Draft Summary of the Federal Advisory Committee Act (FACA)

Science and Technical Support Work Group Meeting

Mutual Building, Tom Helms' Office

January 21, 1997

Durham, North Carolina

The Science and Technical Support Work Group (STSWG) of the FACA Subcommittee met on Tuesday, January 21, 1997 in Durham, North Carolina. A list of the participants and a summary of the meeting follows.

Work Group Participants

Name	Affiliation

Tom Helms, Co-Chair	U.S. EPA

Harvey Jeffries, Co-Chair	University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill

John Cabaniss	AIAM

Jay Hudson	Santee Cooper

Dave McNeil	Utah DEQ

Tom Moore,	Arizona

S.T.Rao	New York ARB

Jay Rosenthal	Navy

Mark Scruggs	DOI

Jeffrey West	GPU Services Corp.

Work Group Members Not Participating

Diana Andrews	Kentucky DEP

Glenn Cass	Cal Tech

Kirit Chaudhari	Virginia DEQ

David Chock	Ford Motor Company

John Core	WESTAR

Ellis Cowling	SOS

Bruce Hill	Appalachian Mountain Club

David Kelly	Navajo EPA

Rich Poirot	Vermont

Jay Turner	DOT

Manop Vanichchagorn	Louisiana DEQ

Dan Weiss	Cinergy Corporation

Steve Ziman	Chevron Corporation

Non-Work Group Participants

Denise Scott, SAIC; Pradeep Saxena (EPRI); Ken Schere, U.S. EPA/NERL; Rich Damberg, U.S. EPA/VEPG; Nancy Mayer, U.S. EPA/ISEG; Charlene Spells, U.S. EPA/IPSG; Bill Johnson, David Sanders and John Silvasi, U.S. EPA/OPSG.

Summary of the Meeting

Tom Helms began the meeting with some background from the last conference call. Subjects included: How do all issues fit together?; How do we interface with other groups?; and, Update on the Conceptual Model.

Draft Phase I Report

Rich Damberg gave an update on the Draft Phase I Report. He noted that the report would be on progress up to the December 5, 1996 report date. He stated that John Seitz had given an overview presentation to CAAAC on Phase I issues. It summarizes key concepts and principals with recognition that we are doing a bigger report which should be done by the February report date.

Harvey Jeffries asked if we can review this draft report.

Rich Damberg responded yes and that it will be widely reviewed. He noted that the Work Groups will get it and make comments. It will be placed on the bulletin board. The summary to CAAAC hits the highlights and accomplishments to date. One area Rich would like to bring attention to is on page 6, Science and Technical Discussion on integration issues. We have developed a review and the co-chairs will get a copy and then they should give it to other members.

Harvey Jeffries expressed concern whether or not the science position would be adequately represented. He stated that EPA needs to put it on the bulletin board but it needs to be available to STSWG.

Tom Helms said that we can get it to the members.

Harvey Jeffries responded that we need someone designated to send this information to.

Tom Helms interjected that the key is getting the responses back to the Coordination Group.

Harvey Jeffries responded that they should not be held up by having us have to do something with it. We could have a call.

Jeff West noted that the draft report was presented on the 19th.

Rich Damberg stated that the contractor should have something this week.

Harvey Jeffries asked whether or not the Coordination Group would look at it before "we" see it. He stated that we are interested that the document is complete by February 18, 1997. You will get comments back from us on the science part. You should encourage the Coordination Group to include us as early as possible.

Jeff West responded that it sounds like there will not be adequate time to review.

Harvey Jeffries asked Mr. Damberg if this was his impression of the general consensus.

Rich Damberg responded yes and that it was taken directly from transcripts of the meeting.

Harvey Jeffries asked if there were Phase I issues that were being continued.

Rich Damberg responded "yes."

Tom Helms noted that pretty soon we are going to have to bring discussions to a close, because EPA will have to begin writing the Phase I Report. Tom thanked Rich for his update.

Tom Moore stated that he did not have this document.

