task, EPA also has committed itself to making some fundamental changes in the way we do business. Instead of relying on traditional rule-making - and risking the time consuming litigation it often provokes - we are working hard to build consensus at the outset of the process. Collegiality and cooperation will be the hallmark of the Agency's implementation strategy. Every step of the way, we intend to involve state and local governments and to consult with industry, labor, and environmental groups through advisory committees, regular informal consultations, and a formal regulatory negotiation process. Such consensus-building efforts are essential if we are to achieve the multiple objectives of the new law within the tight deadlines set by Congress.

Our regulatory approach is entirely consistent with the basic thrust of the new clean air law - to achieve specific and ambitious environmental goals without unnecessarily damaging the nation's economic health or hampering its growth.

This is, above all, a flexible, results-oriented law. It is not wedded to hard and fast formulas or specific technological requirements. Instead, the law was designed with the marketplace in mind. The Clean Air Act sets specific air quality standards, yet it also allows industry a great deal of latitude in deciding how to achieve these objectives.

Equally important, the law provides real incentives for companies to seek for them, instead of waiting for EPA or state and local authorities to impose solutions through government directives. Ultimately, the Clean Air Act challenges industry to seize the initiative - to take the lead in the business of environmental protection.

Since the Clean Air Act was passed last October, numerous articles have appeared describing the impact of its costs. Such costs are indisputable. They are also unavoidable if the nation is to have cleaner air even as more jobs, factories, and cars are added to the equation. It is important, however, to see these costs in the context of the remarkable policy breakthroughs embodies in the new law and the economic implications of these new policies. Two critical new directions for clean air policy - two innovations not previously seen in environmental policy - deserve particular attention as part of that context.

The first is clean fuels as a means of controlling air pollution, particularly in the "nonattainment" areas that have failed to meet the national standards for ground-level ozone. Congress endorsed the President's goal of cleaning up our automobile fuels by setting tough standards for the reformulation of gasoline in the nation's nine most polluted cities. Before the end of the year, EPA will be issuing regulations setting specific requirements for this reformulated fuel program. Other cities have the option of joining the program if they choose.

Congress also required the introduction of hundreds of thousands of clean-fuel cars in California beginning in 1996, and through a voluntary "opt-in" provision, the California pilot program could be extended to other states as well. This provision, intended to stimulate clean-fuel technology, makes real-world sense. For as a practical matter, without altering what goes into car and truck engines, a number of polluted areas - most notably Southern California - could not possible attain clean air standards. As a consequence of the new law, an array of innovative fuels - compressed natural gas, methanol from natural gas, ethanol from corn, electricity, and others - will be getting a real-world test. An very likely, many areas in addition to California will choose to require their use.

The second and broader innovation...in the United States now spends more than $100 billion a year on environmental protection - more than three times as much, in constant dollars, as we spent in 1972. That figure will continue to rise over the next 10 to 15 years as the Clean Air Act gradually takes effect and as the nationwide cleanup of hazardous and operating waste sites proceeds. Expenditures for environmental protection are expected to reach about 2.7 percent of our Gross National Product by the year 2000. It seems clear, given these figures, that the nation must devote a good deal more attention than in the past to meeting environmental commitments in cost-effective ways.

To say this is not to use costs as a rationale for pulling back on environmental progress, nor is it to imply that the nation cannot afford an ambitious environmental program. After all, the clean air bill President Bush proposed was costed somewhere between $14 and $19 billion per year: The Administration's bona fides should be indisputable. The point is simply this: New environmental proposals should pay careful regard to cost-effectiveness so that expensive new measures carry with them commensurate benefits in terms of reducing threats to health and the environment.

The new Clean Air Act meets that test. Forged in a crucible of genuine compromise and cooperation, the legislation evolved first within the Administration as many diverse interests, including those of EPA, the Council of Economic Advisors, and the Office of Management and Budget, were reconciled through the White House domestic policy process; and then on Capital Hill as Members of Congress and representatives of the Administration, industry, and environmentalists debated its provisions. Bearing the clear imprint of all the individuals and groups that participated in its shaping, the final bill not only gives Americans the promise of clean air but also moves the nation into a new era of economically sound environmental stewardship.

