IT will no doubt come as a surprise to many Americans and to a lot of other people that the USA once led the world in tackling pollution. The current president seems only too keen for his country to take a back seat in tackling environmental damage, but 50 years ago today his predecessor President Lyndon Baines Johnson signed the Air Quality Act, which for the first time gave the federal government the power to insist that all 50 states take action to control air pollution in particular.

AMERICA WAS THE LEADER?
THE US was one of the first countries in the world to realise that pollution of the air was a real source of illness and disease.

As early as 1955 the Federal Department of Health, Education and Welfare had been given powers under pioneering legislation to conduct an air pollution programme across the country. The first thing the department did was to conduct a study into the extent and seriousness of the problem and the effect air pollution was having on human health. Air pollution was disastrous, they found. More studies followed and by the early 1960s, US politicians were convinced that air pollution presented a huge threat to the health of the American people.

In the words of one government leaflet issued at the time of the 1967 act, “study after study demonstrated that our air pollution problem is a serious threat to human health and the national welfare and is an important factor in the occurrence and worsening of chronic respiratory diseases as well as a cause of widespread economic losses.”

The Clean Air Act of 1963 – again a world-leading piece of legislation – was piloted by President John F Kennedy, though sadly he did not live to see the act become law in December of that year.

That act was one of the founding elements of modern environment-alism and was followed in 1965 by the Motor Vehicle Pollution Control Act which, despite intensive lobbying by the big American manufacturers, told them that by 1968 all new vehicles would need to meet strict federal regulations on pollutants.

WHAT DID THE 1967 ACT DO?
THE Air Quality Act was the first piece of American law to give the federal government real teeth in tackling air pollution.

For the first time it looked at inter-state pollution, including that caused by aircraft, and brought in a whole range of measures which, with hindsight, were positively revolutionary.

The act allowed for expansion of the federal government’s air pollution research and develop-ment activities; the continuation of grants to states and communities to assist them in their efforts; financial aid for planning activities in interstate air quality control regions; retention of authority for federal action to abate interstate air pollution problems, and, on request from states, intrastate problems.

The Secretary for Health Education and Welfare was given the right to obtain court orders to curtail pollution during emergencies.

The act also allowed the awarding of grants to states to assist them in developing programmes for inspection of motor vehicle pollution-control systems. It also created a 15-member Presidential Air Quality Advisory Board and established advisory groups to assist the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare.

The act legislated for the registration of fuel additives and commissioned a nationwide study of the need for national emission standards for stationary sources of air pollution – factories, mainly.

The new law also meant that for the first time anywhere, there would be a study of the feasibility of controlling pollution from jet and conventional aircraft.

The act also brought in comprehensive economic studies of the cost of controlling air pollution and commissioned an investigation of manpower and training needs in the air pollution field.

In short, this new law represented the first attempt by any national government to seriously tackle the problem of air pollution on a vast scale. No wonder other industrialised countries looked with envy and considerable admiration at the US. For his part, LBJ thought it one of the best achievements of his presidency.

IT LED TO THE CLEAN AIR ACT OF 1970?
INDEED it did. That act signed by President Richard Nixon began the Environmental Protection Agency, which has led the US’s fight against pollution ever since, albeit hampered at times.

It also brought in the right of citizens to sue companies over pollution.

Many Americans are very proud of the country’s record on environmentalism and tackling pollution, which the Air Quality Act of 1967 made possible.

That is why it is a mystery that Donald Trump has sided with the polluters such as fracking companies. He also pledged to eliminate the Environmental Protection Agency and has already cut its budget and ordered the suppression of the words “climate change”.

It’s proof that the POTUS doesn’t even know his own country’s history. If he wants to make America great again, he should invest in, and not detract from, something in which the US truly did lead the world.