U. S. Environmental Protection Agency

           PROPOSED TIER 2 MOTOR VEHICLE EMISSIONS
                    STANDARDS AND GASOLINE

              SULFUR CONTROL REQUIREMENTS NOTICE
                    OF PROPOSED RULEMAKING

                        PUBLIC HEARING




                       ATLANTA, GEORGIA

                       FRIDAY, JUNE 11

                          10:00 a.m.
                                                       2




 1      EPA BOARD MEMBERS:

 2      MARGO OGE

 3      CHET FRANCE

 4      DAWN MARTIN

 5      TAD WYSOR

 6      SUE WILLIS

 7      SUSMITA DUBEY

 8      WINSTON SMITH

 9

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

21

22

23

24

25
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 1                    P R O C E E D I N G S

 2           MR. SMITH:  I'm Winston Smith.  I'm with

 3      the EPA Regional Office here in Atlanta.  And on

 4      behalf of the EPA and our regional office, we

 5      want to welcome you to this hearing on the Tier

 6      2 regulations.  I can tell you that it's very,

 7      very appropriate that a hearing on the

 8      regulations be held in Atlanta, as one of the

 9      series of hearings being held around the

10      country.  I think the Tier 2 regulation means an

11      awful lot to us here and an awful lot to a

12      number of areas throughout the southeast.

13           As you're probably here today, there are a

14      lot of other team of problems still out there,

15      there are a lot of air quality problems that

16      need to be dealt with.

17           We have ozone action days here and

18      throughout the southeast and a lot of the cities

19      and it is of great concern to us.  It's also a

20      great concern to us here and a number of areas,

21      Atlanta and the rest of the southeast, how these

22      regulations will effect our long-term ability to

23      maintain the standards and ability to conform in

24      relation to conformity regulations.  It's all

25      very, very important to us.  And it's also tied
                                                       4




 1      to the growth rate we have throughout many of

 2      the cities in the southeast.  Growth rates is

 3      far higher than the national rate and that, of

 4      course, is important.

 5           There regulations are relative really to

 6      the long-range planning and the things that

 7      we're doing throughout.  It's also, of course,

 8      obviously relative to public health.

 9           Again, we welcome you all to the hearing.

10      And we hope to learn a lot today and we're

11      anxious to get on with it.

12           MS. OGE:  Good morning.

13           Thank you, Winston.

14           On behalf of the Environmental Protection

15      Agency, I want to thank you for coming here and

16      I want to welcome you to today's hearing.

17           We are looking forward to hearing your

18      views on the problem that we believe is critical

19      to the future of air quality in this country.

20           My name is Margo Oge, and I'm the director

21      of the Office of Mobile Sources, with the

22      Environmental Protection Agency.  And I will be

23      serving as the presiding officer for today's

24      hearing.

25           The proposed regulation that we're
                                                       5




 1      considering today was announced by President

 2      Clinton on May 1st, 1999, and it was published

 3      in the Federal Register on May 13th, 1999.

 4           We believe that this is an historic

 5      proposal.  This problem will exceed a dramatic

 6      reduction in air pollution for the 21st century

 7      and it will do it in a cost effective and

 8      flexible way.  We estimate emission reductions

 9      of almost 2.2 million tons per year by 2020.

10      This is equivalent of removing a hundred and

11      sixty-six million tons from the road.

12           We followed several principles in

13      developing this proposal, and I would like to

14      briefly go over those principles.  We wanted to

15      meet the air quality needs for the states and

16      the nation as a whole.  We wanted to treat autos

17      and fuel as one system.  We wanted to bring

18      sport utility vehicles, minivans and pickup

19      trucks to the same emissions standards as other

20      passenger vehicles.  We wanted to have a

21      fuel-mutual standard; that is, the same standard

22      regardless of what fuel is used.  We wanted to

23      make sure that we're not going to constrain

24      consumer choice for vehicles or driving styles,

25      either due to cost or technology factors.  And
                                                       6




 1      finally, we wanted to provide flexibility for

 2      industries in how they achieve the standards.

 3           The same time that we published the Tier 2

 4      proposal, EPA released an Advanced Notice of

 5      Proposed Rulemaking concerning diesel fuel

 6      quality.  We're not seeking comments today

 7      during this hearing on this specific proposal.

 8      We have established a separate docket, and I'll

 9      give you the number, A-99-06 for comments on

10      this Advanced Notice.

11           Many of you are probably aware of the two

12      recent Court of Appeal decisions regarding the

13      EPA air problems.  The first decision found that

14      the Clean Air Act is consenting real public

15      health in air quality standards for sulfur and

16      particulate, is unconstitutional is an improper

17      allegation of legislative referring to EPA.

18           Despite the constitutional ruling, however,

19      the court does not question the science of which

20      EPA relies to develop these health standards.

21      The court did not criticize EPA's

22      decision-making process.  EPA disagrees with the

23      court decision.  We have recommended to the

24      Department of Justice that they take all the

25      necessary judicial steps to overturn the
                                                       7




 1      decision.

 2           The second decision states a supplement of

 3      state plans under the NOx emissions, which has

 4      been scheduled for this fall.  We closely

 5      reviewed these decisions and have concluded that

 6      they do not impact the Tier 2 rulemaking.

 7           The Tier 2 proposal remains on solid

 8      grounds in terms of air quality needs,

 9      technological feasibility, cost and cost

10      effectiveness.  Without significant new controls

11      in model vehicle emissions, millions of people

12      will continue to breathe unhealthy air.

13           We believe the Tier 2 standards as proposed

14      are needed to obtain and maintain the air

15      quality standards.  Over seventy million people

16      in this country are breathing unhealthy air

17      today and this trend will continue unless we

18      take action now.

19           We also believe that this proposal is

20      technologically feasible and it is cost

21      effective.  The projected cost of making the

22      proposed standards is about a hundred dollars

23      for cars, two hundred dollars for sport

24      utilities and between one and two cents per

25      gallon of gasoline.
                                                       8




 1           Even though our cars and trucks run cleaner

 2      than ever before, they still contribute a large

 3      problem to our air pollution, we're holding this

 4      hearing in Atlanta today.  Cars and light-duty

 5      trucks contribute almost forty percent of all

 6      NOx emissions in Atlanta and this trend will

 7      continue.  Americans love to drive and we're

 8      driving more than ever.  Actually, I understand

 9      from Winston Smith this morning that the

10      vehicles in Atlanta drive more miles every year

11      than any other part of the country.  If we do

12      not act today, the emissions from our cars and

13      light-duty trucks, combined with the current

14      levels of sulfur in our gasoline, threaten the

15      many air quality gains that we have made in

16      recent years.

17           For the first time, with this proposal, we

18      are addressing vehicles and fuels as one system.

19      We are looking at not only the cars we drive,

20      but also the fuel being used, because sulfur

21      poisons pollution control devices in vehicles.

22      We are proposing to cut the sulfur content of

23      gasoline by ninety percent.

24           The proposal contains two primary elements:

25      First, EPA's proposal or projective emissions
                                                       9




 1      standards for all light-duty vehicles and

 2      light-duty trucks.  The proposed vehicle

 3      standards would require all vehicles and trucks

 4      weighing up to eighty-five hundred pounds to

 5      meet a corporate average NOx standard of 0.07

 6      grams per mile.  This new standard will result

 7      in cars about seventy-seven percent cleaner and

 8      SUVs, minivans and pickup trucks as much as

 9      ninety-five percent cleaner than today's

10      vehicles.

11           The standards will be phased-in from 2004

12      through 2007 for light-duty vehicles and

13      light-duty trucks up to six thousand pounds.

14      Heavy light-duty trucks or those between six

15      thousand pounds and eighty-five hundred pounds

16      would be required to meet the Tier 2 standards

17      in 2008 and 2009.  For this class of vehicles,

18      however, EPA's proposed new interim standards

19      beginning in 2004.

20           The second main element of the Tier 2

21      proposal is a nationwide control of sulfur in

22      gasoline.  The Tier 2 standards cannot be met

23      without cleaner fuel.  With cleaner fuel, not

24      only the Tier 2 cars will benefit, but also the

25      cars that we drive today will benefit.  Refiners
                                                       10




 1      and importers of gasoline would be required to

 2      meet a new sulfur limit of thirty parts per

 3      million on average beginning 2004.  With the

 4      banking and trading program, that could

 5      introduce cleaner fuel in the marketplace as

 6      early as 2000 and extend the plans into 2006.

 7           The Tier 2 proposal, in a number of

 8      provisions, is designed to provide flexibility

 9      to vehicle manufacturers and refineries

10      including proposals to provide more flexibility

11      to small business.

12           Before getting started with today's

13      testimony, I'll take a few minutes to introduce

14      the panel and describe I we will conduct this

15      hearing.

16           With me today, you've already met Mr.

17      Winston Smith, he's the director of our air

18      office here in Atlanta.  Dawn Martin, on my

19      right, is the chief of staff of the EPA's office

20      of air and aviation.  Susmita Dubey, is our

21      lawyer.  She is with our office of general

22      counsel.  On my left is Chet France, and he's

23      the director of the division that deals with

24      engines and compliance problems in the office of

25      mobile sources.
                                                       11




 1           We have received an overwhelming number of

 2      requests to testify and we'll do our best to

 3      accommodate everyone.  We ask the witness to

 4      limit your testimony to no more than ten

 5      minutes.

 6           Tad Wysor -- Tad, stand up -- is a very

 7      important person.  Please look at him.  He's

 8      going to try to keep you honest with time.

 9           We are conducting this hearing in

10      accordance with Section 307(d)(5) of the Clean

11      Air Act, which requires EPA to provide

12      interested persons with an opportunity for oral

13      presentation of data to be used or argument in

14      addition to an opportunity to make written

15      submissions.  The comment period and record for

16      this hearing will remain open until August 2nd,

17      1999, for additional written comments.

18           This hearing will be conducted informally

19      and formal Rules of Evidence will not apply.

20      The presiding officer, however, is authorized to

21      strike from the records statements which are

22      deemed irrelevant or needlessly repetitious and

23      to enforce reasonable limits of duration of the

24      statement of any witness with the help of Tad

25      Wysor.
                                                       12




 1           We'll request that you please state your

 2      names and affiliations before making your

 3      statement.  When a witness has finished his or

 4      her presentation, members of the panel, the EPA

 5      panel, may ask that person questions concerning

 6      issues raised in the testimony.  Witnesses are

 7      reminded that any false statement or false

 8      response to questions may be a violation of law.

 9           If there are any members of the audience

10      who wish to testify, who have not already

11      contacted us, please submit your name at the

12      reception table.  I also ask that all attendies

13      of this hearing sign the register whether or not

14      you testify.

15           We plan to take a break for lunch and a

16      break later on this afternoon.  But we request

17      that you refrain from bringing food into the

18      meeting room due to the terms of the contract

19      with this facility.

20           And finally, if you would like a transcript

21      of the proceeding, you should make arrangements

22      directly with the court reporter during one of

23      the breaks and the transcripts will be available

24      in the docket within two weeks.

25           Also, I would like to ask that the speakers
                                                       13




 1      provide a copy of your testimony to the front

 2      registration desk so that we can place those

 3      written documents to the docket.

 4           Before we begin the testimony, are there

 5      any questions, any clarification questions?

 6           (No response).

 7           MS. OGE:  Without any questions, let's

 8      proceed introducing the first panel.  As I call

 9      your names, please come to the front table.

10           Ms. Becky Stanfield, Mr. Ron Methier, Mr.

11      Bob Morgan, Ms. Josephine Cooper and Dr. Nancy

12      Turbidy.

13           (Whereupon, the panel came before the

14           EPA board.)

15           MS. OGE:  Dr. Nancy Turbidy.

16           (No response).

17           MS. OGE:  Before I ask the speakers to read

18      their statements, I would like to ask Winston

19      Smith to read a written statement from Mr.

20      Howard Rhodes, who is with the Florida

21      Department of EPA, and then we can proceed with

22      you.

23           MR. SMITH:  This is the testimony of Howard

24      L. Rhodes, the Director of the Division of Air

25      Resource Management, Florida Department of
                                                       14




 1      Environment.  His statement reads as follows:

 2           "The State of Florida currently is the

 3      unique and enviable position of meeting the

 4      national ambient air quality standards for all

 5      criteria of pollutions.

 6           "A great deal of the credit for achieving

 7      and maintaining the one-hour standard of ozone

 8      goes to EPA for the progress and success they

 9      have had in implementing nationwide motor

10      vehicle emission controls over the past twenty

11      or so years.

12           "Not withstanding that success, because of

13      our high growth rate, we've depend heavily on

14      continued progress since the proposed Tier 2 and

15      low sulfur fuel standards can help maintain

16      healthy air for the foreseeable future.

17           "Without the continued progress, based on

18      advancing technologies, Florida's major urban

19      centers are faced with certain future air

20      quality problems.  In the past, these major

21      population centers were in violation of the old

22      one-hour ozone standard, but by the mid-'90s

23      were meeting the standards.  Clearly the

24      national Tier 1 auto and light-truck standards

25      contributed largely to that achievement.  But
                                                       15




 1      because of the regional nature of ozone,

 2      Florida's more rural areas, such as the western

 3      panhandle are now feeling the pressure.  That is

 4      why is it so important to address the issue on a

 5      national basis.

 6           "In conclusion, we commend the U.S. EPA for

 7      the strong stand they are taking in proposing

 8      the new standards and urge them to, quote, 'Do

 9      the right thing,' unquote.  Adopt the most

10      stringent national vehicle and fuel standards

11      that are technologically and economically

12      feasible to ensure the maximum emission

13      reduction possible.  In addition, we fully

14      support the staff to allow for testimony for

15      resolution regarding these issues."

16           MS. OGE:  I'm going to ask Mr. Ronald

17      Methier to be first, and I think that's

18      appropriate given the fact that we reviewing

19      your statement.

20           MR. METHIER:  Thank you.

21           MS. OGE:  Good morning.

22           MR. METHIER:  Good morning.

23           My name is Ron Methier.  I'm the chief of

24      the Georgia Air Protection Branch and the Vice

25      President of STAPPA, the State and Territorial
                                                       16




 1      Air Pollution Program Administrators.  I appear

 2      here this morning on behalf of STAPPA, which

 3      represents my own agency, as well as the other

 4      fifty-four state and territorial air pollution

 5      control agencies across the country; and on

 6      behalf of ALAPCO, the Association of Local Air

 7      Pollution Control Officials, which represents

 8      the air pollution control agencies in more than

 9      one hundred and sixty-five major metropolitan

10      areas nationwide.

11           I'm pleased to have this opportunity to

12      provide the association's testimony on the U.S.

13      Environmental Protection Agency's recently

14      proposed Tier 2 motor vehicle emission standards

15      program to reduce sulfur in gasoline as well as

16      on the agency's Advanced Notice of Proposed

17      Rulemaking on diesel fuel.

18           On behalf of STAPPA and ALAPCO, I would

19      like to commend EPA for its leadership not only

20      in issuing the Tier 2 and gasoline sulfur

21      proposal, but also for developing such a strong

22      and comprehensive package.  We further commend

23      EPA for responsibly taking full advantage of the

24      opportunity to efficiently and cost effectively

25      reduce a wide variety of emissions, for pursuing
                                                       17




 1      a systems approach that addresses both fuel and

 2      tailpipe emissions and for engaging in such a

 3      thorough, thoughtful and inclusive process to

 4      craft this proposal.

