Draft Summary of the Federal Advisory Committee Act (FACA)

Science and Technical Support Work Group Meeting

Mutual Building

November 18, 1997

Durham, North Carolina

The Science and Technical Support Work Group (STSWG) of the FACA Subcommittee held a conference call on Tuesday, November 18, 1997. A list of participants and a summary of the call is listed below.

Work Group Participants

Name	Affiliation

Tom Helms, Co-Chair	U.S. EPA

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

Diana Andrews	Kentucky DEP

Dave McNeill	Utah DEQ

Jay Turner	DOT

Work Group Members Not Participating

Name	Affiliation

John Cabiniss	AIAM

Glen Cass	Cal Tech

Kirit Chaudhari	Virginia DEQ

David Chock	Ford Motor Company

Ellis Cowling	SOS

Ken Demerjian	SUNY

Cyril Durrenberger	TNRCC

Bruce Hill	Appalachian Mountain Club

Jay Hudson	Santee Cooper

David Kelly	Navajo EPA

Russell Koch	Technical Coatings Laboratory

George Lauer	ARCO

Jeffrey MacGilivray	NH Legislature

Tom Moore	Arizona

Rich Poirot	Vermont DEC

S.T. Rao	New York ARB

Jay Rosenthal	Navy

Pradeep Saxena	EPRI

Mark Scruggs	DOI

Manop Vanichchagorn	Louisiana DEQ

Dan Weiss/Mike Teague	Cinergy/UARG

Jeffrey West	GPU Service

Steve Ziman	Chevron Corporation

Non-Work Group Participants

Ellen Baldridge, Tom Braverman, EPA/EMAD; David Sanders, John Silvasi, EPA/OPSG.

Summary of the Meeting

STSWG Comments on AOI/AOV paper

David Sanders stated that STSWG is getting a lot of agreement now on the position paper. Cyril Durrenberger has come up with revisions that incorporate comments from S.T. Rao, Diane Andrews, Tom Moore, Steve Ziman, and Bruce Hill.

Diana Andrews felt that the position paper hit the mark except for a dangling phrase in the text.

David Sanders stated that Tom Moore wanted to make sure that the paper emphasized his Point 4. The next version should meld in Point 4. The last version of the position paper is going into the Coordination Group report as a placeholder.

Tom Helms liked the position paper as written but wanted to point out one outstanding issue. Regarding the issue of presumptive controls (in Durrenberger's Point 4), Tom Helms would like to let Bruce Hill have one last pass at this point so that STSWG can get consensus.

Diana Andrews asked about the difference between first and second level RAMPs as they were discussed in the position paper.

Harvey Jeffries responded that this classification differentiates the political and the technical RAMPs.

Diana Andrews referred to Point 3 mentioning RAMPs. She thought the second type of RAMP mentioned was the technical one.

John Silvasi thought that the first and second RAMPs followed chronological order to look at the big picture, and Cyril Durrenberger portrayed the RAMP as something that grew like OTAG from a political to a technical entity.

Harvey Jeffries found that approach to be confusing.

Tom Helms asked if everyone understood the differentiation between RAMPS at that point.

Diana Andrews responded that she did not understand.

Tom Helms asked Harvey Jeffries if substitution of other terms would clarify the distinction.

Harvey Jeffries suggested the terms "political" and "technical."

Diana Andrews referred to Point 8 in the comments that described the difference. She then repeated her question about distinguishing the first RAMP, second RAMP, and a regional strategy center.

David Sanders suggested that the group say something about RAMPs moving from larger to smaller entities.

Harvey Jeffries stated that Tom Moore had simplified the concept in his version. He felt that the last paragraph of Tom Moore's version sounded good as a description of the RAMP concepts.

Tom Helms suggested that some of those words should be pulled into the document.

Tom Helms noted that in the last discussion STSWG had agreed to avoid OTAG bashing.

Diana Andrews stated that she liked Cyril Durrenberger's lead-in.

Harvey Jeffries had trouble with the statement that OTAG was successful as a scientific process. He thought that that sentence should be taken out.

There was general discussion about revisions to Point 8.

Harvey Jeffries also mentioned that Steve Ziman stated in an email message that he could not soften his stance to meet Bruce Hill's views.

