This website uses cookies.

By clicking the "Accept" button or continuing to browse our site, you agree to first-party and session-only cookies being stored on your device to enhance site navigation and analyze site performance and traffic. For more information on our use of cookies, please see our Privacy Policy.

  1. Home
  2. Journals
  3. Journal of Economic Perspectives
  4. Fall 1990
  5. Policy Watch: Economics and the Clean Air Act

Journal of Economic Perspectives

ISSN 0895-3309 (Print) | ISSN 1944-7965 (Online)

Policy Watch: Economics and the Clean Air Act

  • Paul R. Portney
Journal of Economic Perspectives
vol. 4, no. 4, Fall 1990
(pp. 173–181)
Download Full Text PDF
(Complimentary)

Abstract

The Clean Air Act, arguably the nation's most important environmental statute, is sure to be amended by the 101st Congress. In neither its current nor its likely new form does the Act feature much of a role for economic considerations. In fact, one approach that many economists would presumably favor̬the balancing of benefits and costs in setting air quality or source discharge standards—has been found by courts to be inconsistent with the law (Lead Industries Association v. EPA, 1980). Here I describe the likely changes in the Clean Air Act and what is known (and, more often, not known) about their associated costs and benefits, and identify respects in which air quality regulation could be improved from an economic perspective.

Citation

Portney, Paul R. 1990. "Policy Watch: Economics and the Clean Air Act." Journal of Economic Perspectives 4 (4): 173–181. DOI: 10.1257/jep.4.4.173