Each day, Americans benefit from the environmental laws and regulations passed by federal, state and local governments. Unfortunately, those laws and regulations can be cumbersome to read and understand. So the Attorney General's Office has put together a primer on each of the major, federal environmental regulatory schemes. Today, we will talk about the Clean Air Act. In future posts, we will discuss other areas of environmental law, like the Clean Water Act and the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act.

The Clean Air Act, located at 42 U.S.C. § 7401, et seq., is largely based on regional ambient air quality standards. Ambient air is the outside air you breathe each and every day. Under the Clean Air Act, Congress directed the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to develop ambient air quality standards for each of six criteria pollutants. The criteria pollutants are sulfur oxides, particulate matter (commonly referred to as smog or soot), carbon monoxide, ozone, nitrogen dioxide and lead. The criteria pollutants were selected because of the dangerous effect they can have on human health if exposure reaches certain levels.

In order to implement the national ambient air quality standards, or "NAAQS," the Clean Air Act allows states to develop their own State Implementation Plans, or "SIPs." The SIP must provide regulatory controls designed to meet the ambient air quality standards found in the Clean Air Act according to air quality control regions. Generally speaking, the SIP can provide stricter regulatory controls if the state deems it necessary in order to comply with the NAAQs in certain air quality control regions. In Missouri, however, that is not the case.  Section 643.055, RSMo, basically precludes the Missouri Air Conservation Commission from enacting requirements that are stricter or that will be imposed sooner than mandated by federal law.  In any event, each air quality control region is categorized as attainment if it is meeting the NAAQs; nonattainment if is not meeting the NAAQs; or non-classifiable if the EPA does not have sufficient data to classify the region as attainment or nonattainment. The EPA has the option to approve or deny each state's SIP based on whether it believes the state's SIP will adequately implement the Clean Air Act's goal of achieving attainment in all of the nation's air quality control regions. If the EPA denies the SIP, then the EPA must develop a Federal Implementation Plan, or "FIP" for the state.