Clean Air and Water Reports
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Executive Summary
In 1970, Congress passed the Clean Air Act. This landmark legislation prevented individual states from regulating automobile emissions. However, the state of California, which had long suffered from abysmal air quality, was allowed to adopt tougher emission standards. In 1977, with many cities and counties facing growing smog problems, Congress allowed other states to adopt California standards. The opportunity to adopt more stringent standards rather than sticking with the weaker national standards has been appealing to many states. To date, seven other states have adopted California’s more rigorous vehicle emission standards. These states—Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey, Rhode Island, Connecticut, Maine and Vermont—now represent 26% of the automobile market. The LEV II standards do two things: 1. Standards for fleet average emissions for each automakers’ cars are slightly higher than federal standards. 2. A percentage of each automaker’s new cars sold must be low-emission vehicles.
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