To achieve environmental gains within a reasonable timeframe at the lowest feasible cost, the new law will take hold in incremental stages, with most controls fully in effect by 2005. What specifically, are some of these gains? Emissions that cause acid rain (sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides) will be cut to roughly half of 1980 emission levels. More than 30 million tons of noxious air pollutants will be cut to roughly half of 1980 emission levels. More than 30 million tons of noxious air pollutants will be removed from the air each year. Every part of the country finally will have means to attain healthy air on a realistic schedule. And the risk from toxic air emissions will be cut by three-fourths.

Overall health risks, including risks of cancer, respiratory disease, heart ailments, and reproductive disorders, will be reduced dramatically. Also drastically reduced will be damage to sensitive ecosystems and to buildings, monuments, and other manmade structures. To cite one particularly dramatic benefit, well over half the toxic substances that contaminate the Great Lakes should be eliminated.

These badly needed environmental improvements would not be possible without a fundamental shift in our approach to environmental policy. The President's proposals, on which the new legislation is largely based, where not only sensitive to the costs of pollution control; they also included provisions to supplement traditional "command-and-control" regulations with flexible, market-based programs that will enlist the power of the marketplace on behalf of the environment.

The use of economic incentives, such as an innovative system of tradable emissions "allowances" for sulfur dioxide, will enable the nation to achieve significant improvements in air quality at compliance costs $1 billion lower than would otherwise be possible. The emissions-trading program we designed drew heavily on concepts put forward by the Environmental Defense Fund. (See article on page 21.)

The statute also introduces a number of other market-based innovations, many of which are discussed elsewhere in this issue of EPA Journal. These include, for example, performance-based standards for hazardous pollutants; incentives or "credits" for companies which act quickly to reduce toxic emissions or go beyond minimum compliance requirements; tradable emission credits for producers of certain kinds of reformulated fuels, for manufacturers of clean-fuel vehicles, and for vehicle fleets subject to clean-fuel requirements; and performance targets for reformulated fuels, allowing industry to meet these emission-reduction targets in the most cost-effective way possible.

With the Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990, the United States set a precedent for cost-effective environmental policy that will be followed around the world. Economic incentives are given prominence in a recent British White Paper on the environment, for example, and we can look for new policy directions in Britain and other countries.

Moreover, advanced pollution-control technologies developed in the United States will help to meet worldwide needs for environmental protection and cleanup, especially in the newly emerging (and heavily contaminated) democracies of Eastern and Central Europe. Last year, the Soviet Union announced its intention to purchase $1 billion in air-pollution control equipment from the United States. The new Clean Air Act will stimulate further positive developments in environmental technology.

At home, the cost-effective, market-based approach to environmental protection embodies in the statute will serve as a model for other Administration proposals - and not just environmental proposals - in the future. The lesson of the Clean Air Act is clear: The nation need not give up its aspirations for a cleaner, healthier environment, or for other worthwhile social goals, even at a time of limited economic resources.

The key is to devise programs that harmonize economic and social goals: programs that put the marketplace to work on behalf of the environment. Thanks to the example of the 1990 Clean Air Act, we now know this can be done.

Questions and Answers:
An Interview with William G. Rosenberg

A strenuous legislative process drew to a close on November 15, 1990, when President Bush signed into law the Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990. But the work associated with the new law is far from over. The statute sets an ambitious regulatory agenda which EPA, working in consultation with state and local governments and affected groups, must more swiftly to accomplish. At this critical juncture in the implementation of the new law, EPA Journal interviewed William G. Rosenberg, the Agency's Assistant Administrator for Air and Radiation, concerning the new law and the agenda that lies ahead. The questions and answers follow:

Q: Briefly, how would you list the major elements of these new amendments to the Clean Air Act?