 5           We are especially pleased that the proposed

 6      Tier 2 and gasoline sulfur programs directly

 7      reflect almost every key recommendation made by

 8      STAPPA and ALAPCO over the past two years.

 9      These programs, which will define our ability to

10      control emissions from cars and light-duty

11      trucks for the next fifteen years or so, are of

12      vital importance to our memberships.  For this

13      reason, on October 1997 and on April 1998, our

14      associations adopted, with overwhelming support,

15      resolutions calling for stringent low-sulfur

16      gasoline and Tier 2 programs; copies of these

17      resolutions are attached to my written

18      statements.

19           We place the highest priority on

20      participating in the rule development process

21      and are proud that EPA has concluded that the

22      most appropriate programs so closely mirror

23      those for which we have advocated.

24           As the officials with primary

25      responsibility for achieving and maintaining
                                                       18




 1      clean, healthful air across the country, state

 2      and local air agencies are keenly aware of the

 3      need to aggressively pursue emission reductions

 4      from all sectors that contribute to our nation's

 5      air quality problems.  We believe the potential

 6      air quality benefits to result from cutting

 7      emissions from light-duty vehicles and

 8      light-duty trucks and reducing sulfur in

 9      gasoline, as the agency has proposed, are

10      tremendous.  These proposed programs will allow

11      us to make significant strides in our efforts to

12      deliver and sustain clean air and resulting in

13      facilitating substantial and much needed

14      emission reductions across the country.  These

15      emission reductions will play a pivotal role in

16      addressing an array of air quality problems that

17      continue to pose health and welfare risks

18      nationwide.

19           While much of the debate surrounding the

20      air quality need for Tier 2 and low-sulfur

21      gasoline seems to have gravitated toward ozone,

22      it is imperative that we not overlook the many

23      other aspects of air quality benefits of this

24      proposal to be realized by both non-attainment

25      and attainment areas east and west.  While this
                                                       19




 1      proposal will indeed decrease emissions of

 2      hydrocarbons and nitrogen oxide, which, in turn,

 3      will lead to reduced levels of ambient ozone, it

 4      will also decrease particulate and carbon

 5      monoxide emissions and improve visibility,

 6      address acid rain problems and reduce greenhouse

 7      gases and toxic air pollution.

 8           In addition, the substantial reductions to

 9      occur from this proposal will further the

10      objections of pollution prevention.

11      Additionally, the proposed programs will achieve

12      these important air quality improvements in an

13      extremely cost-effective manner.  At

14      approximately two thousand dollars per ton of

15      nitrogen oxide and the VOC removed, as estimated

16      by EPA, these programs are at least as cost

17      effective as, if not more cost effective, than

18      most other control measures available to us, and

19      the individuals I have mentioned and the

20      dividends as I have mentioned, are used.

21           Speaking for Georgia and other very high

22      growth areas of the nation, we find that our

23      growth is fast out-pacing the present nonpayment

24      control standards.  The Florida example is a

25      good one.  These new proposals will help present
                                                       20




 1      nonpayment areas, like metro Atlanta, but will

 2      also be critical to help many of our other urban

 3      areas growing maintain compliance with air

 4      quality standards.

 5           There are some components of the proposal

 6      which we do have concerns and we offer our

 7      recommendations to address these.  Nonetheless,

 8      STAPPA and ALAPCO congratulate EPA for issuing a

 9      proposal that we believe provides a sound

10      framework for environmentally and economically

11      responsible Tier 2 and gasoline sulfur programs.

12           For the proposed Tier 2 standards, STAPPA

13      and ALAPCO strongly support what we believe are

14      the cornerstones of the proposed Tier 2

15      programs.  Specifically we're pleased that the

16      proposal cost effectively achieves real-world

17      emission reductions from new light-duty vehicles

18      and light-duty trucks; reflects new and emerging

19      vehicles emission control technologies currently

20      available and expected to be available in 2004

21      and beyond; applies to light-duty vehicles and

22      light-duty trucks up to eighty-five hundred

23      pounds, including sport utility vehicles or

24      SUVs, pickup trucks and vans, beginning in 2004;

25      subjects light-duty trucks up to eighty-five
                                                       21




 1      hundred pounds to the same emission standards as

 2      cars and lighter trucks and includes a corporate

 3      average NOx standard for all effected vehicles;

 4      establishes fuel-neutral standards; includes a

 5      more stringent evaporative emissions standards

 6      and extends a useful life to one hundred and

 7      twenty thousand miles.  This last point is

 8      particularly important for Georgia since we and

 9      a lot of other southern states keep our vehicles

10      longer and drive them farther than the national

11      average.

12           All these control components are right on

13      target for a truly effective national motor

14      vehicle control program.  We are, however,

15      concerned that several provisions included in

16      the proposal or raised for public comment could

17      significantly undercut the program.  Among these

18      concerns are the later compliance deadline of

19      2009 versus 2007 for larger SUVs, vans and

20      trucks and the notion of a formal technology

21      review of the Tier 2 standards prior to the time

22      for heavier or light-duty trucks take effect.

23      In addition, while we certainly agree with EPA

24      that there should be some measure of flexibility

25      included in the Tier 2 program and find some of
                                                       22




 1      the approaches provided for to be entirely

 2      appropriate, we are quite concerned with various

 3      aspects of some of the proposed provisions, such

 4      as the amount of time allowed for manufactures

 5      to make up for a credit shortfall under the

 6      averaging banking and trading program and the

 7      leniency of some of the emission standard bins.

 8           Finally, giving the continuing trend toward

 9      heavier light-duty trucks over eighty-five

10      hundred pounds, we encourage EPA to consider

11      applying the Tier 2 standards to those SUVs,

12      pickup trucks and full-size vans weighing up to

13      ten thousand pounds used predominately for

14      personal transportation.

15           We will fully articulate all of these

16      concerns in our forthcoming written comments.

17           For the proposed gasoline and sulfur

18      control requirements, as with the Tier 2

19      program, STAPPA and ALAPCO also believe EPA has

20      done a fine job in establishing the key

21      parameters of the proposed low-sulfur gasoline

22      program.  EPA's proposal very appropriately and

23      necessarily establishes uniform, national,

24      year-around standards to sharply reduce sulfur

25      in gasoline; sets a gasoline standard -- sulfur
                                                       23




 1      standard of thirty parts per million on average

 2      to take effect in 2004, and includes a sulfur

 3      gap of eight parts per million; includes

 4      flexibility to minimize the cost to and

 5      compliance burden on affected parties; and

 6      provides incentives for refiners to take sulfur

 7      levels prior to -- to reduce sulfur levels prior

 8      to the 2004 effective date.

 9           Last spring, STAPPA and ALAPCO conducted an

10      analysis concluding that a national low-sulfur

11      gasoline program of this scope will achieve

12      overnight emission reductions that are

13      equivalent to taking fifty-four million vehicles

14      off the road.

15           MR. WYSOR:  You have two minutes.

16           MR. METHIER:  Okay.

17           Further, throughout the debate surrounding

18      gasoline sulfur, the issue of a national versus

19      regional program has been paramount.  We are

20      happy that EPA has proposed that the low-sulfur

21      gasoline standards apply uniformly and

22      nationwide.  This will forestall the very real

23      and detrimental impact of irreversible catalyst

24      poisoning and will do so in a way that is both

25      inexpensive and cost effective, but this must be
                                                       24




 1      done by 2004.

 2           Speaking for Georgia now, we do have some

 3      concerns about a part of the proposal which

 4      appears to limit the credits the oil companies

 5      can use for compliance of the state fuel

 6      regulations as they phase into the national

 7      program.  We hope that states like Georgia, that

 8      have taken a very strong proactive approach on

 9      fuel on the companies which supply fuel here,

10      are not adversely effected by this.

11           We'll be discussing our specific concerns

12      in our written comments in the future.

13           In conclusion, STAPPA and ALAPCO applaud

14      EPA for seizing the opportunity to take a huge

15      step forward in achieving much cleaner air.  We

16      commend your thorough process, your

17      conscientious inclusion of all stakeholders and

18      consideration of their views; and most of all,

19      for your leadership in proposing fundamentally

20      strong programs that are technologically

21      feasible, cost effective and environmentally

22      responsible.  We urge that as you engage in

23      efforts to development a final rule for Tier 2

24      motor vehicle standards and low-sulfur gasoline,

25      you preserve undiminished the key elements that
                                                       25




 1      we have identified and refine those aspects of

 2      the proposal that could undermine the tremendous

 3      potential of these programs.

 4           Finally, we stress the need for the agency

 5      to act in a timely manner so that these programs

 6      will begin in the time frames identified.  On

 7      behalf of our association, I offer you our

 8      continued cooperation and partnership as you

 9      move forward.

10           MS. OGE:  Thank you.

11           Mr. Bob Morgan.

12           MR. MORGAN:  Thank you.

13           Good morning.  I'm Bob Morgan, I'm

14      representing Placid Refining Company, LLC.

15      Placid is a small refiner by every statutory

16      definition.  We thank you for this opportunity

17      to address the issues of sulfur regulation from

18      a small business prospective.

19           Our refinery has a capacity of fifty

20      thousand barrels a day, and we're situated in

21      Port Allen, Louisiana, directly across the

22      Mississippi River, from Exxon's

23      four-hundred-thousand-barrel facility.  We

24      manufacture gasoline, diesel and military jet

25      fuel -- diesel both low sulfur and off road,
                                                       26




 1      which is distributed through terminals

 2      throughout six southeastern states in the United

 3      States.  The great majority of your gasoline is

 4      marketed in the U.S. Gulf Coast.  They have

 5      three, which is dominated by large refiners.

 6           As you must know, the number of small

 7      refiners has declined substantially over the

 8      last few years.  And the impact of any

 9      regulation has a disproportional economic

10      significance to a small refiner.

11           Regulatory flexibility is of utmost

12      importance to small business, more particularly

13      to the viability of small refiners.  Small

14      business regulatory and flexibility I clearly

15      express is a will of Congress and administrative

16      agencies accommodate the concerns of small

17      business.

18           To this end, SABRIEFA (phonetically) has

19      provided us an effective vehicle for comment.

20      We are pleased with the SABRIEFA process and the

21      opportunity its afforded us to present

22      information helpful to EPA in formulating the

23      implementation of this proposed rule.  We

24      appreciate EPA's attention to our concerns and

25      the information that we've provided in support
                                                       27




 1      of our position.  We're especially grateful to

 2      the SABRIEFA panel members, who went to great

 3      lengths to educate themselves firsthand on the

 4      operational and logistic concerns encountered by

 5      small refiners.  And we're also indebted to the

 6      refinery which opened its facility to the panel

 7      for its inspection to give them a greater

 8      understanding of the obstacles that we face in

 9      compliance.

10           The SABRIEFA report recognizes and

11      succinctly addresses the concerns of small

12      refiners in general and EPA has successfully

13      incorporated the SABRIEFA findings in the

14      proposed rule.  Although Placid and small

15      refiners in general would prefer even greater

16      flexibility than that proposed, we're confident

17      that the standards proposed will allow us to

18      continue to operate, although at substantially

19      higher cost.  Any further weakening of the

20      flexible implementation proposed by EPA would

21      pose a serious threat to the viability of small

22      refiners.

23           Our position has pretty much been presented

24      by other refiners in Philadelphia, and so we

25      will shorten our remarks and that concludes our
                                                       28




 1      presentation for today.

 2           As they say on Capitol Hill, we would like

 3      to reserve our right to revise and extend our

 4      remarks and anticipate supplementing the record

 5      with further comments that's appropriate within

 6      the allowed period.

 7           Also, we welcome the opportunity to discuss

 8      with anybody that takes issue with any of the

 9      flexibility standards proposed and thank you for

10      your courtesies.

11           MS. OGE:  Thank you.

12           Ms. Josephine Cooper.

13           MS. COOPER:  Good morning.  I'm Jo Cooper,

14      President of the Alliance of Automobile

15      Manufactures.  The Alliance is a coalition of

16      car and light-truck manufacturers with more than

17      six hundred and forty-two thousand employees and

18      two hundred and fifty-five facilities in

19      thirty-three states.  We're proud to be there

20      and to talk about our environmental commitment.

21      Alliance members represent more than ninety

22      percent of U.S. vehicle sales.

23           The auto makers are stepping up to the

24      plate on Tier 2.  However, we cannot accomplish

25      the Tier 2 role by ourself.  Much cleaner fuels
                                                       29




 1      are also needed in addition to the particular

 2      standards to make this program work.  We believe

 3      EPA has an opportunity to clear a path for

 4      future advanced technology vehicles and the

 5      ultra-clean fuels that are needed to power them.

 6      The Alliance fully supports the air quality

 7      goals of this rulemaking.  In fact, the Alliance

 8      puts forward what we would say is a rebuff

 9      proposal that can achieve even greater emission

10      reductions than the EPA's proposal.  We are very

11      close on most issues in the proposal.

12           Like EPA, the Alliance proposal goes beyond

13      proven technology, breaks new ground by

14      requiring that cars and light-duty trucks meet

15      the same average NOx levels and assure

16      significant reductions in NOx emissions, more

17      than would have been achieved with the EPA

18      proposal.

19           The Alliance proposal is not one that says

20      it can't be done or to ask for a free ride.

21      It's a rebuff proposal that recognizes our

22      industry's important goal and responsibility in

23      helping the U.S. reach its clean air goals.

24      Actually we don't know yet how we're going to

25      reach the goals for all the vehicles that we set
                                                       30




 1      for ourselves in our own proposal, but we are

 2      prepared to take on the challenge.  Can do is

 3      our attitude.

 4           I want to stress several key elements in

 5      our proposal, elements that should not get lost

 6      in the shuffle of this rulemaking process,

 7      elements necessary for Tier 2 to be successful.

 8      First, improved fuel, including near-zero sulfur

 9      will be needed to reach the clean air goal.

10      Fuels and autos operate as one system, as Margo

11      indicated earlier.  Near-zero sulfur fuels are

12      needed to enable the introduction of technology

13      that will allow us to meet these tough new

14      standards.  It makes little sense to mandate the

15      production of world-class vehicles and then run

16      them on a less than world-class fuel.

17           We applaud EPA's proposed reduction in fuel

18      sulfur levels to an average of thirty parts per

19      million as a good first step towards the fuel

20      qualities we need to achieve the goal.  This is

21      a sulfur level that California has required

22      since 1996.  Clearly, the expansion of low

23      sulfur fuels from the California-owned program

24      to a nationwide program is long over due, along

25      with California's vitality control.  However,
                                                       31




 1      it's not enough to stop at thirty parts per

 2      million.  On the vehicle side, the Tier 2 rule

 3      is an aggressive new program of

 4      technology-forcing standards comparable to those

 5      that California has had in place since 1998.

 6           It appears now that California will be

 7      taking a further step in reducing the sulfur

 8      content of gasoline to accompany its aggressive

 9      vehicular program.  We believe that this is

10      necessary, recognizing that thirty parts per

11      million of sulfur is not an end point, but

12      rather a stepping stone on the way to zero

13      sulfur fuel.

