The Clean Air Act is celebrating its 40^th Anniversary this year. The Act has for decades provided the framework with which to preserve our environment. No matter what walk of life you come from, all of us are grateful for clean air to breathe.

The Act has proven to be an effective tool in protecting our environment. The forest products industry is proud of its record to steadily reduce emissions over these last 40 years and those efforts continue. Since 1995 the pulp and paper sector has reduced sulfur dioxide releases by 37% and nitrogen oxide emissions by 26%. However, recent actions by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) go too far - using the Act in ways that it simply wasn’t designed for and putting manufacturing jobs at risk.

Congress declared that a fundamental purpose of the Clean Air Act is “to protect and enhance the quality of the Nation’s air resources so as to promote the public health and welfare and the productive capacity of its population.” If EPA continues on its current course, it inevitably will defeat that purpose by destroying jobs, offshoring U.S. manufacturing and compromising this Nation’s productive capacity.

One current example is the proposed rule on maximum achievement control technology for industrial boilers, commonly known as Boiler MACT. Boilers not only are used to power facilities and generate electricity in the forest products industry, but also to generate steam at universities, municipalities and a wide range of other manufacturing facilities.

The proposed Boiler MACT rule would set five different emission limits on up to four different controls. The methodology EPA is using to set these emission limits often approaches levels that can barely be detected, may be unachievable and exceed what is necessary to protect the environment. Each of these controls cost millions of dollars, and for a single boiler, the cost could average $10 million. That cost only multiplies for those facilities that have multiple boilers.

These costs not only put manufacturers at a competitive disadvantage, but put jobs at risk. AF&PA recently released a commissioned study that showed 16,888 jobs at risk due to Boiler MACT as it is currently written in the pulp and paper industry alone. The ripple effect of those job losses through the supply chain would explode the job loss number to 71,774.

In the Clean Air Act, Congress specifically authorized EPA to allow facilities to demonstrate that emissions do not pose a concern to public health or the environment. EPA could greatly reduce the unnecessary burden of the proposal by making a health threshold standard an integral part of the final rule. EPA also should set standards that reflect the variability in the operation of true best performing boilers due to fuels, operations, designs, and testing differences. EPA can choose to regulate in a way that protects both the environment and jobs, and we look forward to working with EPA on a final rule that achieves these shared goals.

When the Clean Air Act was passed, forty years ago this week, climate change was a theory. Since then, the scientific community has reached a consensus about the greenhouse effects of carbon pollution. We are now aware that these gases pose a serious threat to the environment and economy and therefore, must be regulated under the law.

In their 2007 decision in Massachusetts v. EPA, the Supreme Court justices ordered the agency to regulate the pollutants or show they are not a threat to public health or welfare. The agency, of course, chose the former path, instead of trying to fight the tomes of empirical data illustrating the negative effects of these emissions.

If Republicans and coal-state Democrats had seen fit to relax their opposition to reining-in greenhouse gases and to back legislation creating a market-based mechanism to achieve reductions, EPA regulatory action might be unnecessary.

However, not only was a bill not passed, but the control that coal producing regions show they have in Congress has dimed hope for a bill in the coming years. The options now seem to have narrowed. The choice is not legislate or regulate—it is to regulate or do nothing.

Comprehensive legislation would have provided a reason to accept restrictions to EPA’s authority. Without that, EPA cannot legally drop its plans to regulate these pollutants.

Legal challenge will not be avoided regardless of whether the agency proceeds. Lawsuits are always threatened by industry when regulations are proposed. But in this case, lawsuits will also definitely be filed if the EPA does not comply with Massachusetts v. EPA by taking measures to reduce the carbon pollution in our atmosphere.

And of these two starting positions, those who advocate for greenhouse gas controls have the stronger legal argument. The Supreme Court decision gives EPA wide authority to regulate— including, as our analysis of the Clean Air Act shows, building a market-based mechanism like a carbon cap.