A:The goal of the act, the environmental objective, is to reduce pollution by 56 billion pounds a year. That is 224 pounds for every man, woman, and child. The reduction will come from cutting the emissions from several principal sources.

Acid rain from power plants, principally sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide emissions, will be drastically curtailed. Urban smog, or ozone pollution, produced by motor vehicles and factories will also be cut substantially. For motor vehicles, which still account for 50 percent of the urban problem, we will focus not only on the volatile organic compounds and nitrogen oxides that go into smog, but also on carbon monoxide and what we call air toxics. Air toxics are those special pollutants we associate with increased cancer risk and other health risks. Air toxics from major factories will also be reduced. Finally, those emissions that deplete stratospheric ozone, chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), and related chemicals, coming from a number of sources, will be severely curtailed. There are programs in each of these areas to reduce emissions.

Q: How soon will Americans see cleaner air as a result of this act?

A: That will depend on how successful we are in getting early voluntary compliance. If we have the worst-case scenario, if all that happens is that industry responds to rules as we grind them out, then in 1992 we will begin to see a reduction in carbon monoxide in those areas where it is a particular problem. The reduction will be brought about by the wintertime blending of oxygen in fuels.

Most of the smog, air toxics, and acid rain initiatives are not required by the law to go in until 1995. However, we are going to do everything we can to promote compliance prior to that time, to harness the good will of industrial leaders not only to meet their obligations under the law, but meet their corporate responsibilities to their communities. They can engage communities in the work by providing their own incentives to individuals in meeting the requirements.

To give you one example, this year we will begin negotiating voluntary-compliance programs under the air toxics portion of the act. If a firm agrees now to a 90-percent reduction in emissions of a toxic chemical, then we will extend the deadline by which the firm must meet the final 10-percent reduction.

So we expect to get reductions earlier than the dates specified in the act. Firms will have the opportunity to craft programs to their particular corporate and marketplace circumstances, and I believe that by 1992 we will start to see voluntary action in advance of regulations being used.

One of the principal problems we will have is writing regulations that encourage early, voluntary reduction and provide flexibility for it, but that also make sure recalcitrant companies meet their responsibilities within the statutory timetables.

Q: From what you've said, this is a hugh undertaking. Over the long haul, are we headed for a different kind of society in the United States?

A: Let me try to put it in perspective. By 2005, when the act is fully implemented, it will have cost approximately $25 billion a year. We estimate, for example, that in 1992, 10 percent of the costs will be incurred. In 1995, that will rise to 50 percent. Then the last half of the costs will phase in over the 10 years that follow.

That is a lot of money. However, on a per-person basis it breaks dow to about 24 cents a day, or the cost of the morning newspaper. We spend 63 cents per day per person, on average, for alcoholic beverages, and 43 cents for tobacco products. The latter two adversely affect health, whereas the 24 cents for clean air will reduce public health costs as well as improve the quality of life.

My reeling is we will see changes in how things are produced and how they work, but not much change in how we live. We're talking about cleaner cars and cleaner fuels, not restricted use of cars. We'll see pollution prevention practiced in factories, but the same products will come out of those factories and go into commerce. We're talking reductions in acid rain, not less electricity.

So I don't think the act means a fundamental change in lifestyle at all. It means, instead, that we are incorporating, as a part of the cost of doing business, safeguards for the air that all of us breathe. And we are going to accomplish that in a way that is consistent with the competitiveness of those industries involved.

Q: What would you say is the most innovative feature of the new Clean Air Act?

A: Without question the most innovative feature is the effort throughout to harness marketplace forces in the work of protecting the environment. Other articles in your issue, I understand, will cover the acid-rain emission trading program, voluntary compliance credits for industries that control air toxics ahead of schedule, and the stimulation of new fuels and new technologies in the provisions on acid rain and motor vehicles. We are going to set performance standards for industries and let them find their own best ways of meeting the, rather than dictate the controls they apply. This will encourage industry to develop new technologies.

