Summary of Communication and Outreach Work Group Conference Call

November 20, 1997

I.	PURPOSE

The Communication and Outreach work group (COWG) held a conference call on November 20, 1997 to discuss the plain English issue paper summaries (November 13, 1997 draft) and agenda topics for the December 16, 1997 final COWG work group meeting.

II.	PARTICIPANTS

Attendees:

Tom Curran, Co-chair, EPA/OAQPS/ITG

Ron White, Co-chair, ALA

Bill Baker for Kathy Callahan, EPA Region II

Nancy Seidman, Massachusetts DEP

Work Group Members Not in Attendance:

Jayne Mardock, Clean Air Network

Tad Aburn, Maryland

Bruce Carhart, OTC

Alice Collingwood, PSAPCA

Margaret Cook, Intertribal Council of Arizona

Nancy Kruger, STAPPA/ALAPCO

Scott Thomas, Oklahoma DEQ

Caryl Pfeiffer, Kentucky Utilities Co.

Quin Shea, NMA

Richard Paul, AAM

Kathy Ellis, DOD

Other Attendees:

Jan Kleeman

Rebecca Battye, EC/R Incorporated (EPA contractor support)

III.	ACTION ITEMS

1.	The second draft of the Federal Advisory Committee Act (FACA) Subcommittee final report was sent by Federal Express to the Subcommittee, Coordination Group, COWG, and issue paper leads on November 13, 1997. The plain English summaries of the issue papers were sent to COWG members and issue paper leads a few days earlier to give them more time to review and submit comments on the summaries of their issue papers. Comments on the plain English summary portion of the document (Chapter 3) are due November 21, 1997, and comments on the full report are due November 25, 1997.

2.	The COWG meeting in New Orleans will begin at 1:00 p.m. on December 16, 1997. The Implementation Website and other ways for EPA to continue interaction with stakeholders will be discussed. In addition, lessons learned from the FACA process will be discussed

3.	Ms. Kleeman will distribute to COWG members printed pages from the Unified Air Toxics Website and a mock-up of the Implementation Website.

4.	The final FACA Subcommittee meeting will be held on December 17 and 18, 1997 in New Orleans.

IV.	DISCUSSION SUMMARY

The group briefly discussed the particulate matter (PM) research meeting held recently in Durham, North Carolina.

Plain English Summaries

The work group discussed the table that summarizes changes made to the plain English summaries. Mr. White said the summary table was very helpful in reviewing the summaries for which he is the lead. Mr. Baker suggested including the issue paper summary number and page number in future drafts of the table. Although Ms. Seidman's last set of comments were incorporated into the issue paper summaries, this information had been inadvertently left out of the table.

Mr. White asked why different due dates for submitting comments appeared in the plain English summary package and the complete final report package. Ms. Kleeman explained that the plain English summary package was sent to COWG members and issue paper leads early to give them a heads up on the issue paper summaries.

Mr. White suggested clarifying the origin of "as expeditiously as practicable" in the Attainment Dates summary by adding "the Clean Air Act requires" to the sentence where the language appears.

Mr. White said even though the plain English summaries are not serving their original intended purpose and are no longer one page, they are still useful. He said they have definitely improved. Mr. Baker agreed that the summaries were good.

Agenda for New Orleans Meeting

The COWG meeting in New Orleans will begin at 1:00 p.m. on December 16, 1997.

Mr. Curran wants feedback from the COWG on what types of information would be useful to keep abreast of future implementation activities and how it should be distributed. What would help people keep track of everything? Should the implementation memos be numbered so people can tell if they missed something?

Mr. White suggested creating links within Airlinks to the Websites of Northeast States for Coordinated Air Use Management (NESCAUM), Mid-Atlantic States Air Resources Managers (MARAMA), and other quasi-governmental organizations. He said it would also be useful to update small businesses and states on major developments in implementation activities through workshops or some other means.

Mr. Baker suggested developing a list of FACA recommendations and posting it on the Web. It could be useful for tracking whether or not EPA follows FACA's recommendations.

Mr. White asked if there will be any future information on the Pollutant Standard Index (PSI). Mr. Curran replied that a PSI workshop is planned for late January 1998.

Ms. Kleeman will distribute to COWG members printed pages from the Unified Air Toxics Website and a mock-up of the implementation page.

Mr. Curran reported that next week the one millionth file is expected to be downloaded from the EPA Website.