The objective of the Clean Air Act is to protect human health, welfare, and the environment by maintaining and improving the quality of the air through the development of standards. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) establishes national standards for ambient air quality and the states shall implement, maintain, and enforce these standards through a variety of mechanisms. EPA has established national ambient air quality standards to limit levels of criteria pollutants. each state must develop a State Implementation Plan (SIP) to identify sources of air pollution and to determine what reductions are required to meet federal air quality standards. EPA also establishes and enforces national emission standards for hazardous air pollutants and nationally uniform standards oriented towards controlling particular hazardous air pollutants. Each state must develop a State Implementation Plan to identify the sources of air pollution and to determine what reductions are required to meet federal air quality standards. The Plan shall indicate, among other things the degree to which ambient air emissions from farming practices specific to a geographic area within each state are allowed. The Act furthermore, among other things, provides with respect to pollution from mobile sources, stablishes a sulfur dioxide emissions program designed to reduce the formation of acid rain, creates a permit program for all major sources (and certain other sources) regulated under this Act, and provides for protection of stratospheric ozone by phasing out the manufacture of ozone-depleting chemicals and restricting their use and distribution.
Clean Air Act.