Environmental Issues

Climatic changes and environmental population prevention have been a thorny issue in the American nation. It is due to the importance of safeguarding the future of the world and its habitants that the congress has enacted and strived to effectively enforce the Clean Air Act. However, big polluters of the air have claimed economic concerns of the act as it is seen as a major compromise of their profits (Patton, 2001). It is nevertheless to be noted that it is the sole purpose of a government to ensure the sustainable existence of its economy as well as its citizens. This is what makes the Clean Air Act a crucial tool for ensuring sustainable economy rebuilding with clean energy thus realizing both quality public health and a reliable climate across the globe (U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, 2009). This paper is written as an analysis of the clean air act and it various amendments. The author also gives personal suggestions for future amendments.
The Clean Air Act seeks to prevent air pollution as well as its control through reduction or elimination of pollutants at the source (U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, 2008). The act also seeks to reduce environmental population. All these core concerns of the Clean Air Act are defined through a set of various measures defined by the act. The first is to employ all suitable measures to ensure the protection and enhancement of quality of air resources (U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, 2009). This are made to ensure sustainable promotion of public health and thus realizing reliable productivity capacity of the human community.

The second measure is the provision by the act to engage the government and its stakeholders to invest substantially in research and development programs which seek to find lasting solution to the problem of air pollution in the nation (Patton, 2001). The federal, state and local government is also dictated by the provisions of the act to provide technical and adequate financial assistance for the execution of air pollution and control programs (Patton, 200). It is to be clearly stated here that the Clean Air Act dictates for all industries to comply with its clean air and environmental pollution assurance provisions. This is because the Environmental Protection Agency has the constitutional authority to enforce the clean air act laws.

It is however to be clearly understood that the effectiveness of implementing the Clean Air Act has been marked with many challenges. It has been rightly claimed by many in the society that the Environmental Protection Agency has less legal and political influence in executing its duties. This is mainly because of the political influence that the big polluters have in the effective implementation of the laws. It is to be noted here that the ultimate intend of any investor is to maximize profits (Patton, 2001). This makes the question of environmental pollution of less concern by most of the investors. In fact this is also evidently found in the willingness of many nations to sign the global warming reduction agreements. It is indeed due to such political compromising of the laws that there have the Murkowski Amendment is in the process of been debated in the senate. This amendment will evidently compromise the efforts of the Environmental Protection Agency. It is also to be stated that the full implementation of the Clean Air Act provisions has never been realized simply because of the attacks of the big polluters and their political allies in the government (U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, 22010). It is thus clear that despite the many efforts by the Environmental Protection Agencies to realize clean air for the population, less success has been achieved.

The future of the human community is greatly dependent on the sustainable safety of the environment. The question of air pollution and global warming as well as climate change is a key factor to be addressed by the Clean Air Act (Patton, 2001). There is therefore need for a much consulted move to amend the clean air act to reflect the required independence of the Environmental Protection Agency in executing the law. The first suggestion is that the future amendment should giver more powers to the Environmental Protect Agencies to execute all its provisions. It has been evidently established that the Clean Air Act has many provisions which have long been ignored. This has been closely attributed to the lack of a reliable political will in executing the act. Another suggestion is that the future amendment should dictate for increased government involvement in ensuring financial and technical assistance to the development and execution of environment friendly programs. Such could not only lead to reliable air pollution prevention and control but also ensure the realization of environmental friendly production procedures at relatively maintained profitability by organizations.

In conclusion, the Clean Air Act and its various amendments is a crucial tool in realizing sustainable public health in the American society. It is however clear that most of the provisions of the act have been ignored particularly due to political and big polluters influence. This is why the author of this paper suggests the increased power and political independence of the Environmental Protection Agency in any future amendments of the Clean Air Act.