14           Removing sulfur is both feasible and

15      affordable.  The technology for sulfur removal

16      is readily available and it's in widespread use

17      in California, Japan, Europe, and other parts to

18      the world.  The evidence indicates that the

19      Alliance proposal for near-zero sulfur fuel can

20      be achieved at modest cost.  We need to get the

21      sulfur out nationwide.  Simply put, sulfur is

22      the lead of the nineties because of the way it

23      poisons the catalyst, although oil studies have

24      shown that catalyst subjected to higher sulfur

25      fuel experience a loss of effectiveness that
                                                       32




 1      cannot be recovered even after extended

 2      operations on low sulfur fuel.  In other words,

 3      the emissions benefits get canceled out.  That's

 4      why a so-called regional fuel program is

 5      unworkable, because vehicles traveling on a low

 6      sulfur region into a high sulfur region will

 7      experience an unavoidable degradation in the

 8      performance of their emission control systems.

 9           Sulfur removal is an essential enabler for

10      a new emissions control hardware and new

11      power-trained systems.  Emission technology such

12      as NOx traps may enable advanced technology

13      vehicles to achieve significant improvements in

14      fuel economy.  Fuel-sell vehicle may yet allow

15      us to attain the allusive goal of zero emission

16      vehicles.  These and other promising

17      technologies are known to require near-zero

18      sulfur fuel.  We can either put our hands in the

19      sand and ignore this fact or we can adopt the

20      regulations now to ensure that the necessary

21      fuel is in place to enable these new technology.

22           Another important point, auto makers need

23      enough flexibility in the time line to allow for

24      the invention of the technology necessary to

25      make EPA standards a reality.  The Alliance
                                                       33




 1      proposal agrees with EPA on the end point of .07

 2      grams per mile NOx as a fleet emission average

 3      for both passenger cars and light-duty trucks.

 4      Getting there will take time and require us to

 5      adhere to a number of technological programs.

 6           The introduction of Tier 2 standards should

 7      be accomplished in the two-phased approach set

 8      forth in the Alliance proposal:  one random

 9      emission reductions in 2004 and even more

10      aggressive emission reductions started in 2008,

11      when, hopefully, near-zero sulfur fuel will be

12      available.

13           A third key point, an independent third

14      party feasibility study in 2004 is needed to

15      make sure that we're heading in the right

16      direction and that we can achieve the goals that

17      EPA has set out.  The study should be conducted

18      by a mutually agreed-upon expert to establish

19      the feasibility of the second way of aggressive

20      standards based on the following four items:

21      five parts per million; sulfur fuels for both

22      gas and diesel; standards feasible for these new

23      lean-burn technologies; no edge by competitive

24      impact and standards that are cost effective and

25      affordable.  There is no down time to planning
                                                       34




 1      for this sort of independent review.  If major

 2      unexpected problems were discovered along the

 3      way, the review process will give EPA an

 4      opportunity to make new course corrections.

 5           Our last important point, we would like to

 6      ensure that the final Tier 2 rule continues to

 7      foster not freeze out the development and

 8      utilization of advanced technology vehicles.

 9           The Partnership for a New Generation of

10      Vehicles of government industry partnerships has

11      determined that four stroke direct injection is

12      the most promising near-term technology for

13      meeting dramatically improved fuel efficiency

14      over the next ten years.  EPA has concurred with

15      this selection.  However, these lean-burn

16      technologies pose formable emission control

17      challenges.

18           If the technologies are not allowed to be

19      developed appropriately, it could even restrict

20      a number of units that can be sold.  The

21      catalyst for these technologies are extremely

22      sensitive to sulfur and their efficiency

23      degrades quickly without near-zero sulfur fuels.

24           EPA's proposal could effectively prevent

25      the fruits of the CNGV program from being
                                                       35




 1      realized in the United States.  As I said, EPA

 2      should foster not freeze out advanced

 3      technologies in the U.S. market.  EPA can

 4      enhance Tier 2 flexibility without incurring any

 5      loss whatsoever of clean air benefit.  They can

 6      do this by expanding the number of certification

 7      bins to encourage advanced technology vehicles

 8      with no down side for the environment.

 9           In conclusion, the Alliance fully supports

10      EPA's clean air goals.  We're in agreement on

11      many fronts.  Yes, some changes are needed to

12      make the rules more workable, but we are

13      confident that by working together with EPA and

14      other interested parties, these issues can be

15      worked out.  However, we can't do this alone.

16      As our industry steps up to the plate with

17      cleaner and cleaner vehicles, we need our

18      colleagues in the oil industry to do their part

19      by providing cleaner and cleaner fuel.  Only by

20      combining world-class vehicles with world-class

21      fuels can we realize our full potential and

22      ensure that future generations will have not

23      only the cleanest air possible, but also a

24      robust energy and transportation industry prime

25      to compete in the 21st century.
                                                       36




 1           MS. OGE:  Thank you.

 2           Ms. Rebecca Stanfield.

 3           MS. STANFIELD:  Good morning.  My name is

 4      Rebecca Stanfield, and I'm the clean air

 5      advocate for U.S. Public Interest Research

 6      Group.  U.S. PIR is the national lobby office

 7      for the state PIR, which are a consumer and

 8      watch dog group.  We're active around the

 9      country.

10           Our Clean Air Now Campaign is talking to

11      literally millions of people about this critical

12      issue over the summer.  Over the past two weeks,

13      the 1999 smog season has descended upon most of

14      the eastern United States.  Already this summer,

15      millions of Americans have been exposed to

16      levels of air pollution that are unsafe to

17      breathe.

18           If this summer is like 1998, we can expect

19      frequent and widespread violations of the

20      federal health standard for smog, not just in

21      our urban centers, but throughout the nation.

22      Last year's standards were violated fifty-two

23      hundred times in forty states.  What this means

24      for people living in these areas, is that they

25      will experience declining lung function as a
                                                       37




 1      result of breathing air in their communities.

 2      For normal, healthy adults, it can mean not

 3      working or exercising outdoors; and, over time,

 4      lung tissue damage that could be irreversible.

 5      For children, the elderly and those with asthma,

 6      high smog days means losing work or school, not

 7      playing outdoors with friends, hospital

 8      emergency room visits for asthma attacks,

 9      increasing susceptibility to infection and often

10      serious exacerbation of preexisting heart and

11      respiratory disease.  Therefore, new standards

12      for clean cars and clean gasoline are not just a

13      good idea, they're absolutely essential to the

14      protection of public health.

15           Automobiles are the single largest source

16      of smog pollution, creating nearly a third of

17      the nitrogen oxide that cause fog formation.

18      EPA estimates that the standards will save

19      twenty-four hundred lives each year and prevent

20      over a hundred thousand people from being sick.

21           Together, the proposed Tier 2 standards in

22      gasoline sulfur standards comprise a strong

23      integrated approach to reducing pollution from

24      automobiles.  There are many aspects of the

25      program which we applaud, some of which I will
                                                       38




 1      describe below.  I will also describe several

 2      important ways in which the Tier 2 program

 3      should be strengthened to prevent unnecessary

 4      delays or complication and implementation and to

 5      avoid exacerbating existing loopholes for bigger

 6      and bigger automobiles.

 7           First, we applaud the overall significant

 8      reductions in pollution from the average

 9      automobile that will be realized through the

10      Tier 2 program.  The .07 grams per mile average

11      standards for nitrogen oxide based on a hundred

12      and twenty-eight thousand mile useful life is

13      approximately eighty-nine percent cleaner than

14      the Tier 1 standard.  It is clear that while the

15      standard is aggressive, the technology to meet

16      the standard is available.  This program will

17      also harmonize federal standards with those

18      adopted in California.

19           Second, we agree with EPA that the popular

20      sports utility vehicles must be treated no

21      differently for pollution purposes than cars.

22      There is no longer an expectation that the SU

23      vehicle be used as work cars.  On the contrary,

24      they are widely acknowledged to be the station

25      wagon of the 1990s, rarely used for any purpose
                                                       39




 1      more taxing than taking their family to the

 2      grocery store and to soccer practice.  The

 3      justification for allowing SUVs to pollute more

 4      is an artifact and the new standards should

 5      reflect the new role of SUVs in our society.

 6           Third, we agree that the nationwide sulfur

 7      standard should be adopted to prevent to the

 8      quickening of the sophisticated new pollution

 9      control equipment.  The automobile and the fuel

10      should be treated as a single system, and EPA

11      has appropriately proposed that new car

12      standards be accompanied by clean gasoline.

13      Moreover, we strongly that nationwide, rather

14      than regional gasoline standards, are critical

15      to the success of the Tier 2 program.  As

16      Americans, we enjoy the ability to drive from

17      state to state and as consumers we would be

18      outraged to have dirty gasoline damage our cars.

19      More importantly, we have air quality problems

20      that cost the nation with violations of the

21      health standards in forty states last year,

22      there is no region that we would not benefit

23      from clean fuel.

24           The oil industry representatives have

25      argued stridently for lower phase-in of the
                                                       40




 1      schedule for clean gasoline and increased

 2      flexibility for small refiners.  We believe that

 3      EPA's proposal strikes an appropriate balance

 4      between achieving pollution reduction and

 5      allowing the oil industry ample time and

 6      flexibility.  EPA allows the industry to use an

 7      averaging system, allows refineries to use

 8      credits from early reduction, allows less

 9      stringent caps in the first two years and allows

10      smaller time limits to meet both the stringent

11      standards through the years 2007.  More

12      flexibility than this is unwarranted and would

13      result in unenforceable and effective program.

14           While a strong first step, EPA's Tier 2

15      program should be strengthened before it becomes

16      finalized this year.  First, EPA's proposal

17      allows SUVs weighing between six thousand and

18      eighty-five hundred pounds an extra two years

19      before the Tier 2 car standards apply.  There is

20      significant and growing number of these larger

21      SUVs on the market, including the Ford

22      Expedition, Dodge Ram, Lincoln Navigator, we see

23      these everywhere.  EPA's proposal gives these

24      models until 2009, a full decade, before their

25      exemptions from clean car standards expires.  We
                                                       41




 1      believe that special standards for larger SUVs

 2      should expire immediately.

 3           Second, EPA's proposal does not address

 4      pollution from the largest and dirties SUVs of

 5      all, those over eighty-five hundred pounds.  The

 6      number of these super SUVs is also rapidly

 7      increasing, as the Ford Excursion enters the

 8      market to compete with the Chevy Suburban.  By

 9      not including these models in the Tier 2

10      program, EPA is giving auto manufacturers an

11      incentive to aggressively develop the ever

12      larger SUVs.  We believe that Tier 2 should

13      apply the same .07 NOx average to all classes

14      and passenger vehicles, including those over

15      eighty-five hundred pounds.

16           Third, EPA's proposal will allow the

17      filtration of diesel vehicles, the pollution

18      from which poses especially severe health

19      impact.  A growing body of research shows that

20      diesel exhaust has particularly severe health

21      impact, including greater risk in premature

22      deaths and greater risk of cancer.  The highest

23      bid in the proposal is designed specifically to

24      allow for more diesel-powered vehicles, which

25      will continue to emit more toxic pollution than
                                                       42




 1      gasoline-powered automobiles.  The State of

 2      California considered a similar proposal and

 3      rejected that submission in order to protect the

 4      citizens from the carcinogenic nature of diesel

 5      exhaust and EPA should do the same.

 6           And finally, I want to respond to a couple

 7      of the things that we've heard over the last few

 8      days from the auto industry and the oil

 9      industry.  First, the Alliance of Automobiles

10      Manufactures was calling to the agency to impose

11      five parts per million sulfur in gasoline limit

12      before it is required to meet EPA before

13      reaching the tailpipe requirements for heavy

14      light-duty trucks.

15           The Alliance is also calling for a

16      technology review in 2004 before the EPA's

17      proposal would become effective.  We believe

18      that the EPA is not required and should not

19      conduct such a technology review.  The agency

20      has well demonstrated that these standards are

21      achievable with thirty parts per million fuel in

22      its preamble in the Tier 2 reported to Congress.

23      This finding is also well demonstrated by

24      analyses performed by the California Air

25      Resource Board.  We appose these initiatives
                                                       43




 1      unless they are presented to higher standards

 2      than impose lower emission rates than Tier 2 --

 3      a Tier 3, if you will.  A Tier 3 set of

 4      standards is also needed to foster alternative

 5      technologies that could obtain zero or near-zero

 6      emission limits.

 7           And finally, I would like to respond to an

 8      assertion by the American Petroleum Institute,

 9      that this initiative should be held up because

10      of the recent D.C. District Court decision

11      remanding the 1997 health standards.  As Ms. Oge

12      said in her opening remarks, the court did not

13      challenge the fact that our air is dangerously

14      polluted, nor did it take away EPA's authority

15      and duty to cut pollution to protect public

16      health.

17           The American Petroleum Institute would have

18      EPA ignore the suffering of millions of

19      Americans rather than take cost effective,

20      common-sense approaches to cutting pollution and

21      clearing the air.  The American public will not

22      stand for this for one minute.  We urge EPA to

23      stand up to this outrageous industry argument.

24           And in conclusion, I thank EPA for allowing

25      me the opportunity to comment on the Tier 2
                                                       44




 1      proposal and the gasoline sulfur standards, and

 2      I look forward to submitting more details and

 3      written comments later.

 4           MS. OGE:  Thank you.

 5           Dr. Nancy Turbidy, welcome.  Good morning.

 6           DR. TURBIDY:  Good morning.

 7           I'm Nancy Turbidy, the Clean Air Specialist

 8      of the American Lung Association of Georgia.

 9      When asked to speak on air quality and its

10      effect on public health in Atlanta, my first

11      thought was, It's impossible to undo a hundred

12      years of growth and development in the city.

13      This progress has brought more cars and trucks

14      than we ever dreamed of.  We can only offer

15      improvements to our current situation.

16           The American Lung Association and its

17      medical section, The American Thoracic Society

18      believes the proposed Tier 2 regulation are the

19      next step in EPA's continued progress towards

20      reducing health consequences of smog and fine

21      particle solutions.

22           The lungs constant interaction with the

23      environment, the air we breathe, makes the

24      impact of the environment inescapable.  How well

25      and poorly our lungs perform depends directly on
                                                       45




 1      the quality of air around us.  In the U.S.,

 2      there are over a hundred and seventeen million

 3      people exposed to high levels of ozone.  In

 4      urban areas like Atlanta, motor vehicles are a

 5      large part of the problem.  Smog is created when

 6      gases or vapors emitted from the motor vehicle

 7      combine with nitrogen oxide, which compound in

 8      the presence of sunlight, which we have a lot of

 9      sunlight and warm weather in Atlanta.  Imagine

10      the health effects.  Ozone reacts to lung

11      tissue.  They can inflame or cause harmful

12      exchanges and breathing passages decrease a

13      lung's working ability and cause the coughing

14      and chest pain.

15           Ozone air pollution especially effects

16      sensitive groups, such as people with lung

17      disease, young children and the elderly.  People

18      who exercise and work outdoors are also more

19      vulnerable to the effects of ozone.  Ozone

20      pollution, even at low levels, has been linked

21      to increased hospital visits and emergency room

22      admissions for respiratory problems.

23           The American Lung Association applauds

24      EPA's Tier 2 low sulfur gas proposal as an

25      important measure for protecting health.
                                                       46




 1      Clearly, these new regulations are needed and

 2      achievable.  EPA estimates that these new rules

 3      will lower levels of ozone and particulate

 4      matter and reduce carbon monoxide.  Most

 5      important to the American Lung Association is

 6      that cleaner cars and trucks and cleaner

 7      gasoline will help save lives and reduce

 8      illness.

