New Source Review

New Source Review (NSR) is a major air pollution program in the United States instituted under amendments to the Clean Air Act (CAA) (42 U.S.C. § 7401 and following), which is the successor to the Air Quality Act of 1955. The 1977 amendments provided comprehensive regulations to control air pollution and introduced the National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS) and the New Source Performance Standards (NSPS). The CAA also introduced requirements to install and operate the best available control technology (BACT) using a permit system within the CAA regime to implement the NSPS (42 U.S.C. § 7407 & 7411) and NSR provisions. Specifically, NSR and the legislation that implements this program arose out of an important green policy debate. Essentially, advocates for NSR intended to ...