Array
Tad Aburn is a virtuoso on resolving air quality and environmental justice issues through collaboration.
Tad recently retired from the Maryland Department of the Environment (MDE), after spending 15 years there as the Director of Maryland’s Air Pollution and Climate Change Program. During his 40-year career with MDE, Tad was Program Manager for the state’s Air Toxics Program and led Maryland’s Clean Air Act planning efforts to develop and implement plans to clean the air, protect public health and meet federal health-based standards. Tad also has considerable expertise in air monitoring, permitting, compliance assistance and enforcement.
Tad has substantial legislative experience. Between 2005 and 2022, Tad worked with Maryland legislative leaders and a diverse group of stakeholders to lead MDE’s efforts to pass the Maryland Healthy Air Act and the Maryland Clean Cars Act. Both acts were made law.
In 2009, Tad led a facilitated MDE stakeholder process that included legislative leaders that generated model legislative language which was used as the basis for the 2009 Greenhouse Gas Emission Reduction Act (GGRA). The 2009 GGRA was, at that time, one of the Country’s most aggressive, but economically friendly, climate change laws. In 2016 and 2021, it was reauthorized and amended. The 2021 version of the GGRA was renamed the Climate Solutions Now Act and establishes the most aggressive climate change goals in the United States.
Tad also has a significant amount of experience working on issues at the national level. As a two-time President, long-time Board member and Criteria Pollutant Committee Chair of the National Association of Clean Air Agencies (NACAA) and past Chair and Board member for the Mid-Atlantic Regional Air Management Association (MARAMA), Tad has worked with EPA and Congress on a wide range of air pollution and environmental justice issues.
Another critical area that Tad has experience in is coordination with local governments. He has worked closely with Metropolitan Planning Organizations (MPOs) in Baltimore, Washington D.C. and Philadelphia on critical local issues like transportation conformity and the role of the counties in implementing clean air initiatives. As part of his work with the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments (MWCOG) and the Metropolitan Washington Air Quality Committee (MWAQC), Tad chaired the MWAQC Technical Committee for many years while being a member for almost 20 years.
Tad’s proudest accomplishment is that the State of Maryland, which in the early 2000’s had some of the worst air pollution in the U.S., is now in compliance with all federal air pollution standards. In a relatively famous 2005 MIT study, Maryland was identified as having the Country’s riskiest air pollution east of the Mississippi. In 2008, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) designated the Baltimore area as having the worst ozone air pollution (or Smog) anywhere outside of California and Texas. That has changed and Maryland’s air is now considered to be protective of public health across the State.
One of Tad’s career long interests has been the role of public education as part of the clean air process. In the 1990s, under Tad’s leadership, MDE was one of the first states to implement a color-coded, animated mapping system that, for the first time ever, allowed the media to be able to visually show the public how dirty or clean the air was and what a bad air day actually looked like as it builds in the morning, moves with wind and reaches peak levels in the afternoon. This MDE color-coded, animated mapping system was later built into a national “AIRNOW” system and is used across the Country to communicate air quality.
Air Quality and Environmental Justice Expert