The CLEAR Act amends the Clean Air Act to extend the review cadence for national ambient air quality standards (NAAQS) from five years to ten years and to give states greater latitude in implementing those standards. It also introduces a new framework that considers attainability as a secondary factor in setting and revising standards, and it creates a one-year window for states to correct deficiencies before the Federal implementation plan process begins.
The bill expands plan requirements for ozone nonattainment areas, adjusts milestones, and adds mechanisms to address exceptional events and wildfire risk, while creating a new regime for sanctions and fees when states are unable to attain standards due to factors outside their control. Finally, it broadens advisory oversight and requires transparency in petition processes and regional analyses when multiple states are involved.
At a Glance
What It Does
The bill retools the Sanitation of NAAQS review by extending the review interval to ten years, adds a secondary attainability criterion to standard-setting, and requires a one-year window for states to fix deficiencies before the federal plan kicks in. It also expands ozone nonattainment planning rules, introduces new definitions for exceptional events and wildfire risk actions, and creates a new framework limiting sanctions/fees under certain external circumstances.
Who It Affects
State environmental agencies, EPA regions, local air quality districts, and industries in ozone or PM nonattainment areas. It also affects states seeking to avoid federal plans and regions facing wildfire risks that impact air quality.
Why It Matters
These changes shift more planning control to states, allow more time to achieve attainment with feasibility considerations, and strengthen accountability and transparency around petitions and regional analyses—critical for compliance teams and policymakers mapping SIP timelines.
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What This Bill Actually Does
The CLEAR Act makes substantive changes to how the United States approaches national ambient air quality standards (NAAQS). Section 2 reforms the state-federal dynamic by lengthening the mandatory review interval for NAAQS from five to ten years, and by inserting a new secondary factor—attainability—into standard-setting decisions when the Administrator, in consultation with an independent scientific panel, assesses what levels are enforceable and protective.
Congress also bars federal plans from being promulgated more quickly than a state can prepare and submit a corrective SIP revision; the state must be given at least one year to address deficiencies before a Federal Implementation Plan (FIP) is considered, with a potential extension of up to three years to finalize a federal plan if needed. These provisions collectively increase state discretion, while preserving federal oversight and ensuring that health protections are not delayed without cause.
A separate suite of changes broadens ozone nonattainment planning. The bill modifies sections governing plan submissions to include economic feasibility alongside technological achievability, relaxes certain reduction requirements, and rearranges milestones to give jurisdictions more flexibility in meeting air quality goals.
The act also introduces new rules for handling exceptional events and actions to mitigate wildfire risk, including regional modeling requirements when multiple states petition for the same event and a public transparency portal that tracks petitions and analyses.Section 3 creates a new regime around emissions beyond control. It defines exceptional events and actions to mitigate wildfire risk and adds a mechanism to exclude these from standard attainment calculations under certain conditions.
It also clarifies that regional analyses should be used to resolve multi-state petitions and keeps a public-facing update schedule to ensure accountability. Finally, Section 4 expands the Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee to include more state representation and geographic diversity, and it requires the committee to assess potential adverse effects of various attainment strategies before standards are set or revised.
These provisions aim to balance health protections with practical feasibility and regional realities.
The Five Things You Need to Know
The bill extends NAAQS review intervals from five to ten years.
Attainability becomes a secondary consideration in setting revisions of primary standards.
States must be given at least one year to correct SIP deficiencies before a Federal Implementation Plan can be promulgated.
A new regime addresses exceptional events and wildfire-risk actions, with regional analysis when multiple states pursue the same event.
The Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee expands to include more state voices and regional diversity.
Section-by-Section Breakdown
Every bill we cover gets an analysis of its key sections.
Short Title
Cites the act as the Clean Air and Economic Advancement Reform Act (the CLEAR Act). The short title clarifies the bill’s overall purpose: to adjust processes for implementing national air quality standards and to broaden state involvement in SIP development.
