Draft Summary of the Federal Advisory Committee Act (FACA)

Science and Technical Support Work Group

August 12, 1996

Room 414 - Mutual Building

Research Triangle Park, North Carolina

The Science and Technical Support Work Group (STSWG) of the FACA Subcommittee held a conference call on Monday, August 12, 1996. A list of participants and a summary of the meeting follows.

Work Group Participants

Name	Affiliation

Dan Weiss	Cinergy Corporation

Jeff West	NARSTO-NE

Mark Scruggs	DOI/NPS

S.T. Rao	New York

Jay Rosenthal	U.S. Navy

Steve Ziman	Chevron Corporation

Kirit Chaudhari	Virginia

Leon Outlaw (for Jay Hudson)	Santee Cooper

Work Group Members Not Participating

Tom Helms, Co-Chair	U.S. EPA/OAQPS

Harvey Jeffries, Co-Chair	UNC-Chapel Hill

Dave McNeill

Diana Andrews

Bruce Hill

Rich Poirot

Manop Vanichchagorn

Non-Work Group Participants

Pradeep Saxena, Electric Power Research Institute; Cindy Langworthy, Hunton and Williams; John Chamberlin, EPA/OPPE; Bill Kuykendal, EPA/EIFG; Robin Dunkins, Charlene Spells, EPA/IPSG; JoAnn Allman, Bill Johnson, Sharon Reinders, David Sanders and Dave Stonefield, EPA/OPSG.

Summary of Meeting

David Stonefield opened the meeting for Tom Helms and Harvey Jeffries, and indicated that he had been trying to reach Harvey Jeffries since last Thursday; however, he still had not heard from him. Mr. Stonefield said that he learned this morning that Harvey was on vacation. Mr. Stonefield relayed to the participants that Tom Helms was currently out of the country in Europe.

David Stonefield began an update on the July 30, 1996 Full FACA Subcommittee meeting, stating that he had sent handouts and summaries from the FACA meeting to each Work Group participant. Mr. Stonefield apologized for Harvey Jeffries not being present, because he had intended for him to summarize the events of the meeting at this time. Several of the Work Group members indicated that they had not received the above mentioned package. Jeff West stated that he had received his package, but it was missing the list of 10 general assumptions. David Sanders stated the packages were sent on two different days, and that he would send via electronic mail the list of 10 assumptions to each Work Group member. Steve Ziman requested that Mr. Sanders put the information on the OAPQS TTN/BBS as opposed to sending it via electronic mail.

David Stonefield now asked for Sharon Reinders to provide a discussion on Interim Implementation Principles.

Ms. Reinders Presentation

Sharon Reinders indicated that the Interim principles are not currently on the OAQPS TTN/BBS; but, she stated that they will be there within the next day or so, under either the Subcommittee or Base Programs headings. She indicated that at the May meeting, the Subcommittee charged that a small group get together and see if there was any area of consensus for the discussion that had taken place during the May meeting. One of the issues raised was, how do we transact trading of emissions under the interim time period? As a result, seven people met and debated this issue. The group suggested that any substitutions during the interim period did not have to wait upon EPA's SIP approval. Rather, if the state had submitted them to EPA and could effectively enforce them, then they could be implemented. Most of the group's time was focused on this issue of substitution. Ms. Reinders stated that generally, substitutions could be made, but not to fulfill requirements that had been mandated up to that time (e.g. they could not use them to get around the 15% rule). However, substitutions could be applied to determine rate of progress. The group limited the scope of substitutions to VOC and NOx areas within 100 km of the nonattainment boundary for VOC and 200 km for NOx.

She indicated that the group also deferred any decisions on bump-ups for moderate areas, until the status of the standards were known (e.g. will there be new ozone and PM standards at all?). Ms. Reinders also confirmed that transport was addressed and emphasized the need for a comprehensive public education and outreach program for the new standards. She also stated that there was still a PM component for transition issues that still needed to be resolved. In conclusion, she said that the Agency is going to build the policy on these principles and that it should be ready by the 11/29/96 deadline.

