Federal Clean Air Act

Automotive Catalytic Converter Catalysts. California environmental legislation in the early 1960s stimulated the development of automobile engines with reduced emissions by the mid-1960s, led to enactment of the Federal Clean Air Act of 1970, and resulted in a new industry, the design and manufacture of the automotive catalytic converter (50). Between 1974 and 1989, exhaust hydrocarbons were reduced by 87% and nitrogen oxides by 24%. 

US Congress amended the Federal Clean Air Act in 1990 to address a large number of air pollutants that are known to cause or may reasonably be anticipated to cause adverse effects to human health or adverse environmental effects. 188 specific pollutants and chemical groups were initially identified as hazardous air pollutants (HAPs), and the list has been modified over time. 

The federal Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990 appear to be working. In the 1990s, Tier 1 standards greatly reduced tailpipe emissions of new light-duty vehicles which includes cars and most sport utility vehicles. 

Oxygenated gasoline gasoline with added ethers or alcohols, formulated according to the Federal Clean Air Act to rednce carbon monoxide emissions during winter months. 

The purpose of the converter is to reduce unbumed hydrocarbon emissions to 4 g/mile, CO to 40 g/mile, and NO to 0.4 g/mile. (The mixed units are those in several Federal Clean Air Acts, which mandate these maximum emissions.) In California these standards are even more stringent, and lower levels are mandated to be required in several years throughout... 

Meanwhile the federal government had not been idle, and its activities betray a similar shift to a more centralized approach to environmental matters. The Federal Clean Air Act of 1963, its amendments in 1965, and the Air Quality Acts of 1967 and 1970 put the federal government prominently into the picture. The 1970 legislation requires the implementing of ambient air standards set by the federal Environmental Protection Agency. A strict and tight enforcement schedule is intended to solve the nation s pollution problems from stationary sources in three to five years. 

However, the great London fog of 1952 that resulted in 4000 deaths refocused attention on the public health consequences of air pollution and the lessons from Donora. The tremendous death toll in London made it clear that air pollution was more than just a nuisance and led to the enactment of legislation on both the state and federal level to control this type of environmental insult. The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania passed a state Clean Air Act in 1955, the first such law to control air pollution. This was followed in 1970 by the passage of the Federal Clean Air Act hearings on this bill were marked by references to the events that happened in Donora in 1948. 

A historical sidebar about the California Low Emission Vehicle Program is appropriate here. The program dates back to 1986 when the California Air Resources Board (ARB) staff discussed and debated the fact that we could not achieve the 1987 Federal Clean Air Act public health protection target in spite of doing more than anyone anywhere to achieve clean air. In spite of the auto industry s assertions that they had already been driven to near-zero, more had to be done to reduce vehicle emissions. In fact, the ARB felt that California would never see clean air unless some percent of the vehicle population s emissions were, in effect, zero. But zero had to wait for the unveiling of GM s Impact electric vehicle prototype, the precursor to the EV-1, in 1990. This need, zero, is still true today. 

The US Federal Clean Air Act, introduced in 1970, prescribed a further drastic reduction in the allowable exhaust gas emissions from passenger cars. An historical... 

Environmental laws and regulations including permits are reviewed in this chapter. Included are the Federal Clean Air Act Amendment (CAAA), the Federal Clean Water Act (CWA) regulations, the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) or, as it is also known, the Solid Waste Disposal Act. Also discussed along with the regulations under OSHAare the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) and the Hazardous Waste Operations and Emergency Response (HAZWOPER). 

Gasolines with added ethers or alcohols, formulated according to the Federal Clean Air Act to reduce carbon monoxide emissions during winter months. PAHs are a suite of compounds with two or more benzene rings. PAHs are found in many petroleum mixtures, and they are predominantly introduced to the environment through natural and anthropogenic combustion processes. 

Solvent composition and volatility limits can have significant effects on synthetic rubber production and also tire manufacturing. Limits of exposure to some trace impurities defined in the U.S. Federal Clean Air Act are to be based on the hazard represented, not simply the best available measurement capability. 

Solvent use is controlled by both state and federal regulations. The federal Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990 mandate controls on solvent use in the industry. Almost all organic solvents are classified as Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs) under Title I of the 1990 Amendments and these regulations will require further reductions in future solvent use. Title III of the 1990 Amendments contains a long list of substances considered Hazardous Air... 

Solvent use is controlled by both state and federal regulations. The federal Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990 mandate controls on solvent use in the... 

Title IX - Clean Air Research Title X - Disadvantaged Business Concerns Title XI - Clear Air Employment transition Assistance Titles with a major impact on the petroleiun processing industry are summarized below. State and local regulations can be more stringent than federal Clean Air Acts. For example, in the San Francisco Bay Area, average daily CO emissions from oil refineries may not exceed 400 ppm, regardless of the CO concentration in ambient air. 

In the United States, measures to control the levels of automobile emissions and therefore of photochemical smog have become sophisticated since the first federal Clean Air Act of 1967. Modifications to the ICE have been extensive and included various redesigns of the combustion chamber, variations in the air-to-fuel ratio, reformulations of the composition of gasoline, the addition of the positive crankcase ventilation (PCV) valve to recirculate exhaust and underoxidized fuel gases through the combustion chambers, and the addition of carbon canisters that temporarily collect and then recirculate evaporated fuel from the gas tank and the fuel system. Some of these modifications have not always worked out as well as envisioned. For example, the 1990 modification to the Clean Air Act called for the addition of oxygenated... 

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