If industry and government respond to this innovative theme of the new act, then I think we will see more engineers being hired and fewer lawyers: engineers to solve problems, rather than lawyers to litigate EPA procedures.

Q: The principal departure, then, from previous amendments is the introduction of marketplace inducements?

A: Yes, we will be pushing the envelope in that regard. One basic policy we will apply in carrying out the law is "E to the power of three." That means we intend to achieve our environmental goals in a way that is consistent with economic and energy-security principles. In phasing out CFCs, for example, we want not only a replacement for freon that is less damaging to stratospheric ozone, but one that is more efficient: in other words, one that will, for example, demand less use of electricity by a refrigerator. By making appliances more efficient, we not only reduce the cost to the consumer of operating them, we reduce the amount of energy they use.

Q: Why should this new law be able to clean up the air when the 1970 Clean Air Act fell short?

A: We learned a lot about what works and what doesn't work in the last 20 years, and the new act expands on that experience. We know that cleaner cars and cleaner fuels work. And so as we turn over the fleet, the cars that will be built in the next 10 years will be much cleaner than the cars that they replace.

We learned that technology standards, rather than risk-based standards, work in dealing with air toxics. So we will set new standards that focus on the entire plant rather than on particular chemicals. The new acid rain title, which incorporates a revolutionary allowance trading program, mandates absolutely that we will reduce by 10 million tons a year the amount of sulfur dioxide coming out of power plants. Inevitably, if you reduce what comes out of power plants you have a lot less air pollution. Also, in fulfilling the U.S. obligations under the Montreal Protocol, the act virtually precludes the use of CFCs in this country by the end of the decade.

And so the mechanisms and the commitment are much stronger in this law, and they build on the experience of the past. There is not doubt in my mind that they will encourage industries to apply pollution prevention in modifying their processes, and that they will bring about the use of cleaner fuels in automobiles and power plants. They will, in other words, stimulate new technologies that are both energy- and cost-efficient, as well as environmentally more protective: E to the power of three.

Q: Are the sanctions in the act strong enough to force compliance if standards are not met, and will the sanctions be vigorously enforced?

A: The answer to the second half of your question is easy: The law requires EPA to establish a level playing field, and the sanctions will certainly be vigorously enforced.

There are two kinds of sanctions. One set can be imposed on a state if it fails to put into place and implement a plan of action. We estimate that $300 million of additional funds will be made available to state regulatory agencies to perform their part of the job, which is very complex. Further, a new permitting program should enable the states to get the resources to develop and monitor their plans. I believe the ability of EPA to assure that the states carry out their plans is significant.

The second kind of sanction can be imposed on a particular industry if it fails to follow the state plan. Here, I think we are seeing a new culture develop. In the 1970s, there was a real distinction between where Congress and EPA wanted to go and where industry wanted to go. Industry felt that what was friendly to the marketplace was antagonistic to the goals of EPA. A real confrontation developed whenever the two approached each other.

In the 1990s, we see lots of industries leading the way voluntarily. For example, McDonald's never had any obligation to phase out its styrofoam, but it is doing so. Johnson & Johnson committed to reducing its use of CFCs seven years before the target in the Montreal Protocol. Monsanto has agreed to phase out air toxics to 90 percent of what the company was releasing in the late 1980s. Soon after the President proposed the introduction of cleaner-burning automotive fuels, ARCO in California started selling cleaner gasoline. And there are many other examples.

So here we see industries in many cases moving in the same direction as the act. I believe there will be much more cultural willingness on the part of industry to work with EPA in the years ahead.

That is a challenge for EPA. When we see people going in the right direction, we should not get in their way. Instead, we should encourage them with incentives.

Of course, there will still be industries and particular companies that will follow a confrontation mode. And, in their case, the law requires us to assure by regulation that they, too, meet the public health obligations under the statute.

[See document source for photo.]

Now you see it; now you don't. The picture on the left shows Shenandoah National Park in Virginia on a day when pollution transported from other areas has settled in. The photo on the right, taken from the same vantage point, captures a clearer day. EPA expects that improved visibility will be one of the benefits of the new Clean Air Act.

