CLEAR Act

This legislation proposes significant amendments to the Clean Air Act, aiming to provide states with increased flexibility and extended timelines for achieving national ambient air quality standards (NAAQS). It extends the review cycle for NAAQS from five to ten years, reducing the frequency of updates. Additionally, the bill permits the Administrator to consider the likely attainability of a standard as a secondary factor when establishing or revising it, provided public health is adequately protected. The bill offers states more time to address deficiencies in their implementation plans, granting at least one year before the Environmental Protection Agency can promulgate a Federal Implementation Plan. For ozone and particulate matter nonattainment areas, it introduces the consideration of economic feasibility alongside technological achievability for certain control measures and removes the requirement for contingency measures in Extreme Ozone Nonattainment Areas. Furthermore, the Act broadens the definition of "exceptional events" to include actions taken to mitigate wildfire risk and other human activities unlikely to recur, while explicitly excluding routine air stagnation. Crucially, it protects states from federal sanctions or fees for non-attainment if they can demonstrate that the failure was due to emissions beyond their control, such as those from outside the nonattainment area, exceptional events, or certain mobile sources. Finally, the bill revises the composition of the Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee and mandates that it assess potential adverse public health, welfare, social, economic, or energy effects of various attainment strategies before NAAQS are established or revised.