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Section Two of a seven-part article:
The Dormant Noise Control Act and options to abate noise pollution

A. Noise Abatement Prior to the Creation of the Office of Noise Abatement Control

In the 1960s, noise pollution was a distant cousin in the family of environmental issues and, as this history will relate, it has remained outside the mainstream of the environmental movement ever since. A massive public opinion survey taken in the early 1970s revealed that the public ranked noise pollution as a serious problem, (4) but noise control advocates were unable to develop the same type of organized constituency that developed to support clean air and water. (5) One reason was that although "air and water pollution was shown actually to kill people," the supporters of noise control could not demonstrate a "direct cause and effect relationship" between excessive noise and death. (6) Advocates also lacked any dramatic illustrations of noise pollution similar to the Cuyahoga river catching on fire, nor did they have someone like Rachael Carson or Barry Commoner to popularize their cause. Because noise pollution is produced by hundreds of types of sources, noise control proponents also found it more difficult to arouse public indignation against convenient corporate targets in the way that other environmentalists attacked the automobile industry or chemical manufacturers. (7) Finally, advocates had trouble generating wide-spread support because of the incidence of noise pollution. Whereas air and water pollution normally affect large areas, only a small proportion of the people in a city or state may be burdened by particular sources of noise, and that burden may have been imposed on them by the other residents who wished to obtain the benefit of a highway, airport, or industry. (8) Despite these handicaps, noise control advocates made some headway starting in the late 1960s. Prior to that time, local noise regulation was based on legislation or ordinances that prohibited "excessive or unusual" noise, which were difficult to enforce because of their subjective character. (9) Once portable noise measuring equipment became available, (10) local and state governments began to promulgate objective emissions limitations, stated as a maximum number of decibels (dB). (11) At about the same time, Congress authorized the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to regulate aircraft noise emissions, (12) enacted the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), (13) which required agencies to assess noise impacts as part of environmental impact statements, and directed EPA to establish ONAC and to have it prepare recommendations to Congress within 1 year for further legislation. (14) Congress passed the NCA after receiving that report. (15)

Congress acted despite the lack of significant organized public support for two reasons. First, the railroads, interstate motor carriers, and motor vehicle manufacturers supported the NCA because they were concerned about complying with conflicting state and local regulations. (16) Second, EPA told Congress that 34 million persons were exposed to nonoccupational noise capable of inducing hearing loss, 44 million persons had the utility of their dwellings impacted by transportation and aircraft noise, and 21 million persons had the same problem with construction noise. (17)

Congress intended the NCA to protect all Americans from "noise that jeopardizes their health or welfare." (18) It required EPA to regulate noise emissions from new products used in interstate commerce, (19) coordinate the noise abatement efforts of other agencies, (20) and provide information to the public concerning the noise emission of products. (21) While federal action was "essential to deal with major noise sources in commerce control of which require national uniformity of treatment," Congress intended that the state and cities retain the "primary responsibility for control of noise. " (22) Congress therefore preempted state and political subdivisions from imposing their own emission standards on new products that were already regulated by EPA, (23) but it did not preempt them from controlling noise by the use of "licensing, regulation, or restriction of the use, operation, or movement of any product or combination of products. " (24)

This division of authority affected the development of noise abatement in two ways. First, unlike other environmental statutes, such as the Clean Air Act, (25) EPA was given no responsibility to set abatement goals for the states. As a result, ONAC tended to think of its mission as exclusively federal. As the next section will develop, this orientation inhibited state and local efforts at noise abatement during the 1970s. In addition, because EPA did not set mandatory goals for the reduction of noise, states and local subdivisions have no legal responsibility to address noise pollution. Political support for noise abatement was also affected. The ambient air pollution limitations set by EPA are a continual public reminder of the harms of air pollution and of the nation's progress in reducing those harms. The lack of any similar goals concerning noise pollution contributes to its low political visibility.

Second, unlike for other environmental statutes, Congress chose not to support state and local abatement efforts with federal program grants for personnel and equipment, although EPA had asked for such support. (26) A House committee responded that while technical assistance was "desirable," it was neither "necessary or appropriate" to provide categorical program assistance to the states. (27)

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This page about the Noise Control Act is part of Section Five:
which is a subset of the Politics of Noise, and the Activist sections of barkingdogs.net