Clean Air News

As the new home of NCPIRG's environmental work, Environment North Carolina can be contacted with any questions regarding this news release. 

RALEIGH—A new report by North Carolina Public Interest Research Group (NCPIRG) shows that the right to adopt state-level air quality standards has been essential in bringing healthy air to North Carolina.

Today, NCPIRG released "Power to Protect," a new report that examines the critical role that states have played in reducing air pollution from cars, trucks, and other mobile sources of pollution. The report also reviews efforts by the oil, auto, diesel, and trucking industries to win federal preemption of these state initiatives, which are more threatened than ever before.

In 1970 Congress passed the Federal Clean Air Act, which determined that air pollution prevention and control “is the primary responsibility of States and local governments.” The law allows individual states to pass stronger, but not weaker, pollution controls than those set for the whole country. Due to the enormity of their air pollution problems, the Clean Air Act also allowed California to issue its own automotive emission standards. Additionally, under section 177 of the Clean Air Act, states other than California, including North Carolina, are allowed to adopt California’s stronger motor vehicle standards.

The new report highlights that in 1999 more than 300 North Carolinians died prematurely due to pollution caused by diesel engines. Since then, Peterson notes, North Carolina has adopted two provisions to clean up diesel pollution in the state. “These critical protections could not have happened if states were barred from doing what it takes to clean up their air,” said Peterson.

Environmental and public health advocates across the state and around the country are concerned because there is a movement pending to rollback states’ rights to enforce clean air standards that go beyond federal regulations. Automakers, engine manufacturers, oil companies, and other industry groups have long challenged the right of states to adopt stronger emission standards. In September 2003, with the help of Missouri Senator Christopher Bond, industry was successful in weakening this authority for the first time in the Clean Air Act's 35-year history. The law now prohibits states from opting in to California's more protective emission standards for small and mid-sized spark-ignition engines, such as those used in lawn and garden equipment, forklifts, and recreational boats.

Other industries are eager for similar victories, and industry groups have said next they will try to eliminate states' mobile source authority altogether. As a result of a Congressional directive, the National Academy of Sciences is reviewing the effects of state emission standards for mobile sources, and industry may attempt to use the NAS report, due out this fall, to erode states' authority to exceed federal emission standards.

These efforts to limit states' rights threaten to weaken the federal-state partnership that has helped reduce air pollution from mobile sources for the last three decades. The Clean Air Act sets federal air quality standards but requires the states to do much of the work to implement them. Giving states the right to go above and beyond federal emission standards—without hitting an artificial ceiling—is essential for many areas to protect public health and the environment and attain the Clean Air Act's goals.

“We urge federal lawmakers to maintain the integrity of the Clean Air Act and preserve our state’s right to protect public health,” concluded Peterson.