Clean Air Act
Major U.S. federal law (1970 and amendments) empowering the EPA to set air-quality standards and regulate pollution sources—central to environmental economics and cost-benefit debates.
The act blends technology standards, permitting, and market mechanisms such as emissions trading in some programs. Implementing rules triggered huge litigation and benefit-cost studies on lives saved versus compliance costs.
Its history shows how economists moved from the margins into quantifying regulatory impacts that courts and Congress would fight over.
Related ideas
Air-quality rulemaking sits in the same ecosystem as broader environmental standards, product safety debates, and quantitative benefit–cost practice—threads pulled together on the regulation topics linked below.