Learning from the Clean Air Act’s Tragic Flaw
“Why are you picking on the Clean Air Act?” That’s a question we’ve heard more than once while traveling the country to talk about our new book, Struggling for Air: Power Plants and the “War on Coal.”
The book focuses on what we see as the “tragic flaw” of the Clean Air Act of 1970 (CAA): its exemption of existing industrial facilities—most notably, coal-fired power plants—from the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA’s) nationwide performance standards for soot- and smog-forming pollutants. Starting in 1971, new plants had to reduce their sulfur dioxide emissions by either installing multimillion-dollar pollution “scrubbers” or burning pricey low-sulfur coal. In 1978, scrubbers became mandatory regardless of the type of fuel burned, as did additional technology for controlling nitrogen oxides emissions. But existing plants could continue polluting in unlimited amounts. This “grandfathering” gave utilities a perverse incentive to keep old, dirty facilities running decades longer than they otherwise would have, stymieing state efforts to meet the CAA’s air quality goals.…
