The Clean Air Act and The National Environmental Policy Act

Dr. Vijayarengam Gajapathy

Abstract

The Clean Air Act is the fundamental statute that governs environmental policy in the United States. This statute has undergone numerous revisions since its inception in the 1950s with the US Public Health Service PHS examination of the Donora, Pennsylvania, areas air pollution occurrence. This study discovered that air pollutants from industrial sources become especially unpleasant during a cold air inversion, resulting in several dozen deaths directly attributable to air pollution. The PHS investigators in the United States linked mortality to air pollution both chronologically and etiologically, because the majority were cardiopulmonary deaths among the elderly. The initial air pollution laws primarily sponsored research for health studies, but these were eventually replaced by federal regulatory initiatives that included a distinct type of federalism in which states were required to carry out federal requirements in a somewhat cooperative manner. The ability to regulate interstate trade provided the federal government with its constitutional mandate, which has been routinely upheld in court following industry appeal