 9           Once fully implemented, EPA estimates these

10      rules could reduce premature mortality by up to

11      two thousand four hundred cases each year, acute

12      and chronic bronchitis by up to four thousand

13      cases each year and reduce cases of respiratory

14      symptoms and aggravation by over one hundred

15      thousand each year.  Americans want clean air

16      and are willing to do their part.

17           The American Lung Association just released

18      its second national pole addressing many of the

19      issues in Tier 2's low sulfur gas proposal.  An

20      overwhelming number of people, eighty-three

21      percent, would pay up to two cents more per

22      gallon for gasoline.  The same large majority

23      favor clean gasoline nationwide.  In addition, a

24      large majority, eighty-eight percent, want SUV

25      and minivans to meet the same emission standards
                                                       47




 1      as cars.  This view was held even among SUV and

 2      minivan owners, eighty-five percent.  Most

 3      people also favor requiring diesel-powered

 4      pickups and SUVs to meet the same standards as

 5      passenger cars.  People want clean cars and

 6      trucks and cleaner gasoline.

 7           Over the years we have learned not to let

 8      the big tobacco companies decide what is best

 9      for our health, the same must be true for air

10      pollution.

11           The American Lung Association has a

12      recommendation for strengthening these

13      proposals, which will be included in our written

14      comments.

15           Thank you.

16           MS. OGE:  Thank you.

17           Any questions for the panel?

18           (No response).

19           MS. OGE:  Thank you very much.  Thank you

20      for taking the time to come and share your views

21      with us this morning.

22           MS. MARTIN:  We would ask the second panel

23      to come forward:  Harvard Ayers, Jerry Esper,

24      Doug Teper, Noel Schumann and Dr. Howard

25      Frumkin.  I would also ask Margery Davis to join
                                                       48




 1      this panel.

 2           (Whereupon, the panel came before the

 3           Board; and discussions ensued off the

 4           record.)

 5           MS. MARTIN:  May I ask, then, if Warren

 6      Slodowske is available and would be willing to

 7      testify on this panel?

 8           (Whereupon, Mr. Slodowske came before

 9           the Board.)

10           MS. MARTIN:  Great.  Thank you very much.

11           UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER:  Margie's now giving

12      a speech over in the other place.

13           MS. MARTIN:  I believe she's right there on

14      the front table.  She just got here.  Terrific.

15      Thank you, sir.  She's quicker than you can even

16      imagine sometimes, isn't she?

17           Can I ask the rest of the panel

18      participants to please write your name and

19      affiliation on the cards in front of you.

20           And while everyone else is getting ready,

21      since Mr. Esper is all prepared, maybe I can ask

22      you to start.

23           MR. ESPER:  Certainly.  Thank you.  My name

24      is Jerry Esper.  I'm here to speak on behalf of

25      Daimler-Chrysler Corporation on the Tier 2 and
                                                       49




 1      low sulfur rules that EPA has imposed.

 2           We testified in Philadelphia and I will try

 3      to abbreviate my comments and not repeat many of

 4      the things that were said in Philadelphia,

 5      except where I feel that they do need to be

 6      clearly emphasized.

 7           Again, as we did testify in Philadelphia,

 8      Daimler-Chrysler is an industry leader when it

 9      comes to supporting development of marginally

10      sound vehicle technologies.  And while we have

11      very impressive record, I won't bore you with

12      all the details.  But I do want to reaffirm that

13      we are committed to a continuing pursuit of

14      tough emission performance goals.  We all do

15      want to reduce emissions.  It will help and

16      achieve emission clean air goals.  And we stand

17      ready to do our part.

18           As a member of the Alliance of Automobile

19      Manufacturers, we contribute to the development

20      of that organization's proposal and we fully

21      support it.  The Alliance proposal calls for a

22      very aggressive development and infiltration of

23      new vehicle technologies.  It was offered in the

24      spirit in the industry's previous voluntary

25      issue to the National Low Emission Vehicle
                                                       50




 1      Program, which is already providing cleaner

 2      vehicles to the northeast and will take those

 3      vehicles nationwide beginning with 2001 model

 4      year, which is a scant six months away.

 5           The Alliance proposal makes sense because

 6      it meets the industry need for appropriate

 7      phrase-in of work load.  It allows the oil

 8      industry time to put the proper fuels in place

 9      and it solidly meets projected performance of

10      EPA's proposal.

11           Compared to EPA's emission reduction goals

12      of eight hundred thousand tons per year in 2007

13      and 1.2 million tons in 2010, our program

14      proposed by the Alliance would achieve about

15      nine hundred and fifty-seven thousand tons and

16      one million two hundred and forty-eight thousand

17      tons in those same years.  And the Alliance

18      proposal would provide continued reduction into

19      the future.

20           We support the program for which car and

21      light-truck standards for the nitrogen oxides

22      eventually converted to a comparable level in

23      that same level of 0.07 grams per mile that EPA

24      has proposed.  However, we suggest a slightly

25      different gap to get there.  One of the elements
                                                       51




 1      of our concern is the 2004 review.  And I want

 2      to emphasize the importance of that review.  It

 3      must look at the emission reductions that cost

 4      effective and affordable, that the program is

 5      feasible; and if there is available of five

 6      parts per million fuel, that .07 sulfur fuel

 7      that you've heard about, that the standards are

 8      feasible for lean-burn technologies and that

 9      they not adversely affect any one company

10      relative to other companies.

11           Again, I must stress, in Philadelphia and

12      you heard earlier today, the importance of this

13      technology review and we agree that it is very

14      critical.  We also believe that removing sulfur

15      from gasoline is critically important to give

16      the auto manufacturers any chance of meeting the

17      NOx fleet average projected.  Quite simply,

18      sulfur is poison to exhaust treatment systems.

19      As vehicle hardware becomes clogged up, the

20      ability to operate to maximum effectiveness and

21      deficiencies is seriously compromised.

22           As we illustrated in Philadelphia, the

23      conversion efficiency of control devices tested

24      here shows a loss of efficiency of about ten

25      percent within just twelve hundred miles when
                                                       52




 1      compared to the effects -- when comparing the

 2      effects of operating on fifty ppm versus

 3      eighteen ppm.  Even the eighteen ppm sulfur fuel

 4      causes some loss to the conversion efficiency.

 5      As you look at the grafts, you'll see that you

 6      get about forty percent loss of engine

 7      efficiency as the mileage is increased.  And as

 8      we demonstrated on a calculation, a hypothetical

 9      calculation in Philadelphia, which I won't take

10      you through, but that ten percent of loss of

11      conversion efficiency would cause the vehicle to

12      fail to meet the proposed standards; and a forty

13      percent loss of conversion efficiency would

14      cause the tailpipe emissions of vehicles to go

15      up by more than three hundred percent.  This is

16      simply unacceptable.

17           Reducing the sulfur content to gasoline is

18      an emission strategy that promises to improve

19      air quality conditions across the country.

20      Mobility of the nations vehicle fleet demands

21      nationwide control of fuel quality.  A lot of

22      the control system to be placed in one area so

23      that you have increase inflation in another area

24      simply does not make sense.

25           Additionally, sulfur clear gasoline would
                                                       53




 1      allow manufacturers to make clear, more fuel

 2      efficient hardware to market to prices that

 3      could further reduce NOx and particulate matter

 4      are intolerant to sulfur in gasoline.

 5           Daimler-Chrysler has consistently

 6      demonstrated its willingness to develop cleaner

 7      world-class vehicles.  We believe that these

 8      vehicles deserve cleaner world-class fuels.

 9      Unfortunately, much of the gasoline sold in the

10      United States today has a sulfur content that

11      exceeds that sold in many third-world countries.

12           Improved gasoline formulations Daimler

13      recognizes is a critical tool in the effort to

14      produce auto emissions.  The thirty ppm sulfur

15      limit that the EPA is proposing to phase-in

16      starting 2004 has already been required in

17      California since 1996.  Other fuel improvements

18      already in place in California and further

19      reduction to sulfur to about five ppm are

20      readily available, cost-effective measure, that

21      will improve the performance of the entire fleet

22      of vehicles on the road and ensure that the

23      sophisticated clean systems that auto makers

24      will need to develop to meet the Tier 2

25      standards are not wasted once in the hands of
                                                       54




 1      consumers.

 2           Finally, we know that many of the states

 3      look to EPA to demonstrate leadership on

 4      controlling emissions of the vehicles and fuel

 5      systems.  If EPA does not limit sulfur in

 6      gasoline to five ppm as part of this rule, the

 7      states will be forced to pursue cleaner fuels on

 8      an individual basis.  We agree EPA should

 9      challenge the oil industry as aggressively as

10      it's challenging the vehicle manufacturers and

11      ensure the vehicles of the future are not forced

12      to operate at reduced effectiveness of fuels of

13      the past.

14           We will be providing written comments and

15      baring any questions, that concludes my

16      testimony for today.

17           MS. MARTIN:  Thank you very much.

18           We have an overwhelming number of people

19      here that are trying to testify, so we decided

20      to try to expand our panel.  I'm sorry that our

21      representative from Navistar is stuck over in

22      the corner there.  So I would like to ask the

23      rest of the panel if you could all shift down

24      towards the middle of the room and give him a

25      little room at the table.  I'd really appreciate
                                                       55




 1      it.

 2           MR. FRUMKIN:  I think that's my penalty for

 3      being late.

 4           MS. MARTIN:  Not intentional.

 5           Then I would like to ask Mr. Frumkin if you

 6      would to begin your testimony.

 7           MR. FRUMKIN:  I have a slide that's on its

 8      way here, so if I can defer for a few minutes, I

 9      would appreciate it.

10           MS. MARTIN:  Certainly.

11           Mr. Ayers, would you like to present?

12           MR. AYERS:  Yes.  Thank you.

13           My name is Harvard Ayers, and I'm a

14      professor of anthropology at Appalachian State

15      University; and I chair an environmental

16      organization that's known as Appalachian Voices.

17           Appalachian Voices has scientists and

18      community organizers that are concerned with

19      such issues as air pollution, which is why I'm

20      here today, wood chip mills, strip mining and

21      public plans management.

22           With respect to air and many other types of

23      environmental protection, this whole

24      organization is fiddling.  Folks we are

25      rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.
                                                       56




 1      This is not some game played between industry

 2      and their supporters in Congress.  Children are

 3      suffering from asthma.  Trees are dying.  One

 4      quarter of the outer lakes in New York are

 5      biologically dead.  What does that mean?  There

 6      is no life in that water.

 7           I appreciate all the numbers people are

 8      spitting out.  The fact is, that our environment

 9      and our health is going down the toilet because

10      of air pollution.  So what are we going to do

11      about that?  That's what I want to know.

12           I got involved with an organization known

13      as SAMI.  Well, you know about SAMI, Southern

14      Appalachian Mountain Issues.  For three years I

15      worked hard with SAMI.  The environmentalists

16      come together with industry folks, they come

17      together with bureaucrats and try to come up

18      with solutions for our problems.  After three

19      years, I finally gave up with SAMI.  SAMI is

20      doing studies and studying and studying.  We

21      just need to stop the pollution.  The technology

22      is here to clean everything up.  If we rearrange

23      these deck chairs and the Titanic goes down, you

24      know, where are we?  We're at the deep six,

25      right?
                                                       57




 1           Resistance from industry, delays, controls

 2      and buying of politicians the old fashion way,

 3      as well as buying lobbyist that resent contorted

 4      and distorted information in Washington, D.C.,

 5      there's the problem, folks.  But fighting with

 6      conservative judges who override what the EPA is

 7      trying to do, this is where the problem arrises.

 8      This process is a recipe for disaster.  The EPA,

 9      as I'm concerned, under Carol Brown, who is

10      doing her absolute best to try to work within

11      this essentially broken system and to try to

12      repair what's wrong.

13           The industry has a number of different ways

14      that they can win:  they can stop legislation;

15      they can water it down; they work with

16      administrative sources like Dan Quail's, or the

17      council, whatever it was that existed; and they

18      could also tie it up legally and with

19      conservative judges, can actually defeat the

20      purpose of EPA.

21           Let's talk about the effects, that's what

22      I'm really concerned about.  Appalachian Voices

23      has been doing research on the effects, not just

24      on human health, this is not our problem, but on

25      the environment, human health effects are
                                                       58




 1      extremely important.  Air pollution comes from

 2      two different sources:  smoke stacks and

 3      tailpipes.  We're here today to talk about

 4      tailpipes obviously.  A commonality, two words:

 5      sulfur fuel, this is where it's all at.  Other

 6      than CL2 and maybe DOTs, which have very little

 7      significance here in the east, there are two

 8      basic pollutants.  We don't have to understand a

 9      lot of chemistry, it's NOx and SOx, it's

10      nitrogen and it's sulfur.  The smoke stacks are

11      going to give off both, the tailpipes mainly NOx

12      in addition to the DOTs.

13           A little boy with asthma, the trees, the

14      forest, the streams, we really can't wait for

15      all this to run its course; and by 2009, maybe

16      by then, folks, we'll do it.  President Al Gore

17      got up in front of a group of people on Earth

18      Day at Shenandoah Nation Park and he said,

19      "Folks, we're going to clean up our air.  We're

20      going to clean the sulfur out of our air to the

21      condition as they existed before human pollution

22      came along by the year," ready for this, "2062."

23      Now, could that man make such a pronouncement

24      without smiling; if he can, then he's more a

25      politician than he is environmentalist, I can
                                                       59




 1      guarantee you.  And my suspicion is that's

 2      what's going on with Al Gore.

 3           Let's talk about what's happening in the

 4      high mountains, in the areas that I have

 5      specific knowledge of.  In the mountains west to

 6      North Carolina, East Tennessee and South Western

 7      Virginia, we have the very highest mountains of

 8      the Appalachian chain.  And that's what this

 9      book is that I'm the senior editor of.  The book

10      is called, The Appalachian Tragedy, Air

11      Pollution and Tree Death in the Eastern Parts of

12      North America."  It shows pictures of dying

13      trees and on other pages it shows pictures of

14      smoke stacks and industries.  It shows pictures

15      of automobiles.  It shows the very definite

16      connection between these things.  So this is

17      what we're doing.  We flew over and did ground

18      research in the southern Appalachian, the Great

19      Smokey Mountain National Park, the Blue Ridge

20      area of the Appalachians, this is where we've

21      been working.

22           If any of you have ever been to the top of

23      these mountains know that the fruits and forest

24      are dying on Mount Mitchell, they're dying in

25      the Smokies, all along Blue Ridge Parkway, one
                                                       60




 1      of our wonderful jewels of our country.

 2           But what many people don't know is that

 3      it's moving down.  The hardwood forest, the

 4      maples, the beach, the birch, some of our

 5      favorite trees are dying in record numbers.  In

 6      many places twenty to thirty percent are

 7      standing dead as mackerels right now.  Near my

 8      home in Boone, North Carolina, I can show you

 9      hillsides where there is virtually no standing

10      live mature tree.  All of them are standing

11      dead.  This is going on right now.  The soil up

12      there is so acidified that there's no question

13      that certainly hazardous is causing this.

14           Now, why are the mountains so much harder

15      hit?  Here's the important thing, the mountains

16      are frequently in clouds.  Cloud water is ten to

17      fifty times more acidic than the water that

18      falls out of it as rain or snow.  So these trees

19      are regularly bathed in these higher mountains

20      on a regular basis in an acid mist, in a toxic

21      soot; and also ozone levels are higher.