The rules the EPA has chosen to begin with—CAFE standards and technology-based standards for some polluters—might be politically controversial but they are likely to be eminently cost-benefit justified and they do not really test the limits of the agency’s authority under the Clean Air Act.

The bottom line is that regulating carbon is now the law. It has been deemed necessary by the highest court in our land. Attempts to challenge the decision accomplish little but slowing down a process that is both absolutely necessary, and, absent a turn-around in Congress, ultimately unavoidable.

This week, we're celebrating one of the most successful environmental laws in America's history. Since the Clean Air Act became law 40 years ago, we have dramatically reduced the pollution that causes smog in our cities. We've phased out lead in gasoline, a neurotoxin that was hurting our children. We've curbed acid rain that threatened our lakes and streams. We've virtually stopped producing chemicals that depleted the ozone layer and increased the risk of skin cancer.

Yet now, some of our lawmakers are supporting proposals to weaken the Clean Air Act. They could roll back four decades of progress and undermine a law that has done so much to improve our quality of life. And they would empower big oil companies and other corporate polluters that are poisoning our air and water at our expense.

Just as they have many times in the past, polluting industries claim environmental rules will lead to economic disaster. Time and time again, they've been proven wrong. Since the passage of the Clean Air Act in 1970, our gross domestic product has tripled. Studies have shown the benefits of cleaning up our air and water exceed the costs many times over. Clean air protections encourage technological innovation that creates jobs and helps drive economic growth.

Today, our urgent task is to make a transition to clean, renewable energy. That's how we can create new jobs, reduce pollution and end our dependence on fossil fuels. The best solution is for Congress to adopt comprehensive climate and clean energy policies, not give handouts to big oil and corporate polluters. Moving forward to cut carbon pollution under the Clean Air Act will give small businesses and entrepreneurs a clear path forward to build a clean energy economy for the 21st century.

Using the authority under the Clean Air Act, America is moving ahead with efforts that will encourage investment in clean energy and help solve the climate crisis. In April, we saw the adoption of historic fuel economy rules that will both reduce pollution and help us save money at the gas pump.

We can't allow Congress to stop progress in its tracks. We need to defeat attempts to undermine the Clean Air Act. Now is a time to celebrate and remember what this law has accomplished — and move forward to solve the clean energy challenges of the future.

To celebrate the success of the Clean Air Act, my organization has created a new video.

Record heat-waves, the 40^th Anniversary of the Clean Air Act, and the run-up to the mid-term elections have the country buzzing about global warming and what to do about it. One of the main issues is the role of the EPA in controlling carbon dioxide emissions – which is one of the leading causes of global warming.

For years, members of Congress claimed that they should write the rules for regulating emissions. Yet even after a deadly oil spill and what’s shaping up to be the hottest year on record, the Senate has failed to act. Now, EPA, backed by a ruling by the Supreme Court, is trying to do its part to hold polluters accountable.

Using the Clean Air Act to regulate emissions is common sense. The World Resources Institute has found that by using existing authorities such as the Clean Air Act, the country can begin to put the country on the path to meeting President Obama’s commitment to the international community to reduce emissions to 17% below 2005 levels by 2020.

Industry has concerns about adapting to the new standards, and their concerns will be heard in the rulemaking process. In fact, looking back on other regulations industry has feared (i.e., requiring seatbelts in cars) the American public would not want to lose these health and safety protections, and American businesses were able to develop innovative solutions to regulation. The United States has untapped renewable energy employment potential that could be stimulated under these regulations.

While much of the discussion around environmental regulations centers around cost, these benefits are often overlooked. Recently, the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) released its thirteenth annual report to Congress, detailing the estimated benefits and costs of federal regulations during the period of 1999-2009. The report estimated that while clean air and water regulations promulgated by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency resulted in aggregate annual costs ranging from $26 to $29 billion, benefits ranged from $82 to $533 billion.

EPA must move now, not just for the environment, but for the economy.