Harvey Jeffries responded that there is a Federal Express package that has several items stapled to it.

Tom Moore said he would get with David after this call.

Tom Helms proposed that we move to how these issues fit together.

Conceptual Model

John Silvasi indicated that the Conceptual Model is on the upper left hand side of the "road map" diagram. This diagram was prepared at the Denver Meeting by the contractor in support of the agency.

Harvey Jeffries asked if this diagram was the only way. He indicated that all of these depend heavily on modeling, and that the Environmental groups want a simpler way. There may be multiple approaches or a hierarchy that could be implemented. Mr. Jeffries noted that we don't want to discuss the content, but just the process today. There will be a lot of debate about specific elements contained in the diagrams. He concluded by stating that to lock into a single technique is too hasty at this point in time.

Steve Ziman asked if it was asking too much to prioritize. There are 3-4 major issue papers that set the tone for everything on the diagram.

Harvey Jeffries responded that he thought that this is what had been done. On page 11 of the CAAAC report, for example, on AOV, there is an integrated list of papers. Solving AOI/AOV, institutional mechanisms, and NSR are the three major papers.

Steve Ziman said he agreed. As we explore into this, it is clear that there may be no technical content to these issues. We have to pick those that have technical content.

Harvey Jeffries said that he thought that on 1/31/97 we will wind up concentrating on these three issues.

Steve Ziman interjected that we need to identify where we do not have the necessary information.

Harvey Jeffries noted that none of the resources are being used to do the calculations. The preliminary FACA subcommittee time line, subject to revision, includes three of the items listed under the November 1996 time line.

Charlene Spells stated that she thought that they meant that appearing under the column meant that they have been discussed thoroughly.

Harvey Jeffries asked if all of the work would be done by December 1997?

John Silvasi responded that he was heading up the EPA team to do the Phase II proposal with a rough draft planned for September 1997.

Tom Helms interjected that we have another hat that says we have to write something: Phase I is Dave Stoneman and Phase II is John Silvasi. There will be no surprises; we will build off the FACA recommendations.

Harvey Jeffries expressed concern in figuring out priority issues, the ones that really make a difference. We don't want to spend a lot of time on ones that aren't important. We need to decide how we are going to use the staff papers. We need to understand what the process is and make recommendations on that order.

John Silvasi stated that this should be done face-to-face on January 30, 1997.

Tom Helms noted that we have interacted by informing the other groups, and they scheduled the meeting in January to "shut us up". He stated that he hoped the meeting is worthwhile and helpful to move papers along.

Harvey Jeffries stated that he thought we would be talking about the November and February column at the meeting later this month. Mr. Jeffries indicated that he was concerned

about the issues in the April and June columns: modeling requirements, emissions inventory and perhaps mobile sources.

Tom Helms asked if there were any other comments.

Steve Ziman responded that the problem is that you can design a policy that applies everywhere, yet applies nowhere. He stressed that we need to design a policy that has form and substance.

Tom Helms responded that everybody he had contacted, indicated that this is the current way we do things. Mr. Helms stated that with respect to NSR, it doesn't seem to make sense now but, we need to control the area upwind. I am involved in 10-15 such things a year that seem to be absurd.

Tom Moore stated that it has more to do with how EPA has enforced the NSR requirements. You can make the argument that AOV/AOI will work fine as long as you have a floor. We've got agreement from NRS that it should not be a top-down thing. This would give the states leeway. I agree that NSR doesn't always work right.

John Silvasi interjected that this group's time is better spent on AOI than on other issues.

Steve Ziman said that he thinks there are some underlying things that, if they don't have a firm basis, a lot of other things will go wrong. We bring a lot to the basis for determining controls. Some important drivers are feasible modeling to attain the major, standard, underlying issues.

Harvey Jeffries interjected that clearly he had let the ball slide. I didn't follow up with the Coordination Committee. There are a lot of people concerned about this issue. We need to make sure of this. The idea is sound and we need to look into this. Implications are tremendous. Getting Subcommittee members to agree will be difficult. This has to be put on the table. This would imply that we are not looking at RFP.