22      Somebody said today, what, fifty-five days or

23      something like this, last year that Atlanta had

24      an exceedness of the eight-hour ADBBD standard,

25      approximately.  Do you know that the Great
                                                       61




 1      Smokey Mountain National Park had about the

 2      same?  Do you know that the Great Smokey

 3      Mountain National Park is located in the most

 4      air polluted place in this continent?  And I

 5      don't mean ozone.  You've got more ozone out in

 6      south California.  But if you consider acid rain

 7      and ozone and nitrification, the Great Smokey

 8      Mountains are the most polluted place in the

 9      country and probably in the continent.  And this

10      is our most visited national park.  Is there no

11      shame?  When do we ever get to the point where

12      we say, folks, enough is enough?  We have to

13      stop the pollution.  We have to stop it now.

14           We're arguing about ten years from now

15      maybe we'll get this big SUVs taken off.  Well,

16      I think those SUVs ought to go now.  They ought

17      not to ever be encouraged by the government and

18      we need to do something with this now.  I call

19      them suburban assault vehicles.  I'm sorry.  If

20      they ran over my little Toyota truck, I'd be a

21      dead duck.  Maybe some people would be better

22      off if I were.

23           Anyway, that's pretty much my prospective.

24      We have to stop the NOx.  We have to stop the

25      NOx.  The last thing I'm going to say, we have
                                                       62




 1      to stop the NOx.  The nitrogen is what is doing

 2      it.  It forms ozone, it forms acid rain and it

 3      nitrifies the soils and kills the forest in that

 4      way, it's a triple threat.  The technology is

 5      there.  The political will is not.  When are we

 6      going to wake up to who's running our country

 7      and do something about this?

 8           Thank you.

 9           MS. OGE:  Thank you.

10           Mr. Doug Teper, good morning.

11           MR. SHUMANN:  Am I on?

12           MS. OGE:  Yes, you are.

13           MR. SHUMANN:  My name is Noel Shumann.  I

14      represent the construction industry.  And I've

15      been a builder for about thirty-five years.  And

16      I have been associated -- probably built more

17      than five, six hundred homes.

18           I'm not sure what the answer is.  I'm not

19      here to ram one view point down anyone's throat.

20      But I will say that the construction industry,

21      depending on whose report you read, is probably

22      the largest industry in the United States,

23      however fragmented it is.  And trucks are very,

24      very important to this industry.  You basically

25      have four kinds of users.  The first one would
                                                       63




 1      be the low income sub who does the clean up,

 2      does the small tasks, and this kind of person

 3      uses a small truck or an older used beat up

 4      larger truck.  The second type user is the

 5      average subcontractor or a man who works for a

 6      subcontractor.  If you took a carpenter, he has

 7      to load his trucks with saws, tools, ladders.

 8      If you took a stucco man, he puts gasoline in

 9      his truck, masonry products, he loads them down

10      and it's quite a heavy load.  If you took an

11      electrician, you can have, again, the longest

12      ladders.  You'd have three thousand dollars

13      worth of either appliances or lighting fixtures

14      that he hauls around bringing them from job to

15      job, same with landscaping, the same as any

16      contractor.  These two classes, I believe,

17      represent the largest users of trucks probably

18      in the United States.  And I feel like that

19      their income, we don't have a high level of

20      income involved with these people.

21           So when we talk about a possible cost of

22      two hundred dollars to make changes, I don't

23      know about the people in this room, but I found

24      the expectations -- some will meet reality.  And

25      when you're dealing with either a car
                                                       64




 1      manufacturer or you're dealing with the

 2      government, things seem to go awry and the cost

 3      end up being much more.

 4           But you want to keep in mind that if a man

 5      is making twenty to twenty-five thousand dollars

 6      a year, the net usable income of paying more for

 7      the truck might be the same as one of us

 8      spending a thousand to fifteen hundred dollars,

 9      because he just doesn't make that much money.

10      That two hundred bucks, four hundred, six

11      hundred, whatever it's going to cost, is a lot

12      more to that man to what it might be to most of

13      us.  And because of that, I feel what's going to

14      happen is, number one, most of them cannot go

15      down to a smaller truck, they can't.  They're

16      not big enough, they're not powerful enough,

17      they just can't haul what they need to

18      accomplish on the job.  So I feel like they're

19      going to ride their trucks until the rot if this

20      change happens.  And I feel that we're going to

21      end up with a lot of old junkers on the road or

22      they're going to jump up to over eighty-five

23      hundred pounds.  And then we've got another new

24      set of problems.  I think we're talking about an

25      awful lot of trucks to have this happen.
                                                       65




 1           I think the other thing in the construction

 2      industry -- And at first this might seem

 3      trivial.  But I'm talking about human behavior.

 4      And many times it goes against the grain of what

 5      all this might deal with is right.  And that is

 6      that the truck in construction industry is that

 7      subcontractor's or that builder's self-esteem,

 8      his image, whatever you want to call it.

 9           I have a superintendent who worked for me.

10      He made twenty-six thousand dollars.  His home

11      that he had, when he covered his down payment,

12      it was about a hundred and twenty thousand

13      dollar home.  I went by his house, and there was

14      about eight people standing around obviously a

15      new Dodge Ram.  That young man was as proud as

16      anybody you ever seen were.  I mean, he wanted

17      to show me the inside, where he could put his --

18      this wide area where he could put his records

19      in.  He wanted to show me all this stuff.  And

20      my point is, to legislate or make him go back

21      down to a little small truck is just about next

22      to impossible.  It would be like asking some of

23      us in here, me included, to go from driving my

24      Infinite SUV down to driving a Ford Farmount.

25      Somehow I'm going to figure a way around that.
                                                       66




 1      I'm not going to do it.  And the contractors are

 2      the same way, it's just a different ball game.

 3      And that ball game is, he's not doing to drive a

 4      little truck.  He's not going to drive the truck

 5      that doesn't have power.  He's going to do

 6      whatever he has to do.  I swear I think their

 7      truck payments are more than their house

 8      payments.  And I think that this is a reality.

 9      I think that this is a reality that we have to

10      face; that, one, we're going to effect the

11      largest industry in United States or the second,

12      whichever one you want to call it.  We are also

13      going to not accomplish it after it's effected.

14      I just feel like they're going to steer around

15      it.  I think we're going to end up putting a lot

16      more old used junkers on the road.  And with

17      this, there's got to be a way that we can do

18      this without effecting the horsepower, power

19      loads and this kind of thing.

20           And with that, I'll end my testimony.

21           Thank you.

22           MS. OGE:  Thank you.

23           Ms. Margery Davis, good morning.

24           MS. DAVIS:  Thank you.

25           I did not realize that I was going to be
                                                       67




 1      called on.

 2           MS. OGE:  Mr. Shumann.

 3           MR. SHUMANN:  Yes.

 4           MS. OGE:  Would you please stay, the

 5      panel -- we may have questions of the panel.

 6           MR. SHUMANN:  All right.  I'm sorry.

 7           MS. OGE:  Thank you.

 8           MS. DAVIS:  I have sat here listening to

 9      the man on the end of the table and this man in

10      construction and realized what problems we have.

11      We're facing the dangers of losing the lives as

12      we know it, and yet there are many people that

13      are more concerned about what image they will

14      portray if they buy smaller cars.

15           We're trivializing things here today.  This

16      is an important issue that our leaders need to

17      be aware of and they are not.  There is a kyoto

18      protocol treaty to decide.  Our leaders will not

19      even discuss it in the Senate.  And, yes, we are

20      the largest polluter in the world and we're not

21      willing to take small steps that might hurt our

22      image if it will save our world.  And that's

23      really about all I have to say.

24           I'm really not one of the figures that

25      should be speaking here.  Dr. Frumkin and people
                                                       68




 1      like that know the issues should be listened to

 2      rather than my ranting.  Thank you.

 3           MS. OGE:  Thank you.

 4           Dr. Frumkin --

 5           MS. MARTIN:  I would like to just interrupt

 6      for one second.  I'm sorry.  I just wanted to

 7      say that you are important and as qualified and

 8      capable of speaking just like all public

 9      citizens are.  That's one of the reasons we are

10      taking this panel, the EPA representatives,

11      outside the beltway, outside of Washington,

12      around the country, to meet with people like

13      yourself, and I really appreciate your coming to

14      be here today.

15           DR. FRUMKIN:  Good morning.

16           MS. OGE:  Good morning.

17           DR. FRUMKIN:  For out of town visitors,

18      especially for the EPA staff who are living on

19      the road as they attend hearing across the

20      country, welcome to Atlanta.

21           MS. OGE:  Thank you.

22           DR. FRUMKIN:  My name is Howard Frumkin.

23      I'm a physician, an epidemiologist, specializing

24      in environmental and occupational health.  I

25      chaired the Department of Environmental and
                                                       69




 1      Occupational Health at the Rollins School of

 2      Public Health, at Emory University, and I direct

 3      and consulate a clinic in environmental

 4      occupational medicine at the Emory Clinic.  I

 5      speak today, not on behalf of Emory, but in a

 6      personal capacity, as a concerned physician and

 7      public health professional.

 8           From the prospective of medicine and public

 9      health, the proposed Tier 2 standards are an

10      important step forward.  Lowering automobile NOx

11      emissions to .07 grams per mile is a good idea.

12      Requiring other passenger vehicles, such as

13      pickups and SUVs to operate as cleanly as

14      automobiles is a good idea.  Requiring the lower

15      particulate emissions for diesel fuel vehicles

16      is a good idea.  And dropping sulfur levels in

17      gasoline on a nationwide basis to optimize

18      pollution control systems in motor vehicles is a

19      good idea.

20           These are good ideas because they will

21      result in lower ambient levels of ozone and

22      particulates, both of which are well-recognized

23      health hazards.

24           As for ozone, we have solid evidence from

25      studies from many cities, including here in
                                                       70




 1      Atlanta, that exposure means to compromise lung

 2      function, aggravation of asthma, increased

 3      visits to emergency rooms, increased use of

 4      medications and increased hospitalizations.

 5      Certain populations are especially susceptible:

 6      children, people with lung diseases, people who

 7      work outdoors have the heaviest exposure,

 8      including construction workers.

 9           As for particulates, we have solid evidence

10      that exposure is associated with increases in

11      cardiovascular mortality.  Again, certain

12      populations are especially susceptible:  the

13      elderly, people with cardiovascular disease,

14      perhaps the very young.

15           Ozone is a special concern for us here in

16      Atlanta, and this is a good week to show why.

17      The table, that will probably arrive here for

18      display minutes after I finish, shows peak ozone

19      levels in parts per billion measured in each of

20      the eight monitoring stations in the metro

21      Atlanta area over the last three days.  We've

22      had a little bit of a heat wave.  Of the total

23      of twenty-four readings at eight stations over

24      three days, two-thirds of the peak levels

25      exceeds eighty parts per million.  And several
                                                       71




 1      stations here in Atlanta recorded peak levels in

 2      excess of a hundred parts per billion.

 3           We know that right now, as we come down off

 4      a short heat wave, as we discuss the issue in

 5      these hearings, children in Atlanta are having

 6      difficulty breathing, some are visiting doctors'

 7      offices and emergency rooms to seek relief.

 8           But there are some problems with the

 9      proposed Tier 2 standards.  They do not go far

10      enough fast enough.  The larger sports utility

11      vehicles should have to clean up just as fast as

12      cars.  In particular, the very largest of such

13      vehicles should not have ten years to comply

14      with the new regulations.  Sulfur levels in

15      gasoline should come down more quickly, and

16      smaller refiners should not get extra time to

17      comply.

18           Considering medical analogy, if we had a

19      new medication ready for production, affordable

20      and effective that we knew would relieve serious

21      illness and reduce mortality, we would not take

22      ten years to bring it to market.  Even Viagra,

23      medicine that treats a non-fatal condition came

24      to market faster than that.  Perhaps because for

25      some consumers it serves the same function as a
                                                       72




 1      really big sport utility vehicle.

 2           As a physician, I'm especially eager to

 3      seek progress into keeping clean air.  Patients,

 4      neighbors and family members now ask my advice

 5      about outdoor activities during Atlanta's high

 6      ozone summers.  People like to be outside.

 7      Exercise is good for health.  But I have to

 8      advise them on high ozone days to limit their

 9      outdoor exercises especially if they have

10      asthma, as more and more of us do.  This is a

11      dilemma that will only be resolved at the

12      source, by cleaning up the ozone precursors.

13           As a person who likes to bicycle to work,

14      I'm also especially eager to see progress in

15      achieving clean air.  On high ozone days, we're

16      all advised to leave the cars at home and to use

17      alternatives, including bicycling.  What does

18      this mean?  It means bicycling home at the end

19      of the workday, at the peak of the ozone curve,

20      on a high ozone day, through air that is unfit

21      to breathe.  This, too, is a dilemma that will

22      only be solved at the source:  by cleaning up

23      ozone precursors.

24           The Tier 2 standards are an opportunity to

25      change the way we, as a nation, transport
                                                       73




 1      ourselves.  We need to move ahead expeditiously.

 2      We need to force the pace of technological

 3      innovation.  And if some vehicles, hugh sports

 4      sport utility vehicle, burning diesel fuels, for

 5      example, should become obsolete in the process,

 6      I for one will not mourn then anymore than I

 7      mourn the end of smallpox.

 8           Cleaner fuel and lower emissions are an

 9      essential public health measure, no less than

10      clean drinking water and vaccinations.

11           Thank you very much for the opportunity to

12      testify.

13           MS. OGE:  Thank you.

14           Mr. Warren Slodowske, good morning.

15           MR. SLODOWSKE:  Good morning and thank you.

16      I'm Warren Slodowske, and I'm manager of the

17      environmental staff of Navistar and I will be

18      reading the same comments that Patrick

19      Charbonneau, who is vice president of

20      engineering for the engine division of Navistar

21      International Transportation Corporation gave in

22      Philadelphia, he's my boss.

23           I am here today to discuss the impact of

24      EPA's proposed Tier 2 emission standards on

25      diesel engine technology which Navistar is
                                                       74




 1      developing for light-duty vehicle application,

 2      in partnership with our customer, Ford Motor

 3      Company.

 4           We believe that greater reliance on diesel

 5      engines in this important market segment can

 6      provide important environmental and economic

 7      benefits.  We support challenging but achievable

 8      Tier 2 standards which create incentives for our

 9      industry to invest in new generation diesel

10      engines which deliver superior emission control

11      performance.  Clean diesel fuel, with sulfur

12      levels at or below five parts per million, is a

13      critical enabler for the new technologies we are

14      developing.  We need EPA's help in assuring the

15      availability of ultra-low sulfur fuel for

16      light-duty vehicles by 2004 in order to achieve

17      the very aggressive Tier 2 targets EPA has

18      proposed.

19           With ultra-clean diesel fuel and new

20      aftertreatment systems, we foresee dramatic

21      breakthroughs in emissions controls.  For

22      example, Navistar recently conducted a

23      demonstration of a passive trap technology using

24      a school bus with a heavy-duty diesel engine and

25      ultra-low sulfur diesel fuel.  We are pleased to
                                                       75




 1      report that we achieved reduction in particulate

 2      emissions of over ninety percent, which will be

 3      required to meet EPA's stringent Tier 2 limits

 4      for PM.  This is an exciting example of the

 5      great strides forward we can take with this

 6      combination of new generation diesel technology

 7      and ultra-low sulfur fuel for both light-duty

 8      and heavy-duty diesels.