Steve Ziman questioned where the STSWG fit into this process. He asked if the STSWG was going to get a chance to review these issues that were just discussed. Sharon Reinders responded that she was not clear on the process. She indicated that Sally Shaver was going to reconvene the ad hoc group to deal with the PM issue, and perhaps this would provide a chance for STSWG to become involved. Jeff West, asked Ms. Reinders to restate the decision on the NOx for VOC substitution. She replied that NOx can be substituted for VOC in the post-1996 plans, except where they apply to the 15% rule. Mr. West also asked for a clarification on the statement regarding "only VOC for VOC within 100 km". Ms. Reinders indicated that the statement she made could be interpreted in that manner. She also said that it was her understanding that you could also substitute NOx for VOC, even within that 100 km area.

Dan Weiss responded that since the STSWG has developed its own substitution policy, this information needed to be relayed to the small ad hoc group. David Stonefield answered that we have already done this through the paper that Doug Grano developed. Mr. Stonefield acknowledged that he was not sure whether the STSWG had reached closure on the issue at this time - there was still room for further discussion.

S.T. Rao questioned the spatial design of VOC at 100 km and NOx at 200 km - where do these numbers come from? Ms. Reinders stated that the numbers were not based on any sound scientific or technical information. Mr. Rao responded, that the STSWG should be deeply concerned about such policy decisions that were exclusive of good science. David Stonefield stated that the group was concerned, and the group had tried to deal with these issues in the ANPR Science Document. Steve Ziman stated that this was bad science; policy without science. Dan Weiss indicated he felt his concerns were not being addressed adequately. Mr. Ziman asked to go on record as stating that when policy has no scientific basis, then the STSWG simply cannot support it. He concluded by saying that if it is purely a political issue, then the STSWG has no use or worth in this FACA process. Mr. Stonefield agreed with Mr. Ziman. However, he stated that we should not throw in the towel, rather we should go back to the policy people with our approach.

Discussion of the Issue Papers

David Stonefield requested additional help from the Work Group members on putting together responses to the Issue Papers. He requested that if anyone was interested, that they should contact David Sanders prior to close of business tomorrow. David Sanders indicated that the Agency wanted to split things up between Phase 1 and Phase 2, and put all the Phase 2 issues on the back burner for right now. Mr. Sanders stated that it has come down to a critical point, where we want to go ahead and finish-up these issues in September and bring the effort to closure. Mr. Sanders indicated that the Designations (combined) Paper is very near completion. Thus, he suggested that we not devote a great deal of time to this paper. He suggested that we spend some time discussing the NSR issue, the integration of implementation issue, institutional mechanisms and economic incentives.

Steve Ziman questioned why the STSWG was dealing with the NSR issue. Mr. Ziman stated that his concern was that the EPA policy, which is currently in the making, could totally change the STSWG's current thinking. Robin Dunkins stated that as we consider AOI's, we need to rethink how will NSR affect this larger arena? Ms. Dunkins indicated that we will not be rewriting the NSR policy, but that we would like to explore what options are available to us.

John Chamberlin noted that this question had been discussed extensively within the Base Programs Work Group. He stated that he thought that BPAP had pushed this into a Phase 2 issue; however, Ms. Dunkins appears to be thinking of this as a Phase 1 issue. Mr. Chamberlin agreed with Mr. Ziman in questioning why we are dealing with NSR when the Agency is proposing a 500-page revision and simplification to the existing standard? Mr. Chamberlin concluded that he thought the mandate to the STSWG was to look at the implementation issues associated with the NSR process (e.g. market-based cap and trade types of programs). Mr. Ziman disagreed, stating that this is not simply an application of NSR for AOIs and AOVs. Mr. Chamberlin agreed with Mr. Ziman. Ms. Dunkins stated the NRSWG was looking at this issue from a slightly different approach. Mr. Chamberlin indicated that if that was the case, the authors of the paper were not entirely clear on this "new" approach.

