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Air Quality Regulations

Clean Air Act

Under the Clean Air Act, EPA sets limits on how much of a pollutant can be in the air anywhere in the United States. This ensures that all Americans have the same basic health and environmental protections. The law allows individual states to have stronger pollution controls, but states are not allowed to have weaker pollution controls than those set for the whole country.

The law recognizes that it makes sense for states to take the lead in carrying out the Clean Air Act, because pollution control problems often require special understanding of local industries, geography, housing patterns, etc.

Federal Register Notices

Published by the Office of the Federal Register, National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), the Federal Register is the official daily publication for rules, proposed rules, and notices of Federal agencies and organizations, as well as executive orders and other presidential documents.

National Regulations

EPA develops national regulations which must be met by industries in order to ensure clean air for the general public.

State Regulations

EPA approves those state regulations that have been formally submitted as State Implementation Plan (SIP) revisions and which the Agency determines meet the requirements of the Clean Air Act. It is possible that SIPs do not in all cases match current state regulations. This may occur, for example, when the state has modified a regulation in the federally approved SIP but has not submitted the changed regulation to EPA. Most states have their own regulations available on their Web sites, which you can consult if you wish to examine the current state regulations.

The text of state enforceable regulations is available at the links provided below. In most cases, these regulations have been approved by EPA and are part of the SIP. Since these links are not maintained by EPA, we cannot ensure the accuracy of their content. As stated previously, state or local agencies are implementing some rules or versions of rules that may not be listed in EPA's tables of approved regulations. This occurs when there is a delay in rules and rule amendments being submitted for and/or approved by EPA.

In addition, states may have rules pertaining to air pollution concerns that are typically not regulated by the federal government and consequently are not and will not be included in the federally approved SIP. Examples of this include odor and nuisance rules.

 

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