When thinking of California, many picture tall buildings, warm weather, and the state of opportunities. While all of those characteristics may be true, there is one more thing that is associated with California and that is air pollution. In the article from Quartz, “These Are the US Cities With the Worst Air Pollution”, Zoe Schlanger states that “The combination of the state’s topography and large population have kept many California cities on the most-polluted list throughout the 20-year history of the American Lung Association’s State of the Air report”. With air pollution being an epidemic in California, shouldn’t there be laws to regulate it? In 1963,  President Richard Nixon passed the Clean Air Act . This act was in place to control air pollution in the United States. The act included regulations geared towards factories, refineries, and transportation to reduce carbon emissions, as well as how waste created from these factories should be disposed of . A common policy to regulate pollution from refineries is Cap and Trade. This is when a certain business is given an allocated amount of how much pollution their business can release into the air and also gives them the right to trade and sell what is left of their allocated amount of pollution, to other businesses. This allows certain businesses to essentially buy more pollution and results in higher levels of air pollution in areas where businesses are buying more pollution. Even though these laws are in place, they are not effective when trying to make California’s air cleaner. This poses a huge threat to California when there are 17 refineries in California that are primarily located in the Los Angeles’ South Bay and San Francisco Bay-Area. The lack of efficient air pollution policies has led to refineries contributing to the low quality of health, resources, and property value in marginalized communities in California.