- Published: November 14, 2021
- Updated: November 14, 2021
- University / College: University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa
- Language: English
- Downloads: 17
The US Clean Air Act of 1990 (2008), passed in June 1989 by President George Bush Sr, is a supplementary and updated version of the first Clean Air Act passed in 1963 to combat the problems of smug and air pollution from factories, power plants and steel mills and create a system to regulate emissions. The original law was also created to discover other hazardous substances that may cause air pollution thus leading to the creation of another law, the Motor Vehicle Air Pollution Control Act of 1965. The 1990 amendment was to increase the authority and responsibility of the federal government. The new law also created programs to control acid deposition and permit regulation. The National Ambient Air Quality Standards board was also updated in terms on how it is to be maintained. The National Emissions Standards for Hazardous Air Pollutants also was amended and expanded into a bigger program to control toxic air pollutants.
Compared to the 1963 and to the other amendments, the 1990 Amendments enabled the government to create particular laws to target specific problems now that climate change is slowly changing the earth’s atmosphere, producing harmful substances as a result. It has also authorized programs to regulate almost 200 toxic pollutants not included in the current list and established a proposition to phase out chemical usage that affects the ozone layer. Economic wise according to the NCEE (2009), the 1990 Clean Air Act has not given the government a big debt toll due to the policies it has introduced but it gave the country $110 billion as the law prevented the rise in illnesses, death toll and prevention campaigns that would have cost the government billions. The government actually earned back what they invested in the health and ecological benefits of the amended law and doubled it as the government only used $27 billion to maintain the law.
References
National Center for Environmental Economics. (2009, May 28). The Benefits and Costs of the
Clean Air Act 1990 to 2010: EPA Report to Congress. Retrieved August 11, 2011 from http://yosemite. epa. gov/ee/epa/eerm. nsf/vwRepNumLookup/EE-0295A? OpenDocument
United States Environment Protection Agency. (2008, December 19). US Clean Air Act.
Retrieved August 11, 2011, from http://www. epa. gov/oar/caa/title1. html