(These comments were submitted by Bruce Pasfield, a partner with Alston & Bird, who has a national practice in environmental litigation and served 15 years at the Justice Department where he focused on environmental crimes.)

Congress’ inability to pass comprehensive climate change legislation means that business now face the prospect of command and control regulation imposed by EPA. This is exactly the approach that many economist and businessmen wanted to avoid in favor of more market based approaches such as cap and trade or a carbon tax. The more practical view is that EPA’s green house gas tailoring rule is a fairly logic first step in the progression of carbon controls that will be imposed in the years to come. The Clean Air Act may not have been written with green house gases regulation in mind, but then again the Constitution was not written with all the modern day due process considerations in mind and it stills serves as a very functional document. EPA has plenty of experience with command and control regulations and its efforts to craft regulations will have some measure of predictability that might not have been present in the Cap and Trade bills under consideration by Congress. Further if it allows utilities to meet GHG emissions standards through fuel switching to natural gas, an energy source that is a necessary bridge to more renewable energy sources, the economy stands to gain much through production of natural gas deposits throughout the country.

While Cap and Trade could have provided a more comprehensive green house gas reduction scheme, it had many winners and loser and was destined to create an uneven playing field both in the United States and aboard. When Congress next considers the issue, a straight carbon tax might provide a more evenhanded approach for controlling carbon at less cost to specific industry segments and the overall economy. For now, EPA’s rulemakings reigns supreme until Congress or the Court says otherwise.

(These comments were submitted by Frank O'Donnell, president of Clean Air Watch.)

Let’s cut right to the chase and tell it like it is: the Clean Air Act is not a perfect tool, but the United States is one heck of a lot better off today because of it.

This landmark law has brought cleaner air, longer lives, better health, technological innovation and jobs. In fact, it created a whole industry dedicated to making pollution controls. You would never have seen a catalytic converter or a scrubber without the Clean Air Act.

Let’s address some imperfections head on.

Far too often the law has been the subject of compromise. Perhaps the most fateful one took place in 1970, when, as a concession to Senator Jennings Randolph of West Virginia and the mine workers union, Congress agreed to permit a less rigorous regulatory regime for existing power plants than for new ones. Few law makers then could foresee that coal-burning electric power plants built in the 1950s would still be smoking away in the 21^st century. Thoughtful people both at EPA and in Congress are still chipping away at that problem.

And in other cases, ambiguities in the law have been exploited by polluter lawsuits to the benefit of corporate lawyers and the detriment of the breathing public. The most obvious case is the law’s so-called new source review program, which was designed to bring major old facilities up to code when major modifications were made.

But, warts and all, the Clean Air Act has been a great success. The almost-daily smog alerts of the late 1960s have been radically reduced. Today’s car emits the tiniest fraction of pollution than did its pre-catalyst ancestors. Dangerous lead is gone from gasoline – and almost entirely eliminated from the atmosphere. In fact, emissions of all the widespread major pollutants have dropped significantly even though the population, energy use and driving have all gone up. The emission reductions have been extraordinarily cost effective; even the green eyeshade folks at OMB will tell you that!

We are poised to see further emission reductions and cleaner air in the future if a polluter-prompted Congress doesn’t meddle. (As for the power industry’s smokescreen of objections about threats to electric “reliability,” I urge you to read Michael Bradley’s commentary and the study he cites.)

And there is every reason to expect that the Clean Air Act’s success story can be replicated with carbon emissions. In fact, we have already started down the road to success with the EPA greenhouse gas standards for motor vehicles, a visionary rule that can be a climate-control model for other mobile-related engines, including trucks, ships and planes. Thoughtful application of the law – for example, EPA’s so-called tailoring rule -- can address emissions from the biggest stationary polluters as well.

Yes, many of us had longed for an effective economy-wide greenhouse gas strategy from Congress. One big reason was to minimize lawsuits from businesses seeking to evade emission requirements. But that effort was a bust. There is no use crying over the spilled milk.

