Air Contamination

Report Outline
Intensification of Air Pollution Problem
Means of Reducing Contamination of Air
State, Local, Federal Control Program

Intensification of Air Pollution Problem

Senate Subcommittee Hearings on Pollution

Dirty Air, a product of the country's rapid growth and of industrial concentration and technological innovation, is becoming a more and more difficult problem. Once confined to heavily industrialized areas, air contamination in the United States is now widespread. Public health, urban development, farm crops and livestock are all suffering as a result.

A federal research program on air pollution was initiated in 1955. Now Congress has opened the way to broader federal efforts to aid cities and states in the battle against contamination of the air. President Lyndon B. Johnson signed a bill on Dec. 17 authorizing a $95 million clean air program continuing through fiscal 1967. The Senate, which had favored a more intensive program of longer duration, will continue to look into local air pollution problems. A Special Subcommittee on Air and Water Pollution of the Senate Public Works Committee, headed by Sen. Edmund S. Muskie (D Maine), plans to hold hearings this winter at Boston, Chicago, Denver, Los Angeles, Orlando, Fla., and Wheeling, W. Va.

Physical Conditions Contributing to Pollution

Movement of a constantly increasing share of the population into urban areas is intensifying the problem of air pollution by concentrating discharge of waste products from combustion. Two-thirds of the people of the United States now live in 212 areas which together comprise less than 10 per cent of the country's total land area; 53 per cent of Americans are crowded into less than 1 per cent of the land area. As a result of concentration of people and industry, all five of the nation's largest metropolitan areas (each with more than a million inhabitants) have serious air contamination problems, as do 11 of the 16 urban areas which have between 500,000 and one million inhabitants.