America's 500 coal-fired electric generating plants are its largest industrial source of harmful air pollution. From lung damage to asthma attacks to acid rain, haze, and global warming, no economic sector has a greater impact on our environment.

Yet there has been a remarkable transformation in the way power plant pollution has been viewed over the past eight years. Even lawmakers from the largest coal-producing states are calling for reductions in power plant emissions, and at a rate and level greater than that being urged by the current Administration through its "Clear Skies" proposal. CATF's focus on educating state-based environmental groups and local activists has increased the climate and air quality literacy of the American public, and helped broaden the debate on cleaner air and greater protection of public health.

CATF's research reports, like the one from which the figure above is drawn, commissioned from nationally recognized universities and research organizations, have demonstrated that power plant air pollution is ubiquitous and deadly - far beyond traditionally recognized "victim" regions such as the Northeast US.

• State Models

  Since 1996, CATF has helped develop and sustain campaigns by public health and environmental organizations in nearly twenty states to put in place air emission limits from power plants that are more protective than current federal law. In a dozen states, these efforts have already paid off with model legislation and rules that can, in part, serve as a blueprint for tighter better law.

• Federal Policy

  Along with our partners at Clear the Air, the National Environmental Trust and the U.S. Public Interest Research Group, and numerous other state and national peer organizations, CATF has helped advance more environmentally protective federal policy on power plant emissions. CATF conducts and synthesizes key health and environmental research, commissions original and rigorous engineering and economic analysis of various policy options, and then presents this information to EPA to support policy positions, on behalf of itself and dozens of state and regional organizations. In addition, CATF lawyers represent those organizations in judicial review of EPA's actions. CATF is also frequently invited to testify before key Congressional committees on pending legislative proposals.