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Pollution Controls - EPA updates Clean Air Act

WASHINGTON D.C. – Gina McCarthy, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) assistant administrator for air and radiation, held a press conference call today, July 6 at 12:30 p.m. Eastern Time to discuss a significant Clean Air Act proposal to protect public health and the environment.

Today's conference call was titled, “EPA's Clean Air Act Announcement.”  The gist of the call was the long-awaited rewrite of the Clean Air Interstate Rule for keener pollution controls.  Emissions monitoring is typically done either by tracking the output at the smokestack itself or by tracking the raw materials in the plant and/or manufacturing process.

Today's EPA call was for credentialed members only, mostly media.  But the material hopes to have far-reaching affect.

Preventing 14,000 to 36,000 premature deaths per year

The updated regulation, known as the Clean Air Interstate Rule, requires 31 states from Massachusetts to Texas to reduce emissions that cause smog and soot and can travel long distances via wind.  The agency predicted the rule would prevent about 14,000 to 36,000 premature deaths a year, says the News Tribune.

The new plan will tighten restrictions on pollution from coal-burning power plants in the eastern half of the U.S., a key step to cut emissions that cause smog. The EPA said the new rules would cut sulfur dioxide emissions by 71 percent from 2005 levels by 2014 and nitrogen oxide emissions by 52 percent. 

Background of the Clean Air Act

Journalists Mark Peters and Tennille Tracy at The Wall Street Journal reported this morning, before the call: 

"The program [Clean Air Act] announced in 2005 by the EPA under President George W. Bush was aimed at making the largest reduction in air pollution in more than a decade. It used existing environmental markets to reduce emissions of sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides mostly from coal-fired power plants in 28 eastern states.

"The plan prompted a flurry of activity in U.S. emissions markets and increased investments by utilities in pollution controls. But a federal appeals court in July 2008 rejected the rule, saying it was fatally flawed, and sent it back to the EPA to rewrite," said the WSJ.