Q: If industry is going to be encouraged to move in EPA's direction, won't EPA have to move in theirs?

A: It is not a matter so much of moving in industry's direction; we remain, after all, a federal regulatory agency. It is more a matter of developing a new culture at EPA.

That culture, I believe, is one that seeks to capture the forces of the marketplace and to foster private initiative in reaching public policy goals. As I said earlier, we believe that by harnessing these forces to the work of protecting the environment we can be much more effective than by simply regulating people against their will in the direction Congress has established.

This means we have to reach out and educate people, and we have to consult with them. We have to have a lot of buy-ins, in a psychological sense, on where we're going. Ad that is a new approach that we are already taking. Even before we propose regulations, we consult fully with industry, environmental groups, consumer groups, and with the states. We talk to them in a formal way and in informal ways.

Formally, in some cases, we are negotiating regulations at meetings in which all interested parties are encouraged to come into the room, lock the door, bang it out, and come up with a consensus. In other cases, we use a structure like the Acid Rain Advisory Committee, in which leading academics and representatives of high-and low-sulfur coal markets, plus miners, utilities, environmental groups from all over the country, and economists work hand in hand with us to propose regulations for public comment.

In still other cases, we are departing from the traditional format in which industry, environmentalists, consumers, and the states all come in for separate meetings, after which we try to synthesize in our own minds what everyone said. Instead, we try to have one meeting, or two meetings, or five meetings in which we all sit around the table talking to each other at the same time to clarify and provide the full range of information to all parties.

So these regulations are not just the product of EPA staff. They are the product of all interested parties. We are doing our utmost to build a consensus for action around the agenda established by the President and the Congress and to avoid the litigious attitudes that wasted so much of our energies in the past.

Q: What is EPA's role in implementing the act as opposed, for example, to that of the states?

A: The states clearly are our partners. In many regards, they are the ones who implement the law. They issue the permits, and they enforce them. With their help, we hope to develop a permitting program that will be uniform across the country but that will still allow adjustments to be made for problems that are local in nature. Further, we want to provide state agencies with adequate resources to implement the statute.

In the cases of cars, fuels, acid rain, and CFCs, the federal government directly implements the law, and here we have to coordinate what we do with the states. So we have reached out to them to make them part of our work groups.

Q: Was there ever a time in the long debate over the act when you thought it might not pass?

A: Interestingly, one of the most critical moments came when Iraq invaded Kuwait. Some forces opposed to the bill claimed we couldn't undertake an environmental initiative in the middle of what appeared to be an energy crisis. EPA responded by showing that pollution prevention and cleaner air would have a positive impact on our oil import balance: We would be wasting less fuel, and we would be substituting cleaner, domestic fuels for imported oil. For example, northeast utilities could be expected to convert from high-sulfur oil to natural gas in producing electric power. The natural gas would come from Canada and the United States; the high-sulfur oil they are now using is imported.

In the automotive sector, by requiring oxygenated fuel as part of the effort to clean up carbon monoxide and ozone, we would be substituting alcohol made out of natural gas and corn for gasoline components made out of imported oil.

We were able to say that these measures and other would reduce oil imports by more than the amount we were currently importing from Kuwait and Iraq put together, a reduction of as much as a million barrels a day. And if more cities than those required by the act were to choose cleaner fuels, our estimate might go up to over two million barrels a day. I believe this argument was the turning point in assuring that the crisis in the Middle East did not derail the Clean Air Act.

Q: Controversies about the act persist. How do you respond to the scientist who appeared recently on "60 Minutes" and claimed the government's own study has shown that acid rain is really not much of a problem?

A: First of all, you should know that we had asked the news program to allow EPA to speak during the segment, but we were not given the chance. Second, we responded in a letter to what was said in the segment, but the letter wasn't aired either.

