In United States

environmental law Environmental law is a collective term encompassing aspects of the law that provide protection to the environment. A related but distinct set of regulatory regimes, now strongly influenced by environmental legal principles, focus on the manage ...

, a non-attainment area is an area considered to have

air quality Air pollution is the contamination of air due to the presence of substances in the atmosphere that are harmful to the health of humans and other living beings, or cause damage to the climate or to materials. There are many different ty ...

worse than the

National Ambient Air Quality Standards The U.S. National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS, pronounced ) are limits on atmospheric concentration of six pollutants that cause smog, acid rain, and other health hazards. Established by the United States Environmental Protection Agency ...

as defined in the Clean Air Act Amendments of 1970 (P.L. 91-604, Sec. 109). Non-attainment areas must have and implement a plan to meet the standard, or risk losing some forms of federal financial assistance. An area may be a non-attainment area for one

pollutant A pollutant or novel entity is a substance or energy introduced into the environment that has undesired effects, or adversely affects the usefulness of a resource. These can be both naturally forming (i.e. minerals or extracted compounds like o ...

and an "attainment area" for others.New York/New Jersey/Philadelphia Metropolitan Area Airspace 2007 -In summary: An attainment area is any area that meets the national primary or secondary ambient air quality standard for a given pollutant

References

* Environmental law in the United States {{Environment-stub