Clean Air Act under attack this week

This week the U.S. House of Representatives is considering three bills that would dramatically weaken the Clean Air Act: the FENCES Act, RED Tape Act and FIRE Act.

The FIRE and FENCES Acts are parts of the Smoggy Skies Act that has been resoundingly rejected in Congress for many years.

Collectively, these bills will increase dangerous pollution and place our communities at risk of greater respiratory diseases such as asthma, lung disease and premature deaths. That’s why over 50 groups, including EDF Action, signed a letter encouraging members of Congress to reject these bills.

The Clean Air Act is our nation’s bedrock air pollution law that empowers the government to reduce pollution and protect public health.

These proposals would undermine our national ambient air quality standards and weaken protections for people’s health, including the most vulnerable populations.

The Clean Air Act has led to significant improvements in air quality and health, but the job is not done. Air pollution still causes serious respiratory and cardiovascular issues; increases incidences of asthma, cancers and other chronic illnesses; can lead to premature death; and causes growth and development harms in children. Children, pregnant women and the elderly are especially vulnerable to the harms of air pollution.

The FIRE Act would broaden the definition of exceptional events excluded from NAAQS to include virtually any extreme weather or event – even hot days or droughts, which are common occurrences – allowing air quality monitoring data from those events to be excluded from regulatory decisions.

Exceptional events are unusual or naturally occurring events that can affect air quality but are not reasonably controllable. 

This proposal would allow data to be cherry picked to cater to polluters by removing data from sources that show worsening air quality. The proposal would create new opportunities for polluters to abuse the regulatory decision-making process. The FIRE Act does not seek clarity to ensure states can effectively implement the Clean Air Act and improve air quality – it caters to industry’s deregulatory wishlist.

There are already processes in place to handle exceptional event air quality monitoring data: Section 319 of the Clean Air Act, plus EPA’s 2016 Exceptional Events Rule and its 2019  Prescribed Fire Guidance, provide processes for states to exclude air monitoring data affected by exceptional events like wildfires and prescribed fire from being considered in the determination of their attainment status under the NAAQS program.

The FENCES Act would let areas of the country with polluted air violating air quality standards blame foreign emissions as a means of avoiding taking tangible and commonsense measures to protect public health and improve air quality.

The Clean Air Act already lays out a process for handling foreign emissions in ambient air quality standards, and the area must still take the same reasonable steps to reduce local air pollution as any other area exceeding national standards.

The FENCES Act would give free passes to states and industries so they can avoid taking reasonable steps to clean up pollution. It’s an industry handout at the expense of everyday Americans who will be forced to continue to breathe dangerously polluted air.

The RED Tape Act proposes skipping impact reviews of federal construction projects, benefiting polluters while sacrificing our health, safety and welfare.

The RED TAPE Act would remove the requirement under the Clean Air Act that, before agencies spend taxpayer dollars, pass regulations and begin construction on federal projects, the federal government adequately consider relevant health, economic and environmental impacts. It’s a proposal to prioritize industry profits over the health of the American people.

Timeline

The House plans to vote on the FENCES (Foreign Emissions and Non-Attainment Clarification for Economic Stability) Act and RED Tape (Reducing and Eliminating Duplicative Environmental Regulations) Act Wednesday afternoon and the FIRE (Fire Improvement and Reforming Exceptional Events) Act Friday morning.

These proposals would weaken Clean Air Act safeguards and enable corporate polluters to skirt the processes in place to minimize pollution and improve air quality. They would make our air quality and quality of life worse and make us sicker.