About the Campaign

The Environmental Protection Agency is undertaking a series of significant rulemakings to reduce harmful air pollution. This is part of a broad effort to help millions of Americans breathe easier, live healthier, protect the environment, and facilitate the country’s transition to cleaner, more efficient energy resources.

The three most significant rules to be implemented earliest are:

  • Clean Air Transport Rule (CATR): Focuses on sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide emissions from power plants in 31 targeted states in the East and Midwest.
  • Toxics Rule (Utility MACT): For the first time, sets limits on hazardous air pollutants such as mercury, arsenic, lead, dioxins and hydrochloric acid from coal- and oil-fired power plants.
  • Greenhouse Gas Standards (NSPS): EPA is considering greenhouse gas emissions standards for power plants and petroleum refineries.
Our partner companies support EPA’s ongoing efforts to protect the public health and environment with new clean air standards. Here’s why.

EPA’s Standards Reduce Health Costs and Provide Cleaner Air

  • A study authored by Charles J. Cicchetti, Ph.D, a Senior Advisor to Navigant Consulting, Inc. found that pollution from coal-fired power plants that have failed to install pollution controls is costing businesses in affected states nearly $6 billion annually – about $17 million per day – because of higher labor and insurance costs, lost work days, and lost productivity.
  • As older, pollution-emitting plants clean up, a more efficient generation of energy plants will be built, resulting in cleaner air and reduced health costs.

EPA Clean Air Standards Will Help – Not Hurt – The Economy

  • According to the EPA, the proposed Transport Rule would yield up to $290 billion in annual health and welfare benefits in 2014 alone, far outweighing the estimated $2.8 billion annual costs for compliance that same year.
  • A recent report by Ceres and the Political Economy Research Institute (PERI) found that investments driven by the EPA’s two new air quality pollution rules will create nearly 1.5 million jobs, or nearly 300,000 jobs a year on average in each of the next five years – and at a critical moment for a struggling economy.

EPA Clean Air Standards Promote a Healthier, Cleaner Environment

  • According to a recent report by the American Lung Association, Toxic Air: The Case for Cleaning Up Coal-fired Power Plants, coal-fired power plants produce more hazardous air pollution in the United States than any other industrial pollution sources. Currently, no national standards exist to limit these pollutants from these plants.
  • The relatively minor cost of clean air standards is far preferable to the price tag currently being paid by Americans with their health. The National Research Council estimates that environmental and health damages associated with coal plant emissions in 2005 were approximately $156 million on average per plant. Some of the most inefficient, uncontrolled coal plants represented damages as great as $666 million each annually.

EPA Clean Air Standards Will Clean Up the Most Polluting Power Plants

  • If these rules are successfully implemented, the nation’s heaviest-polluting power plants will face the choice of either installing the right environmental controls or retiring.
  • Many of the coal plants that are the most likely to retire are smaller (less than 250 megawatts), and old (40- to 60-year-old units) and nearing the end of their design life expectancy.