As Funding Falls Short of Demand, Air Quality Planning Deemed Critical

Recent Supreme Court decisions on the environment aside, the ambient air quality in the U.S. has improved since the 1970s with the passage of the Clean Air Act (Pub. L. 95-95). (Thompson Grants provides a discussion on the Clean Air Act's impact on grant programs in ¶533 of the Federal Grants Management Module.) However, officials with the Government Accountability Office (GAO) recently testified before the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works that grant funding to monitor clean air quality does not meet needed levels. Therefore, in response to a GAO recommendation in 2020, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has been strategically planning how it uses its resources going forward.

EPA, along with state and local agencies, cooperatively manage the national ambient air quality monitoring system. EPA provides Clean Air Act grants to state and local agencies for a range of air quality management activities, including monitoring. However, as GAO reported in November 2020, EPA and state and local agencies are facing challenges in sustaining the monitoring system due to decreased funding and increasing demands on resources. From 2004 to 2019, federal funding for state and local monitoring programs declined by nearly 20% after adjusting for inflation, and state and local funding for these programs also generally declined.

Noting this growing lack of resources, GAO urged EPA, along with state and local agencies, to develop, and implement an asset management framework for consistently sustaining the national ambient air quality monitoring system, which includes identifying the resources needed to sustain the monitoring system, using quality data to manage infrastructure risks, and targeting resources toward assets that provide the greatest value. It also urged EPA to develop an air quality monitoring modernization plan to better meet the additional information needs of air quality managers, researchers and the public.

Since issuing the November 2020 report, EPA has been working with state and local partners on plans for asset management framework and air quality monitoring modernization plan, adding that such a plan “would help position EPA to protect public health as future air quality issues emerge.”

The Hollies had a hit song in the 1970s called “The Air That I Breath.” Let’s hope that through effective planning, that air can continue to be breathable.

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