EPA, Clean Air Act, and U.S. Manufacturing

This WRI fact sheet argues that EPA regulations of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions under the Clean Air Act (CAA) will likely drive energy efficiency investments and improve the competitiveness of U.S. manufacturers rather than harming them. It contends that the costs of environmental compliance are relatively low compared to other business expenses and that the initial rollout of GHG rules will affect only a small fraction of facilities.

• Pending Clean Air Act regulations for greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions are designed to be implemented gradually. Starting in 2011, requirements will only apply to new facilities or those undergoing major modifications, affecting fewer than 15% of all large stationary sources each year. Regulations for existing facilities are not expected to take effect until 2016 or later.
• New GHG regulations are expected to encourage the adoption of energy-efficient technologies, which can lead to significant cost savings. Across various manufacturing processes, the use of current best practices could achieve energy savings of up to 40%. Specifically, the oil refining and flat glass manufacturing sectors could reduce total energy usage by 38% and 28%, respectively.
• For the vast majority of U.S. manufacturers, the cost of environmental compliance is a very small portion of their total value of product shipments. For more than 82% of surveyed sectors, these costs are less than 1%. Even for the 10 sectors with the highest pollution abatement costs, the average cost is roughly 3% of the sector's value of product shipments.
• Environmental compliance costs have a smaller impact on international trade flows and industrial competitiveness than other economic variables. Historically, fluctuations in natural gas market prices and currency exchange rates with trading partners have caused greater costs and investment uncertainties for manufacturers.
• Because commercial-scale retrofit technologies for capturing and storing carbon emissions are not yet available, the Best Available Control Technologies (BACT) standards required for new or modified facilities will likely focus on requiring off-the-shelf energy-efficient equipment, such as boilers.

APA

World Resources Institute (2010). EPA, Clean Air Act, and U.S. Manufacturing. http://pdf.wri.org/factsheets/factsheet_epa_clean_air_act_us_manufacturing.pdf

Chicago

World Resources Institute. EPA, Clean Air Act, and U.S. Manufacturing. 2010. http://pdf.wri.org/factsheets/factsheet_epa_clean_air_act_us_manufacturing.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |author=World Resources Institute |title=EPA, Clean Air Act, and U.S. Manufacturing |date=1 November 2010 |url=http://pdf.wri.org/factsheets/factsheet_epa_clean_air_act_us_manufacturing.pdf |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{worldresourcesinstitute2010epa, author = {{World Resources Institute}}, title = {{EPA, Clean Air Act, and U.S. Manufacturing}}, institution = {World Resources Institute}, year = {2010}, month = nov, url = {http://pdf.wri.org/factsheets/factsheet_epa_clean_air_act_us_manufacturing.pdf}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }