Information on Thomas.gov

-Scroll down to BROWSE BY and click "Popular and Short Titles"

-Near the top of the page, click "101" to select the Congressional Term

-Type in the BROWSE STARTING WITH box, "clean air act"

-Click "Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990"

 

Love, 2nd Period

 

Bill in Plain English:

Clean Air Act in Texas

From, Cliff

 

 

 

OVERVIEW

 

 

The Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990

 

 

In June 1989 President Bush proposed sweeping revisions to the

Clean Air Act. Building on Congressional proposals advanced during

the 1980s, the President proposed legislation designed to curb

three major threats to the nation's environment and to the health

of millions of Americans: acid rain, urban air pollution, and toxic

air emissions. The proposal also called for establishing a national

permits program to make the law more workable, and an improved

enforcement program to help ensure better compliance with the Act.

 

By large votes, both the House of Representatives (401-21) and

the Senate (89-11) passed Clean Air bills that contained the major

components of the President's proposals. Both bills also added

provisions requiring the phaseout of ozone-depleting chemicals,

roughly according to the schedule outlined in international

negotiations (Revised Montreal Protocol). The Senate and House

bills also added specific research and development provisions, as

well as detailed programs to address accidental releases of toxic

air pollutants.

 

A joint conference committee met from July to October 1990 to

iron out differences in the bills and both Houses overwhelmingly

voted out the package recommended by the Conferees. The President

received the Bill from Congress on November 14, 1990 and signed it

on November 15,1990.

 

Several progressive and creative new themes are embodied in

the Amendments; themes necessary for effectively achieving the air

quality goals and regulatory reform expected from these

far-reaching amendments. Specifically the new law:

 

*encourages the use of market-based principles and other innovative approaches, like performance-based standards and emission banking and trading;

 

*provides a framework from which alternative clean fuels will be used by setting standards in the fleet and California pilot program that can be met by the most cost-effective combination of fuels and technology;

 

*promotes the use of clean low sulfur coal and natural gas, as well as innovative technologies to clean high sulfur coal through the acid rain program;

 

*reduces enough energy waste and creates enough of a market for clean fuels derived from grain and natural gas to cut dependency on oil imports by one million barrels/day;

 

*promotes energy conservation through an acid rain programthat gives utilities flexibility to obtain neededemission reductions through programs that encourage customers to conserve energy.

 

Full Article:

 

From 3rd Period

 

 

9/14/1989 Introduced in Senate

12/20/1989 Committee on Environment and Public Works. Reported to Senate by Senator Burdick under the authority of the order of Nov 22, 89 with an amendment in the nature of a substitute. With written report No. 101-228. Additional and minority views filed.

4/3/1990 Passed/agreed to in Senate: Passed Senate with an amendment by Yea-Nay Vote. 89-11. Record Vote No: 55.

5/23/1990 Passed/agreed to in House: On passage Passed without objection.

10/26/1990 Conference report H. Rept. 101-952 filed.

10/26/1990 Conference report agreed to in House: On agreeing to the conference report Agreed to by the Yeas and Nays: 401 - 25 (Roll no. 525).

10/27/1990 Conference report agreed to in Senate: Senate agreed to conference report by Yea-Nay Vote. 89-10. Record Vote No: 324.

11/15/1990 Signed by President.

11/15/1990 Became Public Law No: 101-549.

 

Your's Truly, Breton "The Tubular Taco" Farrel

3rd

 

 

Here are some affects of the Clean Air Act Amendments

There are some charts and fancy-looking technical stuff here. It includes costs of compliance, what people have to deal with, etc.

 

Also, there was a book with an article about pollution allowance trading, and I found the article on the website http://www.social-ecology.org/article.php?story=20031202111003557. The print is kinda small. Basically, it says that companies can buy other companies' right to pollute instead of actually reducing their pollution. Apparently this hasn't gone according to plan.

 

Ifyou go to LexisNexis and do a news article search for Clean Air Act Amendments for the last 10 years, you will find that people are really struggling to comply with the standards. Plus, the Supreme Court is hearing cases about it.

 

Enjoy the amazing fun project.

-Tyler Tyler es numero uno presidente

 

“Pollution”

Pgs. 70-71

363.73 POL

 

October 1990 Congress/President George Bush passed Clean Air Act.

• Most expensive environmental law ever enacted by Congress

• Was estimated that it would cost businesses, consumers, and tax payers b/n $20-$50 billion annually

• Money intended to be spent on new fuels, pollution-control equipment, and new industrial processes

• OBJECTIVE: making the air we breathe gradually cleaner over the next 15 years (since 1990)

• Act was 13 years in the making

• In addition to this act, many other environmental laws were passes including Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERLA), also known as Superfund- although this law has been mostly ineffective.

 

yay.

-lauren a

 

 

 

Well, the Environment Encyclopedia says that the law set new deadlines to meet national air quality standards; established stricter auto emissions standards; set deadlines for reducing toxic air emissions; created new limits on air pollutants related to acid precipitation and atmospheric ozone depletion; created a market for emissions trading. that's a pretty general idea of what this law is.

 

 

The role of the federal government and the role of the states

 

Although the 1990 Clean Air Act is a federal law covering the

entire country, the states do much of the work to carry out the Act. For example, a state air pollution agency holds a hearing on a permit application by a power or chemical plant or fines a company for violating air pollution limits.

