The Skinny

See also background & facts, pro & con, links

What's Up

Clear Skies was introduced in Congress in 2003 as the latest update to the Clean Air Act, the decades-old federal law for regulating air pollution. The new act would remove complex regulations in the law and instead encourage industry to curb pollution through caps and market-driven incentives. Opponents claim Clear Skies would weaken the long-established goals of the Clean Air Act and push its timelines farther into the future. Although Clear Skies was batted around committees in 2004 and 2005, it ultimately languished.

Now, with Democrats at the healm on Capitol Hill, congressional leaders are likely to take an entirely different tack on pollution regulation - so Clear Skies may have seen its final sunset.

Facts

Everyone likes clean air, but not everyone agrees on how hard the federal government should push for - or enforce - regulations to keep it clean. Environmentalists, it goes without saying, lean toward strict rules and strict enforcement. Those who argue for laxer rules say a lot can be achieved by giving industry leaders flexibility to clean up their act and incentives to find new innovations. We don't go into the pros and cons of clear air regs here – see our issue guide on the Clear Skies Act – we instead offer a picture of the current state of air pollution, how far we've come in cleaning it up, and where some say we need to go.

Air pollution comes in many varieties: mercury emissions, acid rain, emissions that damage the ozone, and plain old smog. We thought we'd make your – and yes, our - life easier by starting off with the six pollutants the EPA puts at the top of their list.

After the Six Principal Pollutants, we offer more background info on some of the problems they've been known to cause - including smog, acid rain - as well as the basics on the Ozone Layer.