While we wait for another effort in another Congress, for the time being, the action is at EPA. It would be a grave mistake for Congress to take away EPA’s authority to deal with climate change under current law – especially when there’s no substitute strategy on the near horizon.

If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. The Clean Air Act ain’t broke. In fact, it is one of America’s premier success stories. In 1970, when the law took its current form, unhealthy air was one of the major realities of living in most American cities. The US was well on the way to locking in the kind of routine, lethal episodes of smog that are now the staple conversation of anyone who has just returned from a visit to a Chinese city.

Since that time the American economy, gasoline consumption, electricity generation and vehicle travel have all soared – the basic ingredients of dirty air have grown dramatically. Yet the air itself is much, much cleaner – and a huge variety of economic studies have shown that for every dollar we have invested in this clean air success story we have reaped as much as $10 in health and economic benefits.

It’s true that for a crucial eight year period – 2000/2008 – enforcement and implementation of the law by the federal government ground to a halt. The Bush Administration did its best to dismantle the law, not only by taking the enforcement cop off the beat but also by proposing a series of regulatory loopholes in the law which would have legalized ongoing pollution. Fortunately, the federal courts rejected almost all of the Bush clean air proposals – the number of new Clean Air Act regulations that survived judicial scrutiny and ended up in the Code of Federal Regulations under Bush is sparse indeed. And much of the enforcement slack was taken up by many of the states.

But the results of this controlled experiment show just how badly we need the Clean Air Act. As a result of eight years of an effective moratorium on Clean Air Act enforcement, fully half of America’s coal fired power plants still lack basic pollution control equipment – scrubbers, baghouses, catalytic reduction technology. One is six American women carries enough mercury in her tissues to pose a potential risk to her baby if she became pregnant – and uncontrolled coal fired power plants are the biggest source of mercury emissions in the country. (Bush wouldn’t clean up the other major sources, like outmoded chlorine manufacturing plants, either – even though the Clean Air Act required it.) Asthma attack rates have continued to increase in most of American’s major cities. Those coal plants alone are calculated to produce 24,000 premature deaths a year, at a a cost of $100 billion.

But the changing political winds put an end to the moratorium on clean air that Bush tried to make permanent. Even before he left office, the auto industry turned to Congress and asked it to use the Clean Air Act to set new pollution standards for carbon dioxide pollution from passenger vehicles – because the auto companies understood that the Clean Air Act was designed for exactly this kind of clean up task. Now the Obama Administration, led by EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson, is moving forward to replace the illegal Bush era regulations with science based standards that will protect the public health. Some of these regulations, like the auto rules, will cover carbon pollution. But most will simply continue the steady forward progress at cleaning up mercury, soot, sulfur, nitrogen and smog – the pollutants that were on the verge of making American cities unlivable in 1970, and that we have made so much progress in cleaning up in the last 40 years.

So why are we suddenly hearing clamorous cries that we should, as National Journal put it, “dismantle” this 40 year success story? Well, there are two reasons.

One is that the coal industry recognizes that its product – dirty carbon laced with mercury – is no longer competitive. Coal continues to generate half of America’s electricity only because coal fired power plants have been given special status, bailouts and loopholes from fundamental public health standards. If the Clean Air Act is implemented, and coal must meet the same emission standards as competing electricity sources, it will no longer be the low cost electricity source. The electricity marketplace will retire the oldest and dirtiest 25-50% of our coal fired generation. Americans will be healthier, the electricity sector will become more innovative and competitive, long term energy costs will come down.

The second source of the cry for dismantling clean air is from manufacturing companies. For twenty years the US has signed a series of trade agreements – NAFTA and the WTO being the most important – which prevent us from insisting that other countries can’t unfairly compete with US manufacturers with environmental giveaways. So US manufacturers complain that if they have to make their factories clean, they can’t compete with overseas plants that can continue to poison their neighbors. So, argue US industries, we too must have the right to poison our neighbors, and the Clean Air Act gets in the way.