 9           I would like to make two other points about

10      this demonstration vehicle.  The particulates

11      are fifty percent lower than the best 1998

12      certified CNG engine.  Secondly, the hydrocarbon

13      emissions are lower than can be measured in a

14      certified test cell.  Those who saw our school

15      bus in Philadelphia, could attest that there was

16      no smoke or diesel odor associated with the

17      exhaust coming from this bus.

18           Navistar is a major North American

19      manufacturer of medium and heavy-duty trucks and

20      buses marketed under the international trade

21      name.  Navistar is also the world's largest

22      manufacturer of mid-range, a hundred and sixty

23      to three hundred horsepowered diesel engines.

24      We supply these engines both to our other

25      Navistar divisions and to Ford.
                                                       76




 1           Although we have made major strides in

 2      emissions performance, Navistar expects to

 3      achieve dramatic additional improvements by

 4      continuing to invest in advanced emissions

 5      control systems.  As these new technologies come

 6      to fruition, light-duty diesel should be able to

 7      meet extremely stringent emission reduction

 8      goals.  Thus, provided we have realistic

 9      phase-in dates and assuming that clean diesel

10      fuel is available.  Navistar believes that

11      light-duty diesel has the potential of meeting

12      EMA's challenging Tier 2 targets.

13           As we approach model year 2004, reductions

14      in engine-out emissions and NOx and PM will be

15      obtained through the introduction of completely

16      new, technologically advanced engines.  And

17      these advanced-engine technologies are

18      implemented -- After these advanced technologies

19      are implemented, further reductions in NOx and

20      PM emissions in the 2004 time frame will require

21      new after-treatment technology.  Several options

22      under consideration, including advanced

23      oxidation catalyst and passive particulate traps

24      to reduce particulates and de-NOx catalysts and

25      NOx absorbers to reduce NOx.  Evaluating and
                                                       77




 1      then selecting the best technology will require

 2      a major R & D effort by Navistar and vendors of

 3      exhaust aftertreatment devices.

 4           Once we have identified viable

 5      aftertreatment methods, additional time and

 6      investment will be needed to mature these

 7      technologies to the point where they perform

 8      efficiently under on-road conditions.  Although

 9      the aftertreatment options we are considering

10      are currently developing technology, our goal is

11      to make these technologies available in model

12      year 2004 through 2007.  This assumes the

13      availability of ultra-low sulfur fuel so that

14      the effectiveness of aftertreatment is not

15      compromised by sulfur contamination.

16           While the rulemaking does not address

17      vehicles in the over eighty-five hundred gross

18      vehicle weight class, the technology

19      breakthroughs spurred by light-duty standards

20      could eventually be transferred to the heavy

21      duty engine line.  Navistar has a long history

22      with leveraging common technologies across all

23      product lines, from pickup trucks to Class 8

24      trucks.  For example, Navistar's HEUI fuel

25      system was originally developed for light-duty
                                                       78




 1      engines in order to meet the requirements of

 2      emission control, fuel economy and sociability

 3      for this market segment; Navistar then applied

 4      this technology to its larger engines.  In a

 5      similar manner, we would expect that the

 6      base-engine improvements and aftertreatment

 7      technologies developed to meet Tier 2 light-duty

 8      targets ultimately to be transferred to heavy

 9      duty diesel engines.  This leveraging of

10      emission control breakthrough could have

11      substantial environmental benefits by creating

12      the technological foundation for lower emitting

13      heavy-duty diesel engines.  With an expanding

14      presence in the light-duty market, as Tier 2

15      standards take effect, Navistar could justify

16      the sizeable R & D investment required to

17      support new emission control technology.  These

18      will be applicable for all of our engine

19      classes.

20           With tighter controls on emissions of

21      nitrogen oxide and particulate matter,

22      Navistar's new generation of light-duty engines

23      will provide an unsurpassed combination of

24      environmental benefits.  In comparison with

25      gasoline engines, diesel offers greatly improved
                                                       79




 1      fuel economy, substantially reduced carbon

 2      dioxide emissions, greater engine durability and

 3      significantly lower emissions of hydrocarbons

 4      and carbon monoxide.

 5           These benefits have been recognized not

 6      just by industry, but by government policy

 7      makers.  The Administration's Partnership for

 8      New Generation of Vehicles has selected

 9      compression-ignition engines, diesel, as the

10      leading candidate technology for achieving

11      greatly improved fuel economy without burdening

12      the consumers with added cost or reduced

13      convenience.  This increase in fuel efficiency

14      will translate into reduced greenhouse gas

15      emissions as well as reducing additional

16      benefits like lower CO and hydrocarbon

17      emissions.

18           Based on these emission benefits, countries

19      in the European Union are encouraging rapid

20      dieselization of the light-duty fleet in order

21      to achieve the European Union's goal of a

22      twenty-five percent reduction in mobile source

23      CO2 emissions by 2008.  If the United States

24      were to adopt policies which discourage

25      conversion of light-duty vehicles to diesel
                                                       80




 1      technology, our near-term ability to address

 2      global warming could be seriously compromised.

 3      Despite the long-term promise of fuel cells and

 4      other cutting-edge innovations, most

 5      knowledgeable experts agreed that their

 6      commercialization will not be feasible for many

 7      years and that diesel is the only high

 8      efficiency engine technology that is

 9      economically viable for widespread use in the

10      near future.

11           There is one caveat to our ability to meet

12      dramatic strides of reducing NOx and PM

13      emission.  We must have assurances that all

14      ultra-clean diesel fuel, with sulfur levels at

15      or below five ppm is available for light-duty

16      vehicles by 2004.  All of our R & D work rests

17      on the premise that low sulfur fuel is a

18      critical technology enabler without which we

19      cannot achieve levels of NOx and PM control

20      called for by the Tier 2 proposal.  Based on

21      discussion with our suppliers and our review of

22      available data, we are convinced that effective

23      aftertreatment will depend on the reduction of

24      fuel sulfur in five parts per million.

25           Let me deviate from the comments.  I see
                                                       81




 1      that Chet is calling me to pass.

 2           We will comment more on this in the ANPRM

 3      of diesel fuel.  Let me quick though -- Let me

 4      add this point, if EPA has not mandated low

 5      sulfur diesel fuel when it finalizes the Tier 2

 6      rule, this rule would need to provide alternate

 7      NOx and PM limits for diesel engines that would

 8      be feasible using correct rates of diesel fuel.

 9           Finally, we believe that it's necessary to

10      eliminate the fifty K standard.  We also feel

11      it's necessary to have a technology review.

12           In summary, ultra-low sulfur fuel is

13      mandatory for Tier 2 compliance.  Technology

14      that are developed for light-duty diesel are

15      transferrable to heavy-duty diesel.  The Tier 2

16      rule will not be feasible without the

17      elimination of intermediate 50 K standards and

18      the technology review will be essential to

19      assess the feasibility of those post-2000

20      standards.

21           Thank you for the opportunity to testify.  I

22      hope Navistar's comments will be helpful to EPA

23      and we will be happy to answer any questions.

24           MS. OGE:  Thank you.

25           Mr. Slodowske, a clarification question.
                                                       82




 1           MR. SLODOWSKE:  Sure.

 2           MS. OGE:  The first point I heard you

 3      testifying today, is that Navistar believes,

 4      with clean diesel fuel, that your company can

 5      meet the 0.07 grams per NOx mile standard?

 6           MR. SLODOWSKE:  We believe that that is

 7      possible.  Certainly the path is clear on

 8      particulate matter.  But there are technologies

 9      out there that need to be developed.  We are

10      very optimistic about the NOx absorber

11      technology, but it is yet not an off-the-shelf

12      item.  But it is very clear, that with all

13      ultra-low sulfur fuel, that technology will not

14      work.

15           MS. OGE:  Thank you.

16           Mr. Noel Schumann, thank you for taking the

17      time from your business this morning to come and

18      share with us your concerns.

19           Let me make a statement towards your

20      concerned.  As we are developing this very

21      important program, we have three criteria in

22      mind, and I just would like to share them with

23      you.  First and most important, we are looking

24      to put a program forward that provides clean air

25      for all Americans, including the people that
                                                       83




 1      live in Atlanta.  And I hope that you agree that

 2      that's a very important criteria for us to

 3      follow.

 4           MR. SHUMANN:   We're together.

 5           MS. OGE:  Okay.  Good.

 6           Second, is very difficult.  We do want to

 7      put forward a program that is technologically

 8      feasible.  We want to make sure that you and the

 9      people that work with you will be able to buy

10      those trucks; and if you can be assured a little

11      bit in our laboratory today, we have been able

12      to demonstrate to make this progress with just

13      buying trucks with the new catalyst.  They're

14      getting very close below what we're asking them

15      to do, with our gasoline trucks.  We agree that

16      for those trucks the work is going to be

17      challenging, they are going to be more difficult

18      to bring down to those standards than cars.  But

19      we're confident that this can happen; first, and

20      very critical, is cost.  As you have suggested,

21      we want to make sure that the consumer can

22      afford these vehicles.  I estimate two hundred

23      dollars.

24           If you look historically -- you know, since

25      the Clean Air was introduced in 1970, we, the
                                                       84




 1      government, has always, over estimated the cost.

 2      Actually, the agency has been able to do a

 3      terrific job in reducing the cost.  So we are

 4      hopeful that the cost of two hundred dollars per

 5      truck would be the case.  And I hope that you

 6      agree that cleaner air is worth two hundred

 7      dollars additional cost for those trucks.

 8           MR. SLODOWSKE:  Obviously you can't

 9      disagree with that.  I guess the only problem

10      and the concern that we have is that it won't

11      end up working that way.  So many times I've

12      personally, in my experience, being kind of an

13      old man, have seen it didn't -- the good

14      intentions didn't work out and it just eneded up

15      --

16           MR. AYERS:  Could I comment on that?

17           MS. OGE:  Excuse me.  We do appreciate your

18      comments, and that's why we're around the

19      country listening to everybody, experts, public

20      views, business views as yourself.  And we will

21      take all these views into consideration before

22      the agency moves forward to finalize their

23      order.  And I can assure you that your comments

24      will be seriously considered.

25           MR. AYERS:  Yeah, I would just like to say
                                                       85




 1      that my experience has been just the reverse of

 2      that.  The industry generally has estimated

 3      roughly ten times what the cost of something

 4      will be, like when we started talking about

 5      automobiles getting a certain gasoline standard,

 6      people were going to be priced out of the

 7      market.  But really that has not happened

 8      because there's been so much left in the

 9      industry.

10           When they were told that they had to reduce

11      the SO2 out of smoke stacks, they came up with

12      this incredible estimate of how much it was

13      going to cost amongst Duke Power, American

14      Electric Power, and Southern Company and the

15      like.  And the cost was roughly -- it turned out

16      a tenth.  And really, basically, industry way

17      over estimates.  And I think our EPA president

18      has been very diplomatic about trying to put in

19      such a way that they gave industry credit for

20      reducing the amount which it actually cost.  The

21      fact is that industry over-estimates; and I

22      think the cost, if anything, will come in even

23      under what EPA has estimated.

24           MS. OGE:  Thank you.

25           I would like to thank all of you for taking
                                                       86




 1      your time in coming and sharing your views with

 2      us this morning.  You've been a very important

 3      panel and discussion.  And we will take all your

 4      comments into consideration.  Thank you very

 5      much.

 6           I don't know if my colleagues from EPA have

 7      any questions?

 8           (No response).

 9           MS. OGE:  Thank you very much.

10           We will call the next panel, individuals

11      that have us to testify.  And since we're doing

12      so well with time, we will go ahead and call the

13      new panel.  We will start with Mr. Doug Teper

14      from our previous panel.  Good morning.

15           MR. TEPER:  Good morning.

16           MS. OGE:  And as I call your names, please

17      come forward.

18           Mr. Dennis Hopper, Mr. Anthony DeLucia,

19      Joanne King and Juan Ruiz, Michelle Artz, Mr.

20      Bob Fletcher, Mr. Robert Pregulman.

21           (Whereupon, the panel came before the

22           Board.)

23           MS. OGE:  We would ask you to please keep

24      your remarks to ten minutes or less.

25           You can go ahead with you, Mr. Teper.
                                                       87




 1           MR. TEPER:  Thank you very much for being

 2      here today.  My name is Doug Teper and I have

 3      the privilege of serving in the Georgia House of

 4      Representatives.  I'm currently serving in my

 5      sixth tern, having originally been elected in

 6      1988.

 7           While serving in the Georgia Legislature,

 8      I've spent ten years on the House of National

 9      Resources and Environment Committee.  That

10      experience, along with a number of years in a

11      number of non-profit organizations, I've had the

12      experience of learning quite a bit about the

13      subject matter we're dealing with today.

14           As background, I will tell you that I have

15      spent a year in Washington, D.C. as a --

16           MS. MARTIN:  We're sorry about that.

17           MR. TEPER:  I was an advocate on behalf of

18      a coalition of organizations.  We worked on

19      energy and environmental issues.  One of the

20      organizations I was associated with was an

21      organization called Environmental Policy

22      Institute on Capitol Hill.  I didn't work on the

23      Clean Air Act.  Actually I worked on a energy

24      policy quite a bit, but quite often I had to

25      deal with the Clean Air Act.  I also want to let
                                                       88




 1      you know that I currently serve on the board of

 2      an organization called LEAF, Legal Environmental

 3      Association Foundation.  I also served on the

 4      board in Washington, D.C. of an organization

 5      called Nuclear Information Resource Service.  In

 6      that capacity, I have quite a bit of experience

 7      dealing with air quality as it pertains to the

 8      utility industry.  But that's not the subject of

 9      today's discussion.

10           I want to talk about the proposal that EPA

11      has put out.  I want to thank you and the EPA

12      for the efforts to make our air safe to breathe

13      by cutting the pollution from automobiles.  At a

14      time when asthma rates are on the rise and more

15      people than ever before are vulnerable to severe

16      health impact of air pollution, we need the

17      strongest possible regulations controlling air

18      pollution from all major sources.

19           Right now we have a serious air pollution

20      problem around the country and specifically here

21      in Georgia.  It has been my role to deal with --

22      Well, here in the metro Atlanta region we have a

23      serious problem, we're a non-compliance area.

24      We have lost transportation funds.  I've worked

25      closely with the new governor and the
                                                       89




 1      legislature to pass what we think is a

 2      revolutionary piece of legislation which created

 3      a regional transportation authority.  And I

 4      believe, and I have great faith in our new

 5      governor, we're going to make great strides in

 6      addressing those.  But I do not believe that we

 7      can do it alone.  I think it is very, very

 8      necessary.  Unfortunately, from a state

 9      legislator's prospective, to have the federal

10      government come in, beat up federal legislation

11      and regulations fighting environmental

12      protection agency, notwithstanding what the

13      federal courts have been saying recently, we're

14      going to need help or we will never meet the

15      preexisting standards that we already have in

16      place.

17           I've been in the unfortunate situation in

18      the legislature having to vote on legislation

19      which created a thirteen-county testing area for

20      automobiles.  At the time I had an amendment on

21      the floor of the house to expand that statewide.

22      There was no way that my amendment was going to

23      pass and I withheld it.  But the point being at

24      the time that a thirteen-county testing area in

25      state that has a hundred and fifty-one counties
                                                       90




 1      and that has one of those largest commuting

 2      zones of any state in the United States, it was

 3      not going to get the job done and it has not

 4      gotten the job done.  And the problem that has

 5      come about is the lost of significant highway

 6      funding for my friends in the highway building

 7      business as well as my friends who sell cars.

