HKS Affiliated Authors

Excerpt

Policy Evolution under the Clean Air Act. Robert Stavins, November 20, 2018, Paper, "Nearly half a century has elapsed since 1970, when the first Earth Day was celebrated, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) was established, and the U.S. Clean Air Act (CAA) was passed with essentially unanimous bipartisan support.2 It was not the first Federal law to deal with air pollution – that was the Air Pollution Control Act of 1955 – and it was technically only an amendment to the original Clean Air Act of 1963 (Stern 1982). But it was the first environmental law to give the Federal government a serious regulatory role. The 1970 Act established the basic architecture of the U.S. air pollution control system and became a model for many subsequent environmental laws in the United States and abroad." Link