Air Quality Regulations and Fire

Emissions from prescribed fire are managed and regulated through an often-complex web of interrelated laws and regulations. The overarching law that is the foundation of air quality regulation across the nation is the Federal Clean Air Act (Public Law 95-95).

The Federal Clean Air Act

In 1955, Congress passed the first Federal Clean Air Act with later amendments in 1963, 1967, 1970, 1977, and 1990. The Clean Air Act is a legal mandate designed to protect public health and welfare from air pollution. States develop specific programs for implementing the goals of the Clean Air Act through their State Implementation Plans (SIP’s). States may develop programs that are more restrictive than the Clean Air Act requires but never less. Burners must know the specifics of state air programs and how fire emissions are regulated to responsibly conduct a prescribed fire program. 

The following summarizes the series of acts, amendments, and regulations that make up the Federal Clean Air Act (CAA):

• Federal Air Pollution Control Act of 1955 (PL84-159). Provides for research and technical assistance and authorizes the Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare to work toward a better understanding of the causes and effects of air pollution.
  
  
• Federal Clean Air Act of 1963 (PL 88-206).  Empowers the Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare to define air quality criteria based on scientific studies. Provides grants to state and local air pollution control agencies.
  
  
• Federal Air Quality Act of 1967 (PL 90-148).  Establishes a framework for defining "air quality control regions" based on meteorological and topographical factors of air pollution.
  
  
• Federal Clean Air Act Amendments of 1970 (PL 91-604).  Principal source of statutory authority for controlling air pollution. Establishes basic U.S. program for controlling air pollution.
  
  
• Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) promulgates national ambient air quality standards (NAAQS) for particulates, photochemical oxidants (including ozone), hydrocarbons, carbon monoxide, nitrogen dioxide, and sulfur dioxide (1971).
  
  
• Clean Air Act Amendments of 1977 (PL 95-95).  Sets the goal for visibility protection and improvement in Class I areas and assigns Federal land managers the affirmative responsibility to protect air quality related values.
  
  
• Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990 (PL 101-549).  Establishes authority for regulating regional haze and acknowledges the complexity of the relation between prescribed and wildland fires.
  
  
• Regional Haze Regulations, Final Rule (40CFR Part 51) (1999).  EPA promulgates the Regional Haze Rule supported in part by the 1998 Interim Air Quality Policy on Wildland and Prescribed Fires.
  

Roles and Responsibilities Under the Clean Air Act

States have the lead in carrying out provisions of the Clean Air Act because appropriate and effective design of pollution control programs requires an understanding of local industries, geography, transportation, meteorology, urban and industrial development patterns, and priorities. The EPA has the task of setting air quality standards (national ambient air quality standards, or NAAQS). In addition, EPA develops policy and technical guidance describing how various Clean Air Act programs should function and what they should accomplish. States develop State implementation plans (SIPs) that define and describe customized programs they will implement to meet requirements of the Clean Air Act. Tribal lands are legally equivalent to State lands, and Tribes prepare Tribal implementation plans (TIPs) to describe how they will implement the Clean Air Act. Individual States and Tribes can require more stringent air quality standards but cannot weaken clean air goals set by EPA.

Federal land managers have the complex role of managing a fire as a source of air pollutants, while fulfilling monitoring and regulatory responsibilities tied to visibility and regional haze. Federal land managers are given the responsibility by the Clean Air Act for reviewing prevention of significant deterioration (PSD) permits of major new and modified stationary pollution sources and commenting to the State on whether there is concern for visibility impacts (or other resource values) in Class I areas downwind of the proposed pollution source. Some States require modeling of source impacts on Class I areas, and Federal land managers customarily comment on the model results.

The 1990 Clean Air Act Amendments require planned Federal actions to conform to SIPs. This "general conformity rule" prohibits Federal agencies from taking any action within a nonattainment or maintenance area that (1) causes or contributes to a new violation of air quality standards, (2) increases the frequency or severity of an existing violation, or (3) delays the timely attainment of a standard as defined in the applicable SIP or area plan. The general conformity rule covers direct and indirect emissions of criteria pollutants, or their precursors, which are caused by a Federal action, are reasonably foreseeable, and can practicably be controlled by the Federal agency through its continuing program responsibility.

Collaboration Among Stakeholders

Because smoke from fire can negatively affect public health and welfare, air quality protection regulations must be understood and followed by responsible fire managers. Likewise, air quality regulators need an understanding of how and when fire use decisions are made and should become involved in fire and smoke management planning processes, including the assessment of when and how alternatives to fire will be used. Cooperation and collaboration between fire managers and air quality regulators is of great importance. Table 2-2 contains recommendations for various types of cooperation by these two groups depending on the applicable air quality protection instrument.

For supporting information related to the Clean Air Act, see:

• National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS)
• Prevention of Significant Deterioration (PSD) provisions and Air Quality Classes 
• Visibility, Regional Haze, and the Clean Air Act
• EPA Interim Air Quality Policy on Wildland and Prescribed Fires
• Hazardous Air Pollutants (HAPs)