 8           We've got a problem now where the

 9      remarketable economic boom that Atlanta has had

10      for the last at least twenty years, it is about

11      to come to an end because corporations, Fortune

12      100 and Fortune 500 companies, no longer want to

13      locate either their major headquarters or their

14      regional headquarters here in Atlanta, for the

15      very fact that they cannot get their employees

16      to work because they're standing in traffic and

17      because of the health threat; that our really

18      wonderful quality of life has suffered in the

19      last twenty years because of, among other

20      things, pollution from auto sources.  That as a

21      way of introduction, and let me move quickly.

22           I want to reiterate what I believe some

23      other speakers have said.  I'm very concerned

24      about a number of issues within the proposal

25      that EPA has put forward.  I think there should
                                                       91




 1      be no special treatment of heavier vehicles.

 2      All passenger vehicles, including minivans and

 3      SUVs, should meet the same standards at the same

 4      time.  Larger SUVs should not be given extra

 5      time to clean up.  Right now the proposal

 6      includes a separate schedule for these heavier

 7      vehicles.  These vehicles will have lower

 8      protection standards than any in other vehicle

 9      class.  The industry has always responded with

10      new technologies and products when standards are

11      firm and deadlines are reasonable.  The ten-year

12      phase-in schedule for heavier vehicles far

13      exceeds any phase-in period for passenger

14      vehicles ever proposed.  This schedule asks the

15      victims of air pollution to once again wait for

16      relief; if anything, the time line should be

17      shortened.

18           In addition, this proposal does nothing to

19      clean up super-sized SUVs, such as the Ford

20      Excursion.  This could lead to increased sale

21      and production of these overgrown passenger

22      cars.  Heavy-duty trucks should be required to

23      clean up their emissions as well.  There should

24      be no special treatment of diesel technologies.

25      All vehicles, regardless of engine technology or
                                                       92




 1      fuel use, should meet the same public

 2      health-related standards.  There is no logical

 3      justification for special treatment for diesel

 4      technologies.  Yes, the Tier 2 proposal has

 5      created a two-vehicle category that would

 6      permanently allow diesel engines to pollute

 7      twice as much soot as gasoline engines and up to

 8      ten times as much smog-forming nitrogen oxide.

 9      Giving the toxins and likely carcinogenic nature

10      of diesel exhaust, there should be no incentives

11      to increase the amount of diesel vehicles on the

12      road.

13           The sulfur levels in gasoline should be

14      lowered more quickly.  The current proposal will

15      reduce the sulfur content in gasoline but allow

16      an extended timetable for small refiners.  Low

17      sulfur gasoline needs to be adopted nationally

18      at the same time as new emission standards.  By

19      allowing some refiners to continue to produce

20      certain gasoline, there will be negative impacts

21      on the pollution control technologies of newer

22      cleaner cars.  I am willing to pay, and I

23      believe the forty thousand people that I

24      represent, about eight miles from here, would be

25      willing to pay the extra cost.  And I might want
                                                       93




 1      to mention Georgia has the lowest gasoline taxes

 2      in the country, which depending on your

 3      prospective, is either a negative or a positive.

 4      But it's about seven and a half cents a gallon,

 5      which is dramatically lower than every other

 6      state in the country.  And I think Georgia, like

 7      a lot of states could certainly afford to pay an

 8      extra cost per gallon.

 9           There should be increased incentives for

10      advanced technology vehicles.  The new standards

11      do not provide sufficient incentives to spur the

12      development of cleaner technologies, such as the

13      battery electric and fuel-powered cars.  In

14      order to move the market for its future advanced

15      technology vehicles, the EPA must do more and

16      get more of these vehicles on the road.

17           The Tier 2 proposal is a strong start to

18      reducing air pollution; however, since this

19      decision will effect our air quality for decades

20      to come, we cannot afford to risk the public

21      health by adopting a proposal that does not

22      address the above -- the just mentioned areas of

23      concern.  We need the strongest possible

24      regulations to control air pollution.

25           Thank you once again for coming here and
                                                       94




 1      allowing the people in the southeaster United

 2      States to comment on this testimony.  And being

 3      one who has served in public service for a

 4      number of years here, I know the dedication and

 5      the commitment and sacrifice that you make and I

 6      believe working together, industry, the

 7      community, the advocates on all sides will come

 8      together and do what's right for the good of the

 9      people of the United States and their health.

10           Thank you very much.

11           MS. OGE:  Thank you.

12           Ms. Joanne King, good morning.

13           MS. KING:  Good morning.  My name is Joan

14      King, and I live in White County, which is a

15      rural area of north Georgia.  I want to thank

16      you for running such an efficient meeting here,

17      because I thought I was going to have to stay

18      around till some four or five o'clock this

19      afternoon.

20           I drive a sports vehicle, and my husband

21      drives a pickup truck; this we find necessary

22      because we live on the side of a mountain of a

23      long dirt road.  So I understand the need for

24      vehicles like this, but I am also deeply

25      concerned about air quality.
                                                       95




 1           I speak here today as the southeastern

 2      spokesman for Twenty-Twenty Division, which is a

 3      national alert system, focused on the

 4      environment and also for Atlanta WAND, a women's

 5      group that is concerned about peace and justice

 6      issues.  I'm also a member of my community's

 7      environmental concerns committee and network

 8      with literally dozens of environmental groups,

 9      statewide, national, including the USR, Union of

10      Concerned Scientists.  Now, this is a lot of

11      people.  But what people like us lack is some of

12      the access and financial clout of the industry

13      which is the ones that are going to have to deal

14      with this problem.  And after listening to it

15      today, it seems that they say, well, we're going

16      to do something about it, but we're going to

17      have to have a lot of time in which to do it.

18           While I'm not going to go over the facts

19      because we've done all that.  We know we have a

20      serious problem and there's a lot at stake.  I

21      remember back -- I was a child, during World War

22      II; and afterwards, I learned about the

23      Manhattan Project.  Well, this nation focused

24      itself on producing the nuclear bombs.  This was

25      a major breakthrough in technology and we did
                                                       96




 1      this in a very short time because we felt our

 2      lives were at stake.  It was absolutely critical

 3      that we developed this technology.  And now

 4      we're sitting around and saying, oh, well, yes,

 5      we need to clean up our air pollution, but we

 6      need ten, fifteen years in which to do it.

 7      Well, I think this is nonsense.  I think I've

 8      got more faith in American industry than they

 9      have in themselves.  They complain they can't do

10      it, and it's a matter of time; but when push

11      comes to shove, when the regulations are there,

12      somehow they manage.  They make a profit.

13      People are still buying cars, still buying

14      gasoline.  We can do it.  And I want to see the

15      strictest regulations you can possibly mandate

16      because only when they are mandated will people

17      get down to serious business of cleaning up our

18      air.

19           And I was much impressed with the passion

20      of the gentleman here, who was the

21      anthropologist.  That happens to be my field

22      when I was in school.  He was very dramatic, but

23      he was on target.  Our lives are at stake,

24      folks.  It's not just the asthmatics.  It's all

25      of us, because we are not doing the right thing
                                                       97




 1      about our environment.

 2           So please remember the vast number of

 3      people out there who can't get to meetings like

 4      this and don't ask the clout to go head to head

 5      with lobbyist and politicians and give us the

 6      best, please.

 7           Thank you very much.

 8           MS. OGE:  Thank you.

 9           Mr. Juan Ruiz.  Is that how you pronounce

10      your name?

11           MR. RUIZ:  Ruiz.

12           MS. OGE:  Ruiz.  Good morning.

13           MR. RUIZ:  Good morning.

14           Hello.  My name is Juan Ruiz.  I'm

15      associated with U.S. PIRS.  I'm here as a

16      private citizen.

17           I have had experience with health problems

18      related to air pollution.  As a child in

19      Columbia, where I was born, I suffered through

20      asthma problems.  I was not a healthy active

21      child.  Poor regulations on auto industry and

22      just with basic industry emissions, combined

23      with geographical features that attracts air

24      pollution, help to exaggerate the problems that

25      were in my home city.  When my family immigrated
                                                       98




 1      to the United States, specifically Florida, my

 2      problems gradually went away.  And I have been

 3      concerned of the recent trend here in Atlanta,

 4      the smog alert and for myself, I feel that I

 5      could try to withstand some air pollution until

 6      some later time, but I will not take any chances

 7      when I start a family.

 8           I believe there are other countries,

 9      specifically in Europe, that have better

10      environmental standards, through better mass

11      transit and regulations, where my family and I

12      could live in a healthier matter.  But we will

13      still be effected by the stress applied to the

14      earth by any country that does not regulate.

15           I have been encouraged to see these

16      proposals by the EPA; and also, I read in the

17      New York Times that Ford, and I quote, "Ford

18      says that beginning with the 2000 model year,

19      the eight hundred thousand full-sized pickup

20      trucks it makes annually, including the top

21      selling F-150s, will meet current pollution

22      standards for cars."  Although the largest

23      models are expected to meet even the tighter car

24      rules taking effect next year -- And the Clinton

25      Administration has recently proposed standards
                                                       99




 1      for large pickup in the 2004 and 2007 model

 2      years.  Now, this is pretty good.  It seems

 3      reasonable.  But I would just strongly urge for

 4      EPA to speed up the requirements; and if not by

 5      regulations, they might tax break to

 6      manufacturers and consumers.  I do believe that

 7      all cars should be held to the same standards.

 8      The cost that we pay now will be paid later in

 9      health cost and environmental clean up and the

10      lives hurt or lost is something that we can

11      avoid.  And we should improve it now rather than

12      later.  That is all.

13           MS. OGE:  Thank you.

14           Mr. Bob Fletcher, good morning.

15           MR. FLETCHER:  Good morning.  My name is

16      Bob Fletcher, or formally Robert E. Fletcher.

17           I support cleaner air and the EPA's Tier 2

18      proposal to reduce auto pollution.  For the last

19      seven years, as a volunteer with the Georgia

20      Chapter of the Sierra Club and other grassroots

21      organizations, I have worked for more extensive

22      transportation options and improved air quality in

23      the metro Atlanta area.  Most recently I

24      participated as a member of the task force

25      established by the Atlanta regional commission to
                                                       100




 1      develop emission control strategies for the new

 2      regional transportation plan.

 3           As we've heard on numerous occasions this

 4      morning, air pollution is still a major problem

 5      in our country.  And I might parenthetically say

 6      that the situation would be decidedly worse if

 7      measures to clean up the air had not been taken

 8      since 1970 under the Clean Air Act.

 9           In the Atlanta metro area, over half of the

10      smog producing air pollutants are emitted from

11      on-road vehicles.  This burden from vehicles is

12      proportionately higher than that found in most

13      other areas in United States.  Accordingly, the

14      Atlanta area has a heightened stake in the

15      stronger Tier 2 standards.  More effective

16      vehicle emission standards and less polluting

17      fuels are vital elements in the multi-faceted

18      national strategy to improve air quality.  The

19      proposed Tier 2 rule changes represent a big

20      step in the right direction that improvements

21      should be made before they become final:  one,

22      there should be no special treatment for heavier

23      vehicles.  We've heard this by other testifiers.

24      Now is the time to propose a major loophole and

25      have all passenger vehicles simultaneously
                                                       101




 1      subject to the same emission standards.  It is

 2      noted that 1994 emission standards were

 3      originally proposed to be identical for cars and

 4      light trucks; but, of course, that did not

 5      happen.  Substantial changes in the national

 6      passenger vehicle fleet are taking place.  One

 7      can observe any busy intersection and see the

 8      trucks and SUVs represent an increasing

 9      proportion of the total.  It is a matter of

10      simple equity for the auto industry and all

11      members of the driving public to do their share

12      to solve the air pollution problem.  Trucks used

13      primarily as passenger vehicles, minivans, SUVs

14      and super-sized SUVs over eighty-five hundred

15      pounds, should be dealt with in exactly the same

16      fashion as other passenger vehicles.  All new

17      passenger vehicles should meet Tier 2 standards

18      by the year 2007.

19           Two, there should be no special treatment

20      of diesel technologies.  All vehicles regardless

21      of engine technology or fuel used should meet

22      the same health-related standards.  However, as

23      it now stands, the Tier 2 proposal permits

24      diesel engines to pollute twice as much soot and

25      up to tens times as much as smog-forming
                                                       102




 1      nitrogen oxide as gasoline engines.

 2           Three, the sulfur levels in gasoline should

 3      be lower nationally to thirty parts per million

 4      at the same time that new vehicle emission

 5      standards go into effect.  This change should

 6      take place simultaneously for all refiners,

 7      regardless of size.  California, as we've heard,

 8      already has a thirty parts per million standard.

 9      And nationwide it would be the equivalent of

10      removing fifty-four million cars from the road.

11           Four, there should be increased incentive

12      for advanced technology vehicles.  I've heard

13      electric and fuel cell vehicles are technically

14      feasible and they are less polluting than those

15      powered solely by internal combustion engines.

16      The new standard promulgated by EPA should

17      provide stronger incentives for development and

18      use of these advanced technologies.

19           Some say that we as a nation cannot afford

20      the improved emission standards for our

21      vehicles.  This is reminiscent of statements

22      when the Clean Air Act was being considered in

23      1970.  For example, Iococca, then vice president

24      of Ford Motor Company, predicated that passage

25      of the Clean Air Act would cause complete
                                                       103




 1      collapse of the U.S. auto industry and would

 2      permanently cripple the national economy.  As we

 3      know, Detroit still makes cars and does so

 4      profitably.  Our country is the mist of an

 5      unprecedented economic expansion.

 6           Many economists agree that the public

 7      health and environmental protection benefits of

 8      the Clean Air Act vastly outweigh the cost.  One

 9      comprehensive study determined every dollar

10      spent on compliance with the Clean Air Act from

11      1970 through 1990 yielded at forty-four dollars'

12      value of benefits.  That's a pretty substantial

13      return on an investment.

14           Your organization estimates that Tier 2

15      emission standards will add only one hundred to

16      two hundred dollars to the price of new cars.

17      EPA has also estimated that low sulfur gasoline

18      will only increase cost by one to two cents a

19      gallon.  These are very modest amounts to pay

20      for more breathable air.

21           Recent polls indicate that an overwhelming

22      majority of Americans feel that the same

23      emission standards should apply to all passenger

24      vehicles if they would be willing to pay two

25      cents more per gallon for cleaner gasoline.
                                                       104




 1           Decisions concerning the proposed Tier 2

 2      standards will influence air quality for several

 3      decades into the 21st century.  The health and

 4      well being of our children, grandchildren and

 5      great grandchildren will be effected.  These

 6      future citizens have no voice in the current

 7      decision-making process.  Accordingly, we have

 8      an inescapable moral imperative to do the right

 9      thing.

10           EPA's Tier 2 proposal is a good start.

11      However, it should be strengthened as I have

12      previously described.  Conversely, efforts to

13      weaken the rule even further should be

14      strenuously resisted.

15           I certainly appreciate the opportunity to

16      put my comments here at this public hearing.

17           MS. OGE:  Thank you.

18           Mr. Robert Pregulman, good morning.

19           MR. PREGULMAN:  Good morning.  Thank you

20      for allowing us to speak today.  My name is

21      Robert Pregulman.  I'm the southern field

22      director for the U.S. Public Interest Research

23      Group.  And I'll try to keep my comments brief

24      and not repeat too much of what's been said.