Tom Helms stated that we need to talk about this and then talk to Sally Shaver.

Harvey Jeffries concurred that this is a fundamental issue.

Tom Helms noted that it struck him that this is something individuals will want to look at before the end of the public comment period.

Steve Ziman responded that it has nothing to do with getting this reviewed. These are real issues. It impacts a lot of issue papers, such as attainment dates.

Harvey Jeffries stated that we need to bring this up at the January 30-31 meeting. This will influence how much weight we put on these Issue Papers in the future.

Harvey Jeffries noted to John that, getting back to his map on the AQM process, it is not at all obvious that AQM will look like FACA is involved in this process.

John Silvasi responded that he used an older flow diagram that goes back to the early 1980's when Lee Thomas asked about the air quality process.

Harvey Jeffries responded that you know that there has been a lot of opposition about this process. It is unclear that if you are looking outside the process, that we want to follow this process.

John Silvasi responded that we do have a responsibility to think outside.

Tom Moore interjected that it struck him that there is an interesting juxtaposition for John's model. This is where we have done technical work. If the new form is AOV/AOI, the elements may not work together the way we have seen them historically.

Steve Ziman said that all you have done is provide a different construct.

Tom Moore responded that he didn't know if the list is too long or too short. We should critique the mapping. What constitutes reasonable progress?

Harvey Jeffries stated that he has been drawing a Conceptual Model" which presents the science and technical issues. It is interesting to have a contrast between current Issue Papers, the Conceptual Model, and the historical process.

Tom Moore noted that this will lead to whether or not you can integrate across the indicator and spatially.

Harvey Jeffries said that we should have some time to trace back over the Conceptual Model, a cross between technology and policy.

John Silvasi interjected that before we leave mapping, he thought that he had heard some action items.

Harvey Jeffries responded that John Silvasi should describe mapping, he would describe the Conceptual Model, and Tom can talk about the integration of the pieces.

David Sanders noted that the joint meeting has been planned for the 30th.

Steve Ziman said that January 31, 1997 is for the individual Work Groups, and asked if it would be necessary to meet again on February 19th.

Harvey Jeffries responded that he did not believe all of the issues could be resolved on the first day.

Steve Ziman said that we may have to handle some of these by conference call. We may have limited travel.

Diana Andrews asked if the November 7, 1996 paper is the same as the January paper.

Steve Ziman responded that this is not the case. It has been revised.

Harvey Jeffries asked if there were two versions (Word and WordPerfect 5.1) and noted that included in this document was a suggested list of staffing of Issue Papers, and a tentative schedule.

Harvey Jeffries summarized that, in terms of importance, the meeting in January is much more important than the one on February 19th. This is where we need to do real work. I will send stuff out on the Conceptual Model as soon as I get it together. Three things to consider are the use of "sound science", identifying valid scientific points, and things with a grain of truth but that may have misleading policy implications. I will send out wiring diagrams soon, and take a first crack at drafting an executive summary for the Conceptual Model. We should try to have some material at the 30th and 31st meetings and be able to lay 2-3 sheets on the Subcommittee's chair. I am also trying to look at findings that may have an impact. We need to include a few of these points with bullets.

Jay Rosenthal asked Harvey if he was still looking at his stuff to go into the summary.

Harvey Jeffries responded "yes".

Jeff West requested a copy.

Harvey Jeffries said that he would provide one.

David Sanders commented that SAIC is making a new version of the Conceptual Model. He received a segment from Cass, and the executive summary from Harvey. Presently, the diagrams are not readable and we need to make the text consistent with the figures. We are trying to solve these problems. We may have to go with hard versions. The next call will be on the 28th. We need to try to solidify our position by that time.

Harvey Jeffries said that he would have the Conceptual Model by the 28th.

David Sanders said that this will include a new Chapter 5.

Harvey Jeffries asked if David Sanders and Tom Helms could contact him tomorrow on E-mail.