For nearly three decades Breathe California of Sacramento-Emigrant Trails, the Sacramento Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce and now Valley Vision have teamed up through the Cleaner Air Partnership to improve the Sacramento region’s air quality. The goal is to protect our health and promote economic growth by supporting green industry, smart land use, and leading-edge research while lowering emissions.

It’s a unique collaboration between the region’s major business organization and its major health and environmental group – groups that can be at odds with each other in other locales, but have been working together here in Sacramento since 1986.

Our geographic focus includes portions or all of Sacramento, Yolo, Placer, El Dorado, Yuba, Sutter and Solano counties, and the large air basin that they share.

Our Mission:  Our efforts generally center on programs that help minimize smog-forming emissions from mobile sources such as cars and trucks. We favor an approach that features incentives to reward cooperation, innovation and proactive efforts. Our historic focus is reducing nitrogen oxides (NOx), which are one of the two major ingredients of ground-level ozone or smog. By working to reduce ozone pollution and NOx, we also help reduce two other major kinds of air pollution in our region:

• Small particles or soot
• Greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide that are linked to global warming

Our Work: The Cleaner Air Partnership’s work includes:

• Fact-finding
• Public education
• Facilitation and building agreement
• Policy work at the local, state and federal levels
• Legislative endorsements at the local, state and federal levels
• Support for air-friendly smart-growth principles and their local implementation
• Support for targeted research activities

It makes a difference. Our air is cleaner today than in past decades, thanks to efforts like the Partnership’s ongoing campaigns to enhance Smog Check and our promotion of diesel pollution-control incentives.