25           Thanks to efforts of the EPA and their
                                                       105




 1      initiatives, our cars are cleaner than they were

 2      thirty years ago, much, much cleaner than they

 3      were.  The reason is not because of initiatives

 4      from the oil and automobile industries, but

 5      because of regulation by the EPA.  And I know a

 6      couple of people have made some references to

 7      the historical opposition that the oil and auto

 8      industries have had to higher standards.  I have

 9      specific examples I would like to mention.  Mr.

10      Fletcher already touched on one.  In 1970,

11      Iacocca, who has been the vice president of Ford

12      Motor Company, said the 1970 Clean Air Act would

13      prevent continued production of automobiles and

14      is a threat to the entire American economy and

15      to every person in America.

16           In a paid ad in 1973, the Chrysler

17      Corporation said, "No automotive company we know

18      has found a way to meet both the 1975 and 1976

19      standards.  We'll need very costly catalyst

20      converter systems in every car.  And at this

21      point these systems are delicate and not fully

22      proven."   In 1973, Mobile Oil Corporation

23      called the 1970 Clean Air Act the

24      sixty-six-billion-dollar mistake.  In 1989, the

25      Motor Vehicle Association said achieving the
                                                       106




 1      Tier 2 standards is not technologically

 2      feasible.  In 1992, Mr. Jamison Knor, President

 3      and CEO of Texaco at the time said cleaner

 4      gasoline may cost as much as twenty-five per

 5      gallon.

 6           We all know that none of these predictions

 7      have come true.  As a matter of fact, it's been

 8      quite the opposite as most people have said.

 9      The cost associated with these tighter

10      restrictions in emissions have not only been

11      much less than industry originally proposed, but

12      are also far outweighed by the health benefits

13      of having cleaner cars and trucks.  But cars are

14      still a problem and the air pollution is still a

15      problem despite the fact that cars are cleaner

16      than they were thirty years ago.  As a country,

17      we're now driving two and a half times more per

18      year than we did in 1970s.  So we're putting out

19      many more emissions.  And obviously, back in

20      1970, there weren't many SUVs at all on the

21      road, only primarily for work purposes.  Now one

22      out of every two cars is an SUV; and, as you

23      know, they pollute at three times the rate than

24      regular cars do.  So that's why it's critically

25      important for us to follow through with these
                                                       107




 1      tougher regulations.

 2           And just to briefly summarize, we do

 3      believe that the EPA is on the right track with

 4      a ninety percent reduction in car emissions,

 5      requiring some SUVs to meet the same clean air

 6      requirements as cars and the ninety percent

 7      sulfur reduction in gasoline.  However, to

 8      reiterate what many people have said today, we

 9      do believe that there should be no special

10      exemptions for heavier SUVs.  The mid-category

11      range of SUVs should not have an extra two years

12      to comply and the largest category, eighty-five

13      hundred pounds and above, should not be

14      exempted.  I think it's obvious that the car

15      industry will start making larger and heavier

16      SUVs if that loophole is inactive and it will

17      counteract many of the good things that you all

18      are proposing.

19           We do think that sulfur reduction is

20      adequate, but we do think it should take place

21      in 2004 in conjunction with the cleaner cars.

22      And to reiterate again, we do think that diesel

23      engines should be required to meet the standards

24      as gasoline engines.  They should not be given

25      any special privileges.
                                                       108




 1           To give you an example of why this is

 2      important here in Georgia, as Representative

 3      Teper mentioned earlier, we have a clean air

 4      problem here in Georgia.  And part of our state

 5      government's solution to that was to require low

 6      sulfur gasoline to be sold during the summer

 7      months in several north Georgia counties.  The

 8      good news is, it was sold starting two years ago

 9      -- excuse me, two months ago.  But the cost has

10      been virtually negligible.  There's been no

11      noticeable increase in price.  But we do know

12      that low sulfur gasoline can be provided with

13      very low cost.  The bad news is, it's only sold

14      during the summer months and it's not sold all

15      over the state.  So if you buy gas in other

16      parts of the state or during the winter, the

17      high sulfur content will still damage catalytic

18      converters and still cause cars to pollute at

19      higher levels.  So we do need a comprehensive

20      systematic problem.  That's why it's critically

21      important for these measures to go through as

22      proposed with the corrections that I mentioned

23      before.

24           Finally, I've heard some people mention

25      cost and the fact that the public will not stand
                                                       109




 1      up for either higher cost gasoline, which won't

 2      happen anyway, or paying slightly more for SUVs.

 3      We run a national grassroots door-to-door

 4      operation.  We are talking to millions of people

 5      all over the country about this issue.  Most

 6      people do not know that SUVs pollute up to three

 7      times more than cars.  They are very supportive

 8      when we tell them that these Tier 2 standards

 9      are going into effect.  Many of them want these

10      loopholes closed to make all SUVs as clean as

11      cars.  And just to give you an example, I've got

12      five thousand postcards here from folks in

13      Atlanta and along the east coast in support of

14      the standards, but also calling for these tying

15      up the loopholes.  And I will deliver those to

16      you all today.  And it is clear from us and our

17      folks that are talking to people in their homes

18      out in the field that Americans do want cleaner

19      cars, they want cleaner gasoline and they want

20      cleaner SUVs.

21           And again, I urge the EPA to follow through

22      with the proposal with the changes that many

23      people here suggested.

24           Thank you.

25           MS. OGE:  Thank you.
                                                       110




 1           Mr. Anthony DeLucia, good morning.

 2           MR. DeLUCIA:  Hello.  I am Anthony DeLucia.

 3      I am a representative of the American Lung

 4      Association.  I'm a newly appointed volunteer

 5      chair of the National Air Conservation

 6      Commission.

 7           I also have a life-long interest in air

 8      pollution, growing up in the fifties and sixties

 9      in southern California, and also did my degree

10      work on the effects of air pollutants on human

11      health.  So I have quite a bit invested in this.

12           I do want to say, first off, that what

13      we're talking about today is extremely

14      important, what EPA is proposing.  And I

15      personally think we can all sleep better at

16      night knowing that these steps are in the works.

17      However, we do have concerns, the Lung

18      Association and other groups that you're seeing,

19      that this is much of a coalition type of

20      approach, bringing some of these issues to your

21      attention.

22           Again, let's look at the positive.  Since

23      the new regs for the ozone standard, on the

24      eight-hour versus one-hour and also for the fine

25      particulates, we're seeing maybe a change in the
                                                       111




 1      way things are being approached.  We're now

 2      talking about taking things out to the first

 3      decade of the New Millennium, with some very

 4      important results that we hope we can achieve.

 5      The results are targeted to reduce the health

 6      impact, which we see and we know is out there,

 7      which we expect every summer, like the one we're

 8      about to head into here in Atlanta, to cause us

 9      to be concerned about.  We know that a hundred

10      and seventeen million individuals live in areas

11      where the air quality is poor.  So the bottom

12      line is, what we can we do about it.  And if the

13      Tier 2 standard and the low sulfur fuel are

14      fully implemented, without a lot of rigmarole,

15      we'll see thousands of lives saved per year,

16      approximately four thousand.  We'll see hundreds

17      of thousands of respiratory symptoms being

18      alleviated; and, of course, if we look at where

19      a lot of those symptoms occur and as was

20      mentioned earlier, the high incidence of asthma

21      in this country, we know our sensitive group is

22      the young.  Also we add to that the old and we

23      add to that other groups such as those having

24      existing respiratory illnesses and in the case

25      of particles, cardiopulmonary sensitivities.
                                                       112




 1           So when it comes down to how the Lung

 2      Association views the potential, we say it's

 3      there.  However, we are concerned about all the

 4      potential for delays or maneuvering.  We agree

 5      that the largest vehicles do not need to be

 6      exempted in any way, nor do vehicles which are

 7      going to be powered by diesel need to be

 8      exempted in any way regarding the standards

 9      which are proposed.  This will just only lead to

10      more bins than we need and bins which are

11      difficult to comprehend.  We have come concerns

12      with some of the intermediate bins which talked

13      about different goals for hydrocarbon emissions.

14           We are also very concerned about the sulfur

15      issue.  I think it's as complicated as the

16      emissions points clearly because they're so tied

17      together.  But what we've come up with is the

18      statement that thirty parts per million of

19      sulfur in fuel will keep the catalytic

20      converters running for the hundred thousand or

21      the hundred and twenty thousand mile lifetime of

22      the vehicles that we're talking about.  That is

23      a great idea, but it's been weakened by the idea

24      that additional caps can be in existence, such

25      that we might have some gas which goes up to
                                                       113




 1      several hundred part per million; or we're

 2      phasing this in slower because it's needed to

 3      give the refineries time to do more and to work

 4      together in this network of getting things done.

 5           We really say hogwash regarding some of

 6      these caps and that let's just work directly for

 7      the thirty parts per million.  Let's try and do

 8      it as expeditiously as possible, timing it with

 9      the 2004 delivery of these first vehicles,

10      actually to fall 2003.  We've got some examples,

11      they're not in the southeast of where things can

12      go awry if high caps on the sulfur containing

13      fuels are allowed to be in existence.  You could

14      have potentially the technology being foiled in

15      major metropolitan areas and we need to be

16      concerned about it.

17           I think this is a nationwide issue.  And

18      this is what the Lung Association clearly

19      proposes, that we view this as a nationwide

20      policy and a nationwide stance and continue to

21      cooperate with the parties that are involved at

22      all levels of the implementation, but really

23      take the hardest approach possible.

24           I think that there have been some claims

25      that we need to look at, even lower sulfur
                                                       114




 1      levels in the fuel, because these are needed

 2      somehow to make the technology work.  We have

 3      every instance that, even the largest of the

 4      vehicles, with the preexisting technology, can

 5      provide emission which are below the proposed

 6      standards.  So do we need a close to zero level

 7      fuel, which might cost more?  I don't think so.

 8      I notice Mr. Pregulman indicated, we've got the

 9      evidence that the cost for lower sulfur fuel

10      will only be a couple of cents per gallon,

11      perhaps at max.

12           The technology review that is proposed I

13      think would not be the worst effort.  What we

14      have proposed has worked, let's get on with it.

15      If we go forward and do not relax our standards,

16      we'll be making the greatest headway.

17           Lastly, from the Lung Association's

18      standpoint, we have polled numbers which show

19      the American public supports what we're trying

20      to do, that eighty-three percent of Americans

21      are in favor of low sulfur fuels and will pay

22      the extra two cents per gallon.  Sport utility

23      vehicles and minivan owners will do the same

24      thing.  So I think it shows how we could be on

25      track if we're properly held accountable.
                                                       115




 1           Thank you.

 2           MS. OGE:  Thank you.

 3           Any questions for the panel?

 4           (No response).

 5           MS. OGE:  Well, Mr. Teper, I'm very

 6      familiar with all the Georgia issues that you

 7      raised and happen to also oversee some of the

 8      programs that inspection and maintenance,

 9      conformity, and so I am very sympathetic to all

10      the challenges that you're facing as a state

11      representative in this wonderful State of

12      Georgia.

13           But I'd like to thank all of you for taking

14      the time to come and share your views with us,

15      especially I want to thank our volunteers, the

16      individuals that are taking time from their own

17      jobs and life to come and share your views with

18      us.  Your comments are very important to us and

19      we'll take them into consideration.  We're

20      moving forward, traveling around the country,

21      and then going back to Washington to think of

22      everything that we have heard.

23           Thank you so much.

24           MR. PREGULMAN:  I have one quick thing.  I

25      think it's great that we are on schedule, but I
                                                       116




 1      do know that there are several people that are

 2      assuming that at four o'clock, they'll have some

 3      time.

 4           MS. OGE:  We will be here.

 5           MR. PREGULMAN:  Great.

 6           MS. OGE:  We will be here.

 7           MR. PREGULMAN:  I don't want you to miss

 8      your planes.

 9           (Whereupon, a break ensued from

10           approximately 12:30 p.m. until 1:25

11           p.m.; and the panel came before the

12           Board.)

13           MS. OGE:  Mr. Welsh, we'll start with you.

14      Good afternoon.

15           MR. WELSH:  Good afternoon.

16           MS. OGE:  I would like to ask you to please

17      keep your statement ten minutes or less; and

18      after you give your remarks, please stay.  We

19      may have some questions for you.

20           Please go ahead.

21           MR. WELSH:  Good afternoon.  My name is

22      John Welsh.  I'm an applications chemist with

23      Antech Industrial Instruments, located in the

24      beautiful Highland Lakes area of Texas and we

25      are manufacturers of on-line process
                                                       117




 1      instrumentation for the determination of sulfur

 2      in fuels.

 3           This presentation is not necessary

 4      concerned with when or what levels of sulfur are

 5      eventually mandated as the U.S. moves towards

 6      cleaner motor fuels.  It does put forward the

 7      notion that no matter what sulfur levels are

 8      targeted, U.S. EPA should designate as its

 9      primary method the most economical and capable

10      AST test methods.

11           In their proposed Tier 2 regulations, U.S.

12      EPA has stated that D 2622 WDXRF should be

13      designated as the primary test method for

14      sulfur.  For the determination of sulfur in

15      fuels of the future -- And particularly at the

16      levels proposed by the EPA, D 5453 UBF has

17      proven to be a superior method to D 2622.  This

18      presentation will provide evidence that

19      demonstrates why D 5453 should be designated as

20      the primary test method for sulfur in fuels.

21           Based on testimony so far during these

22      hearings, there can be little doubt that the

23      U.S. marketplace will have lower sulfur fuels

24      and in its not too-distance future.

25      Irregardless of how the proposed sulfur levels
                                                       118




 1      and effective dates are established, the

 2      petroleum community will need its more accurate

 3      and flexible tools.  If a gasoline sulfur

 4      program that is similar to the currently

 5      proposed EPA Tier 2 regulation is enacted, the

 6      oil industry will soon be routinely analyzing

 7      motor fuels for very low sulfur levels.

 8      Obviously both regulators and industry must

 9      consider the impact of producing low sulfur

10      fuels.

11           In September 1992, the California Air

12      Resources Board, CARB, adopted regulations

13      requiring reformulation of California gasoline.

14      The CARB regulations established a comprehensive

15      set of gasoline specifications designed to

16      achieve reductions in emissions of VOCs, NOx,

17      carbon monoxide, sulfur dioxide and toxic air

18      pollutants from gasoline-fueled vehicles.  The

19      CARB regulations set standards for eight

20      gasoline parameters, sulfur, benzene, olefins,

21      and others.  During blending operations, the

22      specifications for benzene, olefins, Reid vapor

23      pressure, et cetera, are sometimes met well

24      before the sulfur level reaches thirty ppm.

25      Therefore, many current producers of gasoline
                                                       119




 1      for California consumption routinely must

 2      measure must measure gasoline with sulfur

 3      concentration less than fifteen parts per

 4      million.

 5           U.S. EPA is correct to seek comment as to

 6      if ASTM D 5435 should be designated as the

 7      primary sulfur test method.  Currently D 2622

 8      has been designated as the only EPA-approved

 9      sulfur test method.  However, the EPA has

10      recognized that in certain situations, D 2622

11      had limitations.  As an example, where thirty

12      ppm average eight ppm cap, low sulfur fuels most

13      be produced, the EPA agreed to recognize test

14      methods allowed by the California EPA.

15           The thirty ppm average eighty ppm cap

16      sulfur specifications prompted a group