The Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990 formed one of the most sweeping revisions of any federal environmental statute in recent history. A wide array of technical improvements to existing provisions were joined with entirely new substantive programs aimed at controlling such diverse concerns as the development of new fuels, reduction of acid rain, ozone depletion, and even global warming. Aside from its ambitious substantive programs, however, the 1990 Amendments were driven by a recognition that the existing Clean Air Act had become largely unenforceable. Thus, the Amendments greatly expand the government\u27s enforcement authority, and provide a host of new enforcement options. In this article, the authors discuss these changes to the civil and criminal enforcement provisions of the Act, and examine how these revisions seem to contain a mixture of strengths and weaknesses that raise as many concerns as they do hopes that the new Act will better achieve the goal of protecting and enhancing the quality of the Nation\u27s air
