In Defense of Clean Air

When the current Bush administration took office in 2000, our natural resources were placed on the auction block, and the landmark laws designed to protect them came under attack. Over the course of six years, NRDC attorneys filed five lawsuits against the Environmental Protection Agency that, taken together, aimed to uphold the Clean Air Act's toxic air pollution regulations. In each instance, a different industry stood to benefit from lax regulation: plywood manufacturers, incinerator operators, chemical manufacturers, industrial boiler operators, and industrial solvent users (including, for example, auto body shops).

Now, after years of legal legwork, the cases are finally being heard by the courts. This summer, in the first of this series of lawsuits, the circuit court in Washington, D.C., ruled against the EPA and its attempts to exempt plywood manufacturers from installing pollution control technology that prevents the release of particularly noxious compounds such as formaldehyde, acetaldehyde, and phenol. These are known to cause various forms of cancer including leukemia, liver and kidney damage, and birth defects. The message: Attempts to write industry loopholes into the Clean Air Act will not be sanctioned.