These two complaints tell us a lot. They tell us that the Clean Air Act is perhaps the most powerful tool we have to modernize America’s energy sector, and create the new industries, jobs and technologies we need to compete globally.

But they also tell us that if we don’t get international trade rules fair, we will continue to face unfair competition and pressure for dirty industry.

It’s not the Clean Air Act we should dismantle, it’s a fundamentally flawed set of international trade agreements.

As we mark the 40^th anniversary of the Clean Air Act, it is gratifying to reflect on the progress made to improve our Nation’s air quality and the innovations spurred by the Act. Emissions of conventional air pollutants—such as lead, carbon monoxide, and nitrogen oxides—have declined significantly in response to the programs established by the Clean Air Act. The Act is one of the most important human health and environmental laws enacted by Congress, and it continues to serve a vital role in driving further environmental improvements. Economists estimate that key provisions of the Act have generated human health and economic benefits that exceed the costs of compliance by a factor of 40 to 1.

The challenge now is to build on that success by continuing to develop effective programs and policies that will drive innovation and better environmental results. Some of the key regulations that EPA is now developing aimed at addressing emissions from the electric power sector include EPA’s Transport Rule—a market-based program regulating NOx and SO2 emissions in the Eastern U.S.—and the Utility MACT Rule, which will limit emissions of mercury and other hazardous air pollutants from power plants.

Responding to claims that EPA’s regulatory agenda could undermine electric system reliability, M.J. Bradley & Associates and Sue Tierney and Paul Hibbard from the Analysis Group did a close examination of the industry’s capacity to further reduce its air pollution emissions. We found that the industry has a robust toolkit available to manage system reliability while at the same time installing pollution control equipment and retiring a portion of the generating fleet. For example:

(1) The industry has a proven and recent track record of adding additional generating capacity and making transmission system upgrades when required – and coordinating effectively to address reliability concerns.

(2) The industry has proven technologies for controlling air pollution emissions, such as NOx, SO2, mercury and acid gases – at costs that can be managed.

(3) Industry and federal and state regulators have tools available to ensure reliability within their region (e.g., capacity markets, reserve sharing mechanisms, and outage scheduling procedures).

(4) Targeted demand response and energy efficiency programs can assist in maintaining electric system reliability while reducing customers’ bills.

The Clean Air Act leaves an important legacy of public health and environmental improvements, but more remains to be done. We can continue to modernize our electric generating fleet, putting Americans to work and preserving electric system reliability, provided that EPA, the industry and other agencies take practical steps to plan for the implementation of these air regulations.

When a hurricane is headed for your home and the waters are rising, sand bags are welcome safeguard, even if an earth mover rebuilding protective dunes would be a more effective tool.

In the face of global warming, the Clean Air Act can provide some much-needed protection – stemming the flood of dangerous carbon pollution – even if it is not the perfect tool. It is only prudent to use its authorities, tailoring them – as EPA has proposed --to meet the task at hand in a reasonable way. Any effort to curb the climate changing greenhouse gas emissions will help protect our lands and communities from drought, fire, and flood.

Congress went looking for a better tool – a comprehensive bill that would have curbed carbon pollution and eased the transition to a renewable energy economy. The House found an earth mover but the Senate couldn’t agree on the contract. Now we are stuck with the sand bags – a crude but tried and true method of protecting the public in times of crisis. At this point, it would be madness to throw away the last line of defense.

Few would argue that the Clean Air Act has not been a success. Air quality has improved every year and mobile source pollution has been reduced dramatically. But further reductions of traditional air pollutants will be more challenging and much more expensive as these pollutants reach very low levels. As such, the Act needs to be refined and fine tuned. In particular, it needs to be made clear that Congress never intended the Clean Air Act to apply to greenhouse gases or for EPA to exercise unfettered authority over the economy.

