Escaping the regulatory dust bowl: fugitive dust and the Clean Air Act
The Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA's) regulatory program, as it relates to particulates, is overly complicated. In attempting to accommodate statutory language insensitive to particulate differences, after becoming aware of the varying effects of different-sized particles, EPA has developed an unworkable program. Although agricultural, recreational, transportation, and industrial activities contribute to the airborne dust (or, in the Clean Air Act vernacular, fugitive dust), this article focuses on mining activities. Surface mining inevitably stirs up considerable fugitive dust, and a description of mining activities in arid conditions, and how they fit in with a developing regulatory program, reveals a story of a national program that fails to provide for rational policy and regional flexibility. The article also recommends some regulatory and statutory solutions that could relatively easily correct EPA's fugitive dust program.
- OSTI ID:
- 5333547
- Journal Information:
- Nat. Resour. Lawyer; (United States), Vol. 14:3
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
Similar Records
Fugitive dust at the Paraho oil shale demonstration retort and mine. Final report, Aug-Nov 1977
Evaluation of fugitive dust emissions from mining. Report on task 1 and 2
Related Subjects
POLICY AND ECONOMY
54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES
ARID LANDS
DUSTS
CLEAN AIR ACT
PARTICULATES
AIR POLLUTION CONTROL
HEALTH HAZARDS
PARTICLE SIZE
CONTROL
HAZARDS
LAWS
PARTICLES
POLLUTION CONTROL
POLLUTION LAWS
SIZE
290300* - Energy Planning & Policy- Environment
Health
& Safety
500600 - Environment
Atmospheric- Regulations- (-1989)