Ninety-four percent of Wisconsinites live in an area that meets all federal air quality standards. Fifty short years ago, that wasn’t necessarily the case. The first Earth Day in 1970 paved the way for a couple of landmark environmental initiatives, including the signing of the Clean Air Act. The Clean Air Act is widely considered one of the most comprehensive and successful pieces of legislation ever signed into law. We continue to benefit from it today. The act has achieved tremendous reductions in air pollution, protecting public health and saving lives, while allowing for economic growth and development. To learn a bit more about what the Clean Air Act is and its impact on the reduction of air pollution throughout Wisconsin, we sat down with leading air quality experts Gail Good and Brad Pierce. Gail Good is the Director of the Air Management program at the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources and a co-chair for the National Association of Clean Air Agencies (NACAA) Emissions and Modeling Committee. Brad Pierce is the Principal Investigator of RAQMS (Real-time Air Quality Modeling System) and Director of the Space, Science and Engineering Center at the University of Wisconsin – Madison.