Save the Clean Air Act: Dozens of Editorials

Joe Mendelson | Last Updated: January 8, 2016

Newspapers from every corner of the nation are calling on Congress to keep their hands off of the Clean Air Act. The bipartisan 40-year old legislation enjoys broad support in public polls but that hasn’t held back polluters from demanding votes to gut the bill or attach poison pill riders to the budget.

Below is a list of editorials we have found from this year. It’s long and growing every day. Congress: are you listening?

Toledo Blade: Clearing the Air
The Clean Air Act has been a godsend to this country. The EPA has shown that job growth and a clean environment are not mutually exclusive, but rather are goals that work in tandem. The Senate should vote to allow Ohioans— and all other Americans — to breathe easier.

Detroit Free Press: EPA suffering while feds sit on budget
As ill-conceived as some of the cuts Republicans are insisting on in the current federal budget, the damage they do to the environment could turn out to be worse.

Washington Post: Former GOP EPA Chiefs William D. Ruckelshaus; and Christine Todd Whitman: Undoing 40 years of green gains?
It has taken four decades to put in place the infrastructure to ensure that pollution is controlled through limitations on corporate, municipal and individual conduct. The American public will not long stand for an end to regulations that have protected their health and quality of life.

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette: Pollution Pinata: Budget cutting becomes an excuse for EPA attacks
But for a sense of spending cuts made solely for political sake, nothing quite beats the attack on the environment in this spending bill. The Clean Air Act and the Clean Water Act were assaulted repeatedly. Much of it took the form of stripping the Environmental Protection Agency of its enforcement powers to protect the health and well-being of the American people. The range and destructiveness of these assaults were breathtaking.

Chicago Sun-Times: Kirk should back greenhouse gas regulations
Prospects for meaningful progress on climate change are little to none in the current Congress, where Republicans seem more focused on deconstructing the EPA. Stripping the agency of its regulatory power over greenhouse gases would take away our only tool against a significant and worsening threat.

The New York Times: Long-Delayed Rules for Clean Air

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette: Stand firm, Sen. Casey: No good compromise can be made on clean air

Philadelphia Inquirer: No way to run the government

Centre-Daily Times: EPA needs funding to do vital job

Albany Times Union: GOP should leave the EPA alone

Asheville Citizen-Times: Editorial: EPA suffering while feds sit on budget

Tennessean: EPA pursuit of cleaner air is under attack

Charlotte-Observer: GOP plans weaken environmental agency

NJ Star Ledger: EPA chief must push back against the fossil fuel caucus

The Roanoke Times: At long last, cleaner air

Lexington Herald Leader: Cleaning our air is worth the cost

Albany Times Union: An assault on the environment

American Medical News: Confronting health issues of climate change

New York Times: The Dirty Energy Party

Albany Times Union: An Assault on the Environment