{"id":17260,"date":"2017-06-26T17:14:05","date_gmt":"2017-06-26T22:14:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/climate411\/?p=17260"},"modified":"2018-04-09T16:03:30","modified_gmt":"2018-04-09T21:03:30","slug":"cleaning-the-air-saves-lives-and-creates-an-engine-for-job-growth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/climate411\/2017\/06\/26\/cleaning-the-air-saves-lives-and-creates-an-engine-for-job-growth\/","title":{"rendered":"Cleaning the air saves lives and creates an engine for job growth"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Clean Air Act has a long, well-documented history of reducing pollution, and thus improving \u2013 and often even saving \u2013 lives in America.<\/p>\n

This bedrock law represents one of the greatest environmental and health success stories in the world. Gross Domestic Product in the U.S. has grown 246 percent over the life of the Clean Air Act<\/a> while at the same time pollutants have been reduced 71 percent.<\/p>\n

The Clean Air Act has led to enormous innovation in technology<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Clean Air Act has helped launch innovation in technologies that reduce pollution \u2013technologies which in many cases can be exported around the world.<\/p>\n

We know from previous experience with standards we adopted to reduce sulfur dioxide emissions from power plants in 1971 and 1979 that pollution standards can reduce emissions substantially, and that the more the technology is deployed to meet the standards the more costs go down. The Clean Air Act helped create a market demand for various pollution control technologies by creating standards for pollutants, including for sulfur dioxide.\u00a0(Read more from technology experts who filed a legal brief<\/a> in support of carbon standards for power plants)<\/p>\n

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Source: The Effect of Government Actions on Technological Innovation for SO2 Control. The EPA\/DOE\/EPRI Mega Symposium, August 20-23, 2001.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

America\u2019s homegrown environmental protection industry <\/strong><\/p>\n

The U.S. is the single largest producer<\/a> of environmental technologies in the world, capturing 29 percent of the world\u2019s $1.05 trillion market.<\/p>\n

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In 2015, there were an <\/strong>estimated 1.73 million jobs<\/a> in the U.S. environmental industry, with projected growth of 3 to 4 percent over the next several years. <\/strong><\/p>\n

According to the U.S. government, 99 percent<\/a> of the businesses in this industry were small to medium-sized. U.S. environmental companies exported<\/a> about $48 billion in goods in 2013. At the same time, 2005 data from U.S. manufacturers indicate that their expenses for reducing pollution account for less than one percent<\/a> of the value of the goods they ship.<\/p>\n

Environmental protection standards can drive jobs in a myriad of sectors including manufacturing, engineering, construction, operations, and more.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Some examples of jobs and industries created by specific EPA clean air protections include:<\/p>\n