13. Vehicle Emissions and Public Transit

Environmental Politics and Law (EVST 255)

The lecture discusses developments in air quality monitoring and regulation in the United States, with an emphasis on regulating vehicle emissions. Monitoring takes place at fixed points with results being averaged over three years, and this data informs air quality standard setting. Studies have found that this form of monitoring underreports the amount of pollution that children and other susceptible populations (i.e. bus and truck drivers) are exposed to. Professor Wargo details ways in which individuals are exposed to heightened air pollution on a daily basis and the policy responses at the federal, state, and local levels.

00:00 - Chapter 1. Asthma and Its Provenance
19:18 - Chapter 2. Challenges to Monitoring
35:30 - Chapter 3. Federal, State and Local Recommendations
41:21 - Chapter 4. Less-Known Air Quality Problems

Complete course materials are available at the Open Yale Courses website: http://open.yale.edu/courses

This course was recorded in Spring 2010.