Happy 40th Birthday, Clean Air Act!
The 1970 Clean Air Act, which made the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) responsible for protecting our air, celebrated its 40th birthday on Tuesday. Thanks to the mix of regulatory and voluntary actions that resulted from this law, the air we breathe today is a lot cleaner than it used to be, but we still have a long way to go.
As you sit there and breathe in the air around you, think about what could have happened to the quality of air in our country if this monumental piece of legislation hadn’t been protecting our health and the environment for the past four decades. For a taste of the past, let’s go back to the industrial town of Donora, Pennsylvania in October 1948. A cloud of air pollution stayed over Donora for five days, killing 20 people and sickening 6,000 of the town's 14,000 people.
In 1967, President Lyndon B. Johnson described the state of the air by saying “dirty water and black snow pour from the dismal air to ... the putrid slush that waits for them below." Fortunately, this was not a real weather report, though the President said it could have been. The line, which came from a 600-year old vision of damnation in Dante’s Inferno, made for a startling comparison to the present day environment.
That was before the Clean Air Act. According to an EPA analysis, the first 20 years of the Act programs prevented:
- 205,000 premature deaths
- 672,000 cases of chronic bronchitis
- 21,000 cases of heart disease
- 843,000 asthma attacks
- 10.4 million lost I.Q. points in children – mostly from reducing lead in gasoline
- 18 million child respiratory illnesses
Forty years later, you may be wondering, “Where do we go from here?” How do we get to a point where all the air we breathe is clean? First, air quality standards continue to get stricter based on EPA assessments that public health is adversely affected at lower concentrations of air pollution than previously understood. The EPA is currently preparing to tighten standards again and will announce the new ones soon. A New York Times blog foresees a tough road ahead for these regulations.
The next step involves you. Your actions can and will make a difference for the air we breathe. Try simple changes like carpooling, riding transit or bicycling to work instead of driving alone. If you’re waiting in your car, turn off the engine instead of idling. The next time you purchase a car, get one that’s not as bad for the environment. Or better yet, don’t use a car at all! All of these actions add up to cleaner air for everyone. That’s something we can really celebrate!
Here’s to the next 40 years of cleaner air for everyone!
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