Clean Air Act

Question 1

How is the Clean Air Act counterproductive with regards to schedules for adoption of green technology?

Answer 1

“In the Clean Air Act, Congress did not specify a schedule for phasing in new pollution control technology—it simply required all new sources (or old sources making major modifications) to install the new pollution control technology. This created an incentive to continue to operate older, much dirtier sources far longer than initially anticipated and to try to disguise major modifications of those sources as routine maintenance activities that would not trigger new source review. ”