Mark Scruggs stated that he had not discussed much with Dan Weiss regarding implementation issues. However, he had received a partial rewrite from Donna Lamb. Currently, the paper has been split into Phase 1 and Phase 2 issues. Mr. Scruggs indicated that he is proposing some major changes, and had sent these suggestions to Ms. Lamb this morning for her comments/suggestions. He indicated that Ms. Lamb would like to finish the paper by the middle of this week. John Chamberlin reminded Mr. Scruggs that he needed to understand some policy issues regarding implementation. Mr. Chamberlin voiced concern about the potential costs of meeting a new ozone and PM standard. He suggested that this issue rests clearly under the implementation umbrella. He concluded by stating that it is anticipated that a joint/integrated implementation strategy is designed to reduce the overall cost of attaining the new standards.

Steve Ziman asked again what are we supposed to do here? He stated that science cannot support some of these policies that are being talked about here today. Mr. Ziman indicated that it is a case of people not hearing what they do not want to hear. Mr. Chamberlin replied, "I cannot hear you Steve". David Sanders indicated to Steve Ziman that this did need to be brought-up again, and that he would speak to Harvey and Tom regarding this issue.

Steve Ziman stated that there was no single model that could adequately address the ozone, PM and regional haze issues and this formed the basis of our dilemma. He also noted, that there simply is not enough data to support these policies either. Mr. Ziman remarked that the scientists had been relegated to the outside, because science cannot support the policies that the Agency wants to implement. Dan Weiss agreed with Mr. Ziman, saying that ozone models are bad enough, just wait until you try to link ozone, PM and regional haze into a single model. Jay Rosenthal suggested that the key issue here was the coupling mechanism between ozone and PM.

Steve Ziman again voiced his concern over the lack of available data from which to make valid scientific decisions.

John Chamberlin acknowledged that he and Steve Ziman had entered into this discussion before. Mr. Chamberlin told Mr. Ziman that policy people did not hear him because he was only telling them what they could not do, and not offering any suggestions on how they might reach their potential goals.

Robin Dunkins indicated that the Institutional Mechanisms and Integrated Implementation issues were on the OAPQS TTN/BBS under the NRSWG heading.

Conceptual Model

David Sanders indicated that Chapter 5 is being completed and that Chapter 6 and 7 deal with Phase 2 issues and are somewhat delayed at this time. He also indicated that Bob Stallings has converted all the figures into PCX files for electronic distribution. Mr. Sanders indicated that work is moving along, but because of the "down" week last week, we are moving along slowly.

Closing Remarks

David Stonefield reminded the Work Group members that Tom Helms requested that when we (e.g. STSWG members) are meeting with other groups and are asked to speak for the STSWG, we should be speaking as members of the STSWG. In this capacity, if you cannot make such a meeting, then you should get back to Tom or replace yourself with another STSWG member. Mr. Helms does not want us to substitute with outside personnel to handle these inter- group discussions.

Face-to-Face Meeting:

The next Face-to-Face meeting is scheduled for the end of September (e.g. 26 and 27) in Norfolk, VA. Mr. Stonefield indicated that the STSWG should probably have something prior to this, most likely the 17, 18 or 19 of September. He stated that because of travel constraints, the EPA technical staff would be unable to travel. Thus, any interaction would be local in either Durham or RTP. Robin Dunkins reminded the Work Group that the NRSWG will be meeting in RTP on 9/5/96 for a "brainstorming session" and on 9/4/96 the AOI group will meet for a half day to discuss sizes of AOIs. Mr. Stonefield offered that BPAP was currently polling it's membership to get a date set for their meeting. Mr. Stonefield requested that the Work Group members get any potential agenda items into David Sanders so that he can get them to Tom and Harvey, prior to our next scheduled call on 8/26/96.