Managing Air Pollution Requires a Plan

The Clean Water Act addresses polluted waterways, but inexplicably there is no comparable vehicle when it comes to managing air pollution.  This is a problem.  Obviously, polluted air is bad for people’s health, and from an emergency preparedness perspective, certain emissions that cause pollution can contribute to global warming, resulting in an increase in weather frequency and severity, and by extension, service outages.

Using the Clean Water Act as a Model for Managing Air Pollution

The model for managing air pollution is right under our noses.  Under the Clean Water Act, a waterway identified as polluted requires the state to develop a plan to remediate the problem by stopping or reducing the source of the pollution.  The waterway is then reevaluated after the plan is executed.

This Act should be used as a template for managing air pollution.  As it is now, impacted residents are forced to confront air polluters on a one-off basis, rather than confronting all emitters at once under the umbrella of a federal mechanism.  In addition, when emitters like chemical plants request a permit for specific emissions, the plants are not evaluated in the context of the total amount of pollutants they emit, they are only evaluated based on the individual chemical emitted for which the permit is being requested.

Honestly, the lack of a federal air pollution mandate boggles my mind.  With so much focus in recent years on going green, it is hard to fathom why managing air pollution has apparently slipped though the regulatory cracks.  It remains to be seen whether a “clean air act” for managing air pollution will be developed, but for the sake of all of us, I certainly hope it happens eventually.