On November 16, 1999, the EPA announced that the economic value of the public health and environmental benefits that Americans enjoy from the Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990 exceed their costs by a margin of four to one. The report projects that the amendments and their associated programs prevent thousands of premature deaths related to air pollution, and millions of asthma attacks as well as a wide range of additional human health and ecological effects. The report, “The Benefits and Costs of the Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990,”
Update 2004
On May 12, 2003, the EPA released its preliminary draft for a follow-up report of their 1999 Cost and Benefit study entitled, “Benefits and Costs of the Clean Air Act 1990 – 2020: Revised Analytical Plan For EPA’s Second Prospective Analysis”. The document was revised on July 8, 2003. This study will follow the same general analysis used in the 1999 study except that individual costs and benefits will be generated and separately compared for each major emitting source category as well as for the CAAA as a whole. The May 12 document and its July 8 revisions are available here.
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