Tom Helms explained that Bruce Hill objected to the use of "majority/minority" in the wording. Bruce Hill said that presumptive controls could be applied anyway without scientific evidence.

Harvey Jeffries agreed that Point 4 was too strong a statement as it was written. He thought Point 4 should be a warning about not doing science.

John Silvasi asked if the position paper should talk about the potential disbenefits if the proper science was not included.

Harvey Jeffries asked if STSWG could say that presumptive controls may not be effective.

Tom Helms pointed out that the Clean Air Act states that certain presumptive measures must be taken if an area is found to violate the ozone standard.

Harvey Jeffries wanted to include wording showing that there are no guarantees that the presumptive controls will be effective.

John Silvasi suggested the phrasing "Use of presumptive controls without scientific evidence may not ameliorate air quality."

Harvey Jeffries thought that Silvasi's phrasing sounded okay to run by Steve Ziman and Bruce Hill. He said that neither one could argue with the statement.

David Sanders signed off of the conference call.

Tom Helms stated that EPA will try to run a revised version past Steve Ziman, Bruce Hill, and Cyril Durrenberger.

Diana Andrews reminded the group that the position paper needs to be consistent with its references to the levels of RAMPs.

Tom Helms asked the work group how the words could be changed to make the RAMP definitions clear.

Harvey Jeffries suggested taking out the word.

Tom Helms described LADCO as a technical RAMP that expanded into a political entity. OTAG was both a political and technical RAMP that grew from a political entity.

Harvey Jeffries suggested using the descriptive words technical and technical/political to describe the RAMPs.

Diana Andrews pointed out that, in Point 5, a sentence fragment needed to be removed.

Harvey Jeffries suggested rephrasing Point 2 to say that STSWG believes that a model's greatest strength is in evaluating past episodes and not in making future predictions.

John Silvasi asked how to meld Tom Moore's Point 4 into the document.

Diana Andrews suggested putting Moore's Point 4 at the end of the position paper as a concluding summary.

Dave McNeill thought that Point 4 fit where it was in context of the other points.

Tom Helms agreed with Diana Andrews that Moore's Point 4 works as a conclusion. He also suggested dropping the word "fiat" with reference to work by EPA scientists.

Diana Andrews reiterated that Point 4 would be a useful wrap-up.

John Silvasi suggested prefacing the Point 4 with a phrase such as "In summary."

Harvey Jeffries then asked about Point 9. He felt that Point 9 referred to issues addressed in Point 6.

Diana Andrews wanted to see Point 9 remain independent.

Tom Helms suggested rephrasing Point 9 to read "STSWG feels that the automatic presumption of the number of AOIs is an oversimplification. More scientific decisions should be made based on a scientific records."

Tom Helms restated that he will have to get Bruce Hill, Steve Ziman, and Cyril Durrenberger to see these revisions.

Conceptual Model

John Silvasi recapped the Conceptual Model discussion from the last conference call. STSWG talked about using a summary report from NARSTO on the state-of-the-science as one chapter. Steve Ziman would provide an executive summary from API as an additional chapter.

Harvey Jeffries had a chance to see the API work and felt that it would be good to include. Howard Feldman should have the copy of the API work. Ned Meyer bought in on the API summary.

John Silvasi asked if STSWG could do the Conceptual Model's Executive Summary by having the contractor draft a version based on Harvey Jeffries' input about the necessary content.

Harvey Jeffries suggested that the CIIT paper from the web could be useful material and figures that were taken from EPA documents. The CIIT document serves as a good introduction to PM issues. He suggested that the CIIT document only be used up to the point where it begins discussing the standard. This document should go into the Conceptual Model in the introduction to PM issues.

John Silvasi also brought up the fact that George Lauer asked during the last conference call if this group should be getting involved in the PM review. FACA's charter will not allow this involvement.

Harvey Jeffries pointed out that the reviewers of the standard will be set through CASAC.

John Silvasi mentioned that he told George Lauer that he should contact Karen Martin if he wants to be involved in that review.

Tom Helms asked if there was any more business and then mentioned that STSWG would have one more conference call.

John Silvasi gave the date of December 2 for the conference call.

Tom Helms stated that EPA may move the call to the final week before the FACA meeting. At the next meeting, STSWG can talk about what time the New Orleans meeting should start.

Adjourn at 1:50.