Facilitating State Implementation of NAAQS
This section recalibrates how states interact with federal standards. It replaces the five-year review cadence with a ten-year interval for NAAQS assessment, and it adds a secondary criterion—attainability—so the Administrator may weigh whether a standard is feasible to achieve in practice. It also removes the automatic “at any time” window for SIP corrections, replacing it with a required one-year period for states to correct deficiencies before federal plans are promulgated; in some cases, the Administrator may grant up to a three-year extension to implement a federal plan. The section also tweaks ozone nonattainment planning by incorporating economic feasibility into plan submissions and trims old reduction thresholds to reflect feasibility expectations, while allowing for revised milestones to reflect practical implementation timelines.
Emissions Beyond Control
This section broadens the definitions around exceptional events and wildfire risk actions, creating clear criteria for when such events can affect attainment determinations. It introduces a new region-wide analysis mechanism when multiple states petition for the same air quality event, and establishes a public transparency requirement to track petitions and analyses. It also requires that certain wildfire-mitigation actions be treated as exclusions in attainment discussions, provided they meet defined conditions and are carried out under state-approved practices.
Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee
The bill expands the composition of the independent scientific review committee by increasing State representation from one to three individuals and mandating geographic diversity across EPA regions. It also requires the committee to provide advice on adverse public health, welfare, social, economic, or energy effects associated with attainment strategies before standards are established or revised, ensuring broader perspectives inform regulatory decisions.
Sanctions and Fees If Emissions Beyond Control
This new provision states that no sanctions or fees shall apply to a state (or its area or source) for deficiencies or attainment failures if those deficiencies were caused by emissions from outside the area, exceptional events, or mobile-source emissions beyond the state's control (and if the state is actively implementing measures within its authority to curb such emissions). It preserves the obligation to meet other statutory requirements and requires periodic renewal of this demonstration every five years.
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Explore Environment in Codify Search →Who Benefits and Who Bears the Cost
Every bill creates winners and losers. Here's who stands to gain and who bears the cost.
Who Benefits
- State air pollution control agencies gain greater control over SIP development and more time to update plans without triggering automatic FIPs.
- EPA regional offices benefit from clearer regional modeling requirements and a more transparent petition process, supporting consistent implementation.
- Industries and utilities in ozone/nonattainment areas gain planning flexibility and a clearer path to compliance under revised milestones.
- Local governments in affected jurisdictions receive extended timelines and greater say in how attainment is pursued.
- Communities in wildfire-prone regions may see improved air quality management through formalized wildfire-risk mitigation actions.
Who Bears the Cost
- State environmental agencies face costs associated with expanded SIP planning—modeling, plan revisions, and enhanced regional analyses.
- Industries and providers in nonattainment areas may incur longer compliance timelines and investment in newer controls to meet revised feasibility benchmarks.
- Federal agencies will incur costs related to expanded independent scientific advisory oversight and the new transparency portal.
- Local governments may bear administrative burdens associated with revised milestones and monitoring requirements.
- Utilities and large emitters could incur costs to adjust operations if feasibility-based adjustments still require emission reductions.
Key Issues
The Core Tension
Balancing robust air quality protections with state-led flexibility and regional realities is the central dilemma. The bill seeks to reduce the immediacy and cost of attaining standards through longer review cycles and feasible-based adjustments, while preserving accountability through enhanced transparency and broader expert oversight.
The bill trades stricter, potentially more protective standards against the need for practical, region-specific implementation. By extending review cycles and allowing attainability to factor into standard-setting, there is a risk that health protections could be delayed in certain areas if feasibility considerations take precedence.
The expansion of the advisory committee and the regional analysis requirement aim to mitigate that risk by injecting more state and regional expertise into decisions. The new exemptions for emissions beyond control—including exceptional events and wildfire risk actions—are intended to prevent penalties when circumstances are outside the state’s control, but they could complicate accountability and require rigorous demonstration to qualify for exclusions.
The transparency provisions are designed to counterbalance these flexibilities by making petitions and analyses publicly visible, which could influence public trust and inter-state negotiations.
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