Transboundary Air Pollution and the Clean Air Act: An Historical Perspective

Abstract

Transboundary Air Pollution (TAP) has been a continuing problem that neither the courts nor the Congress have been able to effectively address. TAP problems raise not only political and jurisdictional issues, but also highly controversial scientific and technical decisions. The added degree of uncertainty regarding the inability of science to come up with the “smoking gun” in most TAP controversies as well as the many different contexts in which TAP problems can arise only serves to further complicate the problem. Professor Kramer provides a historical perspective on the TAP problem and traces the judicial and legislative attempts to deal with the TAP issue. This article culminates in the 1982-1983 Clean Air Amendments, which were designed specifically to deal with the TAP problem in a more efficacious manner.