The National Acid Precipitation Assessment Program (NAPAP) study alluded to on the program shows that there is a significant acid rain problem in American and Canadian lakes and streams and in high-elevation forests. The NAPAP study data show that, nationwide, 4 percent of lakes larger than 4 hectares (about 10 acres) and 8 percent of streams surveyed were acidic, and the percentage is considerably higher for lakes smaller than 10 acres. In addition, another 20 percent of both lakes and streams are very sensitive to acidification. Plus, the Canadians report some 31,000 total lakes acidified in Eastern Canada. To me, the surface water data alone suggest a pretty big problem.

Further, acid rain, specifically sulfur and nitrogen compounds, impairs visibility, corrodes building and construction materials, and can pose a threat to public health. About 50 percent of the Eastern visibility problem is a function of sulfates from acid rain. Visibility in the Shenandoah National Park, for example, is significantly impaired as a result of emissions from power plants. That was not even discussed in the program. Then, the Harvard School of Public Health and others have found that acid aerosols - that result from acid rain precursors - may pose a significant public health risk.

In spite of what was said on the TV program, Congress fully understood the science that supports the acid rain title. After 10 years of debate and $50 million worth of studies, Congress made the judgment that it would be prudent, for both environmental and public health reasons, to phase down acid rain. The program is reasonable and measured: Over a 10-year period, large power plants that were built in the early 1970s and 1960s will have to meet standards that were subsequently imposed on plants built in the later 1970s and 1980s.

And we are revisiting older plants, the ones that were previously grandfathered out of controls. We will impose less stringent controls on them, but they will at least have to reduce emissions commensurate with what we've been asking of the new plants over the last 20 years.

Q: Can you tell us how many people you have working on the new Clean Air Act?

A: Before the act, we had approximately 1,800 people in the air office. We've reprogrammed probably 1,500 towards the implementation of these amendments. In the last several months we increased our staff by 150 people, which we called "the Class of 1990." Some are experienced; some are right out of school. We are seeking to create a diverse work force, as well as to provide new skills, new energy, and new enthusiasm for the task.

We would expect in the current fiscal year to add another 100 to 150 people, and we are hopeful that the budget recommendations of the President will give us additional resources in 1992. These are substantial increase. However, I believe that the strength of EPA is very much in its people. And the energy levels, the enthusiasm, and the capability of the air staff are among the strongest in the Agency.

We intend to be a prototype for the Agency in incorporating market-based principles into programs and in building consensus with external interest groups. We will push the envelope on regulatory negotiation, on cost-benefit analysis, and on understanding the full implications of environmental initiatives on the economy and on the energy picture of the nation. It will be an exciting time of new ideas, new people, and new energies.

Q: Is this new law primarily a public health statute, or does it also respond to the increasing concern over ecological values?

A: In my view, it is both. Clearly, there is an emphasis on public health in meeting national ambient air quality standards and in reducing air toxics. However, much of the act is motivated by and will help the environment.

Under the acid rain title, for example, we are concerned about the quality of our lakes and streams, our trees, and about visibility, all of which I would label environmental concerns. Reducing urban and regional ground-level ozone will benefit forest ecosystems, as well as crops. And the stratospheric ozone provisions will help protect natural ecosystems from the effects of harmful ultraviolet radiation. And so both health and environment are protected.

One of the more challenging aspects of this new law is going to be sustaining the burden of proof for programs that address both environmental and public health problems. It is always easier to estimate costs than it is benefits. Here our regulatory analysis must not only measure the value of public health benefits but also of ecological benefits. And that is a relatively new undertaking for us.

Q. Just how will you show that this act is worth all the effort and all the costs that will be going into it?

A: We will, of course, have to develop more fully that side of the equation, and we are working on it. For one thing, we must show a measurable improvement in air quality. We measure air quality every year through our monitoring networks. We have to measure the number of jobs that are created by making this improvement. After all, if the act is going to cost some industries $25 billion, someone else is going to have a new $25 billion market for cleaner products and cleaner services.

