Draft Summary of the Federal Advisory Committee Act (FACA)

Science and Technical Support Work Group Conference Call

December 9, 1997

The Science and Technical Support Work Group (STSWG) of the FACA Subcommittee held a conference call on Tuesday, December 9, 1997 between 1:00 pm and 1:45 pm EST. A list of 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 at Chapel Hill

Diana Andrews	Kentucky DEP

George Lauer	ARCO

Jeffrey MacGillivray	New Hampshire House of Representatives

S.Trivikrama Rao	New York ARB

Mark Scruggs	DOI

Jay Turner	U.S. Department of Transportation

Work Group Members Not Participating

Name	Affiliation

John Cabaniss	AIAM

Glenn Cass	Cal Tech

Kirit Chaudhari	Virginia DEQ

David Chock	Ford

Ellis Cowling	SOS

Ken Demerjian	SUNY

Cyril Durrenberger	TNRCC

Bruce Hill	AMC

Jay Hudson	Santee Cooper

David Kelly	Navajo EPA

Russell Koch	TCL

Dave McNeill	Utah DEQ

Tom Moore	Arizona DEQ

Rich Poirot	Vermont DEC

Jay Rosenthal	U.S. Navy

Pradeep Saxena	EPRI

Manop Vanichchagorn/Michael Smithwick	Louisiana DEQ

Dan Weiss/Mike Teague	Cinergy/UARG

Jeffrey West	GPU Service Corporation

Steve Ziman	Chevron Corporation

Non-Work Group Participants

Name	Affiliation

David Sanders	EPA/OPSG

Bob Judge	EPA/Region I

Bill Johnson	EPA/OPSG

Summary of the Meeting

Tom Helms gave an overview of the agenda, which included the upcoming meeting in New Orleans and the Conceptual Model.

Agenda for the New Orleans Meeting

Tom Helms said the meeting would start at 12:30 pm on December 17th, so that people could arrive that morning. The other groups want to meet with STSWG from 1 until 4 pm on December 16th to discuss the FACA process. This was David Mobley's suggestion.

Harvey Jeffries agreed with this suggestion.

Tom Helms asked for other reactions about this schedule.

S.T. Rao asked if there would be a list of issues for discussion during the meeting with the other groups.

Tom Helms said that they would be talking with the other groups about the FACA process, rather than individual issues.

Tom Helms said he would pass comments on to David Mobley for those who would be unable to attend.

George Lauer said he would not be at the meeting.

Jeffrey MacGillivray asked for a portion of STSWG's time during the meeting in New Orleans to address some technical issues.

Tom Helms said they could do that at 12:30 on December 16th.

David Sanders then reviewed the meeting agenda, which included the meeting with other groups on Tuesday afternoon.

Tom Helms said they should look for the New Orleans meeting agenda that was published on December 9th. He then inquired if there were any other comments about the meeting next week.

Harvey Jeffries presented comments to the work group that Steve Ziman had written after reviewing the final FACA Subcommittee report, which pointed out issues that Steve Ziman felt were not well-reflected in the report. Alan Krupnick had discussed these comments with the Coordination Work Group, and he felt that these comments should appear as changes in the STSWG executive summary. Harvey Jeffries read aloud Steve Ziman's proposed changes to the executive summary.

Jeffrey MacGillivray asked to have these proposed changes sent out via email.

S.T. Rao thought that they were not supposed to address issues involving the new standards, yet Steve Ziman's proposed changes mentioned the standards.

Harvey Jeffries said that Steve Ziman's comments stated just that, by saying STSWG did not address issues on the standards but on implementation.

S.T. Rao said STSWG had raised issues on the standards, but they did not discuss them.

Harvey Jeffries liked how Steve Ziman's comments pointed out that STSWG recognized that there were some issues on the standards.

Tom Helms said that thousands of issues were not considered by STSWG. His personal reaction was that changes to the executive summary should not be made by one person after everyone else had worked on them.

S.T. Rao agreed with this.

S.T. Rao suggested that they could discuss these comments at the meeting.

Harvey Jeffries said they needed to know what was discussed at the Coordination Group meeting last week regarding Steve Ziman's proposed changes.

S.T. Rao suggested that they could also address that next week.

Harvey Jeffries did not know what was in the original executive summary. He would like to look at the proposed changes within the actual executive summary.

Tom Helms said he would look into that.

Harvey Jeffries said they should be able to discuss this issue next week.

Jeffrey MacGillivray felt they needed to see the executive summary before the meeting.

Conceptual Model

David Sanders presented his ideas for handling the Conceptual Model:

1) Put placeholders in Chapters 6 and 7 and the executive summary.

2) Chapter 4 of the FACA report can lay out as the executive summary for the Conceptual Model report. That would be a quick fix.

3) Place a reference sheet in Chapters 6 and 7. Chapter 6 would reference the NARSTO report, and Chapter 7 would reference API pieces.

David Sanders said that these reference materials could be available on the web or people could call for hard copies. He said that by doing this, people would still have reference material to look at.

George Lauer asked when the cutoff date for inputs was.

David Sanders said it would be the third week in January.

Tom Helms said they would accommodate George Lauer.

David Sanders said during that period, they would work on the documents to make them acceptable in terms of language and format. Those two documents and the executive summary would be in a state of change. STSWG may need an additional call during the second week in January.

Tom Helms said it would depend on whether or not any big issues existed that needed discussion.

S.T. Rao asked what the timetable was for completion of the Conceptual Model.

Tom Helms said the deadline for completing the Conceptual Model would be February 14th.

Harvey Jeffries asked about the timetable for the FACA report completion.

Tom Helms said the FACA report's deadline was being discussed at this time.

Tom Helms asked if there were any other issues.

George Lauer asked if the STSWG group would continue.

Tom Helms said that after next week's meeting, it would have to be on a case-by-case basis and individual informal communications. Officially, the STSWG is done, but they would be finishing the Conceptual Model.

Diana Andrews asked about the status of the AOI/AOV paper.

Tom Helms said that had been going in circles with it. EPA had not decided what to do.

Harvey Jeffries asked if the AOI/AOV paper was showing up in the FACA Subcommittee Report.

David Sanders said the AOI/AOV paper was included in Chapter 4 of the document.

Harvey Jeffries said that everything went in on November 20.

Tom Helms said since they were hearing no other comments, they would adjourn.

Tom Helms, Harvey Jeffries, and David Sanders thanked everyone for all their work.

The meeting was adjourned at 1:45 pm.