Policy Evolution under the Clean Air Act

Richard Schmalensee and Robert N. Stavins

Chapter 10 in Economics of Environment, Climate Change, and Wine:Selected Papers of Robert N Stavins, Volume 3 (2011–2023), 2025, pp 267-298 from World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd.

Abstract: Nearly half a century has elapsed since 1970, when the first Earth Day was celebrated, the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) was established, and the US Clean Air Act passed with unanimous bipartisan support in the Senate and only a single negative vote in the House of Representatives. 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 the 1970 Clean Air Act established the basic architecture of the US air pollution control system, it was the first environmental law to give the federal government a serious regulatory role, and it became a model for many subsequent environmental laws in the United States and abroad. In this chapter, we describe the evolution of air pollution control policy under this legislation with particular attention to the types of policy instruments used…

Keywords: Climate Change Economics; Climate Change Policy; Wine Economics; Environmental Economics; Energy Economics; Natural Resource Economics; Energy-Efficiency Gap; Climate Negotiators; Carbon Pricing; Carbon Pricing Policy; Greenhouse; SO2 Allowance Trading System; Clean Air Act; Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change; Durban Climate Talks; The Paris Agreement; Terroir (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q5 Q54 Q56 Q58 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
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