Defenders of EPA regulating greenhouse gases can best be described as promoting the philosophy that if your only tool is a hammer, every problem is a nail. In reauthorizing the Act in 1990, Congress explicitly decided not to include greenhouse gases or grant EPA authority to regulate them. The Supreme Court’s decision was driven by political correctness; not the Act’s legislative history or the Court’s own standard for scientific evidence -- Daubert v Merrill Dow. In fairness to the Court, the Bush Administration did a poor job in presenting its case. None the less, this will go down as a major judicial blunder.

It has become conventional wisdom among environmental zealots and some in the media to categorize carbon dioxide as a pollutant. It is not. There have been periods in geological history when atmospheric concentrations have been much higher than today’s level and the earth and living beings survived quite well. Since CO2 is essential for photosynthesis, EPA and others ought to be required to establish when it stops being essential for the growth of plants, trees, and agricultural crops and becomes a “pollutant.”

In past commentary, I have made the point that in geologic history, more often than not, temperature increases preceded increases in CO2. And projected temperature increases associated with higher levels of CO2 are predicated on positive feedbacks from increased level of water vapor. Those increases have not taken place.

As soon as we get beyond the election, Congress needs to quickly act to define the boundaries of EPA’s authority. Proposed regulations and the prospect of even more to control greenhouse gases are increasing uncertainty is the business community at the worst of times. Concern over prospective tax increases and onerous regulations is a deterrent to capital investments that can help get the economy on a stronger growth path.

President Obama keeps using the analogy of a car in the ditch in talking about the challenge he has faced with the economy. When you are in a ditch or hole, the first thing you should do is quit digging. Letting EPA continue to issue greenhouse regulations is like digging with a steam shovel.

EPA’s regulatory approach will make energy more scarce and drive up the cost of using energy. That is simply the wrong road to take with unemployment is at historic levels, with families struggling to make ends meet, and with companies sitting on almost $2 trillion in cash because of uncertainty over fiscal and economic policies. Whatever the climate problem is or may be, it is a problem decades in the future. The sorry state of the economy is a serious problem right now. What is needed are policies that restore investor and consumer confidence in the future and approaches that focus on the role of technology, much of which has not been developed, in slowing the growth of greenhouse gases over time.

As most adults realize, the 40s and 50s are when you are in your prime. The same is true of the Clean Air Act. Never has the Act been more needed than now to combat the most dangerous set of air pollutants ever known in human history, i.e., global warming gases and associated particulate matter. With a benefit-cost ratio of 42-1, whatever inconvenience industry claims regarding the Clean Air Act -- and recall these are the same folks who complained about the Act at its birth -- is easily outweighed by the human health, natural ecosystem and climate change benefits of cleaner air.

Some definitional clarifications, however, are necessary with the question presented here. First, it is not “Republicans and moderate Democrats” who oppose Clean Air Act regulation. It is “legislators who receive significant industry funding” that oppose the Clean Air Act against the public interest (which doesn’t have a PAC). Second, protection under the existing statute should move ahead irrespective of whether Congress approves comprehensive climate legislation. The main reason the Kerry-Lieberman-Graham effort failed in the Senate was precisely because it gutted the Clean Air Act.

So let’s move ahead quickly and aggressively under the Clean Air Act. One of its central standards, “best available control technology” (BACT), is an eminently appropriate way to balance cleaning up our polluting ways in an economically feasible fashion. Corporate apologists cannot argue with a straight face that U.S. transportation requirements are too strong as both Japan and Europe easily outpace us in that regard. And, finally, all the doomsayers’ predictable complaints about the Environmental Protection Agency’s impact on jobs are from the old school fossil fuel camp that cannot or will not embrace a new economic boom based on renewable technologies and healthier living habits. Neville Chamberlain couldn’t appease fascist Germany and future generations cannot appease the coal and oil industries; they must be defeated head on or they will swallow us whole.

We make no apology for clamping down on harmful polluters, and neither should the Obama administration or Congress. Happy Birthday, Clean Air Act.