And this market can be worldwide. One of the first things that happened after the Bush-Gorbachev summit, for example, was that Russia placed a $1 billion order to General Motors for pollution-control components. They had to have them if they were to sell their cars to Western Europe, which has stiffer emission limits than does Moscow.

We want to make sure that we provide incentives for voluntary initiatives and that we stimulate the development of new technologies and pollution prevention measures that will minimize the costs of compliance. Then, wee analyze the other side of the equation as to what the benefits are, and we tell people where we are succeeding and where we are failing. Where we are failing, we modify the policy. Above all, we must be candid about how well we're doing.

Again, putting it in perspective, this act is targeted at about 24 cents per day per person. And the American people have said that if we can reduce the amount of air pollution by the billions of pounds projected, they are willing to pay that amount. I don't know where else you can but that much for 24 cents anymore.

Highlights of the 1990 Clean Air Act Amendment

Urban Pollution

Cities currently failing to meet standards for human health must "attain" them by deadlines set in the law: Most have 6 years or less to attain; an extreme case, Los Angeles, has 20 years. State programs for these cities will complement EPA efforts; see Motor Vehicles.

Permits

The new act strengthens the ability of EPA and the states to enforce standards by requiring that all air-pollution-control obligations of an individual source be contained in a single, five-year operating permit. The states have three years to develop permit programs and submit them to EPA. EPA has one year to issue regulations describing the minimum requirements for such programs. Sources must pay permit fees to the states to cover the costs of operating the programs.

Motor Vehicles

Air Toxics

Emissions of 189 toxic pollutants, typically carcinogens, mutagens, and reproductive toxins, must be reduced within 10 years. EPA will publish a list of source categories within one year and issue Maximum Achievable Control Standards (MACT) for each category over a specified timetable. Companies that initiate partial controls before deadlines set for MACT can receive extensions.

Acid Rain

A two-phase, market-based system will reduce sulfur-dioxide emissions from power plants by more than half. By the year 2000 total annual emissions are to be capped at 8.9 million tons, a reduction of 10 million tons from 1980 levels. Plants will be issued allowances based on fixed emission rates set in the law and on their previous fossil-fuel use. They will pay penalties if emissions exceed the allowances they hold. Allowances can be banked or traded. In Phase I, large, high-emission plants, located in easter and midwestern states, will achieve reductions by 1995. In Phase II which commences on January 1, 2000, emission limits will be imposed on smaller, cleaner plants and tightened on Phase I plants. All sources will install continuous emission monitors to assure compliance.

Nitrogen-oxide reductions will also be achieved, but through performance standards set by EPA.

Ozone Depletion

The new act goes beyond the Montreal Protocol in restricting use, emissions, and disposal of chemicals. It phases out production of CRCs, carbon tetrachloride, and methylchloride by 2000, and methyl chloroform by 2002; it freezes production of CFCs in 2015, phasing them out in 2030. Companies servicing air conditioning for cars will be required to purchase certified recycling equipment and train employees by January 1, 1992. By July, EPA regulations must require reduced emissions from all other refrigeration sectors to lowest achievable levels. By November 1992, use of CFCs in nonessential applications will be prohibited. The act mandates warning labels on all containers and products (refrigerators, foam insulation) that enclose CFCs and other ozone-depleting chemicals.

[See document source for photo. Mike Brisson photo

What You Need to Know About the New Clean Air Act

In the special section that follows, six pairs of articles examine the provisions of the new Clean Air Act in six key areas: motor vehicle emissions and fuel quality, acid rain, urban air quality (the "nonattainment" problem), toxic air pollutants, stratospheric ozone depletion, and enforcement procedures - particularly a new operating permit system.

In each area, an outside writer assesses the nature and extent of the air quality problems leading up to the new law and an EPA official profiles key provisions of the law and the Agency's implementation plans. The last set of articles, in which contrasting perspectives are presented concerning the new permit system, varies this pattern slightly. Graphs and charts are included to illustrate present trends and protections for cleaner air under the new law.

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Last Updated: September 19, 1995