Smoke, Screened: The Clean Air Act’s Dirty Secret

“Smoke, Screened” is an investigative series by The California Newsroom, MuckRock and the Guardian on the large environmental impact of a little-noticed deregulatory tool found in the Clean Air Act. The provision in the Clean Air Act has allowed the Environmental Protection Agency to strike pollution from clean air tallies in more than 70 counties, enabling local regulators to claim the air was cleaner than it really was for more than 21 million Americans. The loophole allows regulators to forgive pollution, and avoid costly cleanup work, caused by “natural” or “uncontrollable” events, including wildfires.

First pushed into law in 2005 by former Republican senator Jim Inhofe, the exceptional events rule has become a “regulatory escape hatch” for states that want to meet increasingly strict federal air-quality standards. Local regulators are turning to the exceptional events rule for wildfires more and more often to reach air-quality goals – goals that are harder to meet as the climate crisis gets worse.

Read through our methodology, which includes a GitHub repository of all the data and documents obtained through the Freedom of Information Act.

9 Articles

Logos of Sigma Awards, First Amendment Coalition and National Institute for Health Care Management

MuckRock and partners recognized for its journalism

by Kelly Kauffman

March 26, 2024

MuckRock has won the First Amendment Coalition’s Free Speech and Open Government Award for its data journalism collaborations and was named a finalist for the National Institute for Health Care Management Awards and Sigma Awards.

‘Smoke, Screened’ findings on EPA exceptional events presented at scientific conference

by Dillon Bergin

December 13, 2023

At the American Geophysical Union conference this week, MuckRock and The California Newsroom presented findings and methodology from the “Smoked Screened” investigation.

Jessica Beverly and her 8-year-old son, Teddy, feed chickens at their 9-acre hobby farm on Nov. 6, 2023, in Woodstock. "The health department issued alerts and the cities canceled some of their outdoo

Midwest pollution spiked dramatically this summer because of Canadian wildfires. Now officials may erase those days from the books.

by John Lippert and Dillon Bergin

November 11, 2023

Dozens of states and the EPA are so concerned they may exclude the smokiest days from the legally binding score cards that determine whether they’re doing enough to fight pollution, according to a joint collaboration between the Tribune and the nonprofit news site MuckRock. Now some states are considering banding together in a joint effort that could trigger the largest exclusion in the history of the federal Clean Air Act

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Smoke, Screened: The Clean Air Act’s Dirty Secret

9 Articles

MuckRock and partners recognized for its journalism

‘Smoke, Screened’ findings on EPA exceptional events presented at scientific conference

Midwest pollution spiked dramatically this summer because of Canadian wildfires. Now officials may erase those days from the books.

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