Clean Air Act pollution limits

Prevention of Significant Deterioration (PSD) a program established by the Clean Air Act that limits the amount of additional air pollution that is allowed in Class I and Class II areas. 

The Clean Air Act (CAA) limits the emission of pollutants into the atmosphere and protects human health and the environment from the effects of airborne pollution. The EPA established National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS) for several substances. The NAAQS provide the public some protection from toxic air pollutants. Primary responsibility for meeting the requirements of the CAA rests with each state. States must submit plans for achieving NAAQS compliance. Under section 112 of the CAA, the EPA has the authority to designate hazardous air pollutants and set national emission standards for hazardous air pollutants. Common air pollutants include the following (1) ozone, (2) nitrogen dioxide, (3) carbon monoxide, (4) particulate matter, and (5) sulfur dioxide. 

The Clean Air Act sets limits on the airborne levels of several air pollutants, including the SO2 and NOx which cause acid rain. These limits are called "air quality standards." Each state must submit to the head of the E.P.A. a plan for ensuring that emissions within the state will not violate the air quality standards specified by the Act. Furthermore, no state may allow its emissions to "significantly interfere with the attainment and maintenance" of air quality standards in another state, according to Section 110 of the Act. For example, SO2 emissions from a power plant in Ohio cannot be allowed to interfere with the air quality standards for SO2 across the border in Pennsylvania. In the event of a dispute among states concerning air pollution, the E.P.A. is required to hold a formal hearing to determine whether the provision on interstate pollution was in fact violated. 

Some variants of best practicable means are spelled out in the U.S. Clean Air Act of 1977. One is the requirement that best available control technology (BACT) for a specific pollutant be employed on new "major sources" that are to be located in an area that has attained the National Ambient Air Quality Standard (NAAQS) for that pollutant. BACT is also required for pollutants for which there is no NAAQS [e.g., total reduced sulfur (TRS), for which emission limits are specified by a Federal New Source Performance Standard (NSPS)]. BACT must be at least as stringent as NSPS but is determined on a case-by-case basis. 

Chemicals are an essential part of modern commerce and cannot be eliminated without catastrophic consequences to public health, the environment and the economy. Limiting exposure to the most hazardous chemicals has been the focus of national and international groups for many years. The USEPA relies on the development and implementation of regulations such as the Clean Water Act, Toxics Uses Reduction Act (TURA) and the Clean Air Act (CAA) as regulatory pollution prevention tools. 

The US Environmental Protection Agency recently announced its intention to develop and implement new Clean Air Act Standards for industrial coatings operations within the next year. These emission standards will eventually require companies involved in fabric printing, coating and dyeing operations to comply with Maximum Achievable Control standards. The Hazardous Air Pollutants emission limits that will apply to facilities and the impact on fabric coating operations are discussed. USA... 

The Clean Air Act (CAA), amended in 1970 and in 1990 (US-EPA 1990), is the federal law under which the US-EPA sets limits for air pollutants anywhere in the United States. This ensures uniform basic health and environmental protection across the country. 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 states do much of the work to carry out the Act (US-EPA 2007a). 

The costs of incinerators and their pollution potential have made them far less popular in the United States than in many other parts of the world. (A form of incineration known as high temperature combustion remains a major method of waste disposal in Japan and some parts of Europe, however.) After World War II, construction of new incinerators decreased until the total number of plants in the United States fell to an all-time low of about 15 in I960. Then the number rose for two decades before declining once more to the current level of about II2 incinerators, as shown in the graph. A major factor in the latest shift away from incineration as a method of waste disposal was the 1970 Clean Air Act, which strictly limited the amount and... 

The numerical value shows the threshold limit value, which is defined as the maximum permissible vapor concentration that the average person can be exposed to for 8 h/day, 5 days/week without harm, in ppm (cm of solvent per 1 m of air). The mark T shows the solvent has Hsted in Title 111 of the Clean Air Act (42 U.S.C. 7401-7626 Public Law 159 from July 14,1955 69 Stat. 322) and the Amendments of 1990 as a hazardous air pollutant. Source Compton, S. and Brownlee, R., Biotechniques, 6,432-440,1988. With permission. 

The Maximum Achievable Control Technology (MACT) emission limitations required by the 1990 Clean Air Act Amendments (CAAA) show the ultimate effect of the ratcheting process. After a little more than two decades of ratcheting, MWCs have become a comparatively minor source of combustion-related air pollution. Other artificial and natural sources such as automobiles, trucks, power plants, fireplaces, wood stoves, metal production furnaces, industrial manufacturing processes, volcanoes, forest fires, and backyard trash burning are now the major known sources of combustion-related pollutants. 

Bubble Policy The bubble concept introduced under PSD provisions of the Clean Air Act Amendments of 1977 was formally proposed as EPA policy on Jan. 18, 1979, the final policy statement being issued on Dec. 11, 1979. The bubble policy allows a company to find the most efficient way to control a plant s emissions as a whole rather than by meeting individual point-source requirements. If it is found less expensive to tighten control of a pollutant at one point and relax controls at another, this would be possible as long as the total pollution from the plant would not exceed the sum of the current limits on individual point sources of pollution in the plant. Properly applied, this approach would promote greater economic efficiency and increased technological innovation. 

---