Under this law, EPA sets limits on how much of a pollutant can be in the air anywhere in the United States. This ensures that all Americans have the same basic health and environmental protections. The law allows individual states to have stronger pollution controls, but states are not allowed to have weaker pollution controls than those set for the whole country.

 

The law recognizes that it makes sense for states to take the lead in carrying out the Clean Air Act, because pollution control problems often require special understanding of local industries, geography, housing patterns, etc.

 

States have to develop state implementation plans (SIPs) that explain how each state will do its job under the Clean Air Act. A state implementation plan is a collection of the regulations a state will use to clean up polluted areas. The states must involve the public, through hearings and opportunities to comment, in the development of each state implementation plan.

 

EPA must approve each SIP, and if a SIP isn't acceptable, EPA can take over enforcing the Clean Air Act in that state.

 

The United States government, through EPA, assists the states by providing scientific research, expert studies, engineering designs and money to support clean air programs.

 

 

 

Clean Air Act was has been in the news. In fact it was on the front page of the Statesman Wed. -Mrs Phelps

 

here it is...

 

http://www.statesman.com/search/content/news/stories/local/11/29/29supreme.html

 

Texas backs EPA in high court case

Agency doesn't think it should limit carbon dioxide emissions.

By Asher Price

 

AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF

 

 

Wednesday, November 29, 2006

 

It's not much of a stretch to say global warming policy will be on trial at the U.S. Supreme Court today.

 

Twelve states are squaring off against the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, which they say has failed to do its job by refusing to limit emissions of carbon dioxide, a heat-trapping greenhouse gas.

 

But in Texas, where the state climatologist says global warming is a pressing concern and scientists say the Gulf Coast could be flooded within the century, the attorney general has joined a smaller coalition of states that sides with the EPA, which says the gas is not a dangerous air pollutant.

 

The Texas attorney general's office did not even consult the state's environmental agency before signing onto the legal brief submitted to the high court, according to one of the agency's commissioners.

 

"The State of Texas' intervention in this case wasn't derived from any formal request" from the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, said Larry Soward, one of three members of the commission. "This agency did not ask the attorney general to intervene in the lawsuit on our behalf, nor have we been involved.

 

"It's routine or common course for the agency with regulatory authority to be integrally involved. And that hasn't been the case."

 

The attorney general's office and the governor's office refused to comment on the case.

 

Texas is the No. 1 emitter of carbon dioxide nationally, with roughly a third coming from tailpipes, a third from industries and a third from utilities.

 

"The states signing up on different sides reflects realities in the states," said Jared Snyder, a lawyer with the New York attorney general's office who has worked on the case. "We in the Northeast are trying to ratchet down carbon dioxide."

 

The case, Massachusetts v. EPA, boils down to whether the agency should regulate carbon dioxide emitted by new cars in an effort to curb global climate change. In 2003, a band of 12 states, most of them from the Northeast and the West Coast, asked the EPA to regulate the gases under the federal Clean Air Act.

 

The EPA refused, and the states, which claim they face real threats, including the flooding of coastal areas, sued.

 

Carbon dioxide is a "major contributor to climate change globally and locally," said John Nielsen-Gammon, the state climatologist for Texas and a professor of meteorology at Texas A&M University. Emissions of carbon dioxide are "a legitimate cause of concern."

 

Texas decided not to stay out of the case — as a bunch of others did — and signed onto a brief circulated by the State of Michigan, the home of U.S. automakers, which argues that the Clean Air Act should not address carbon dioxide emissions because much of the gas is emitted by foreign nations.

 

The Clean Air Act, the nine states argue in the amicus brief, does not "authorize EPA to set emission standards that will not meaningfully address an air quality issue like global climate change," which is caused primarily by "CO2 and other greenhouse gas emissions from outside of the United States."

 

"Instead, the Act is designed to actually achieve air quality goals that will effectively protect public health and welfare through U.S. emission reductions."

 

Regulation of carbon dioxide emissions would put industry — especially the auto industry — at a competitive disadvantage, said Rusty Hills, a spokesman for the Michigan attorney general's office.

 

"The developed world already has more pollution controls than the Second World or Third World," Hills said. "If industry needed to do more to comply, it could further adversely affect industries in competition."

 

The Bush administration is committed to reducing greenhouse gas emissions, EPA spokeswoman Jennifer Wood said.

 

But the White House prefers voluntary actions by industry rather than federal regulation to curtail emissions.

 

Although the case is strictly about vehicle emissions, it could have implications for other industries if carbon dioxide is found to be a chemical the EPA should regulate.

 

Texas has gained national attention, for instance, for plans by utility companies to build coal-fired power plants, which would add about 115 million tons of carbon dioxide annually into the atmosphere. The carbon dioxide emissions from 11 of the new plants, proposed by TXU Corp., would be the equivalent of adding 10 million Cadillac Escalades on the road, according to the nonprofit Environmental Defense.

 

Texas Gov. Rick Perry has supported the plant proposals and has been routinely attacked by environmentalists because of it, despite the state's taking a lead in renewable energy generation.

 

"Texas is one of the few places that refuses to be part of the discussion in how to limit emissions," said Colin Rowan, a spokesman for Environmental Defense. "We should hold ourselves accountable to how much we emit."

 

asherprice@statesman.com; 445-3643

 

Theres the whole article so you dont have to register on statesman.com

 

---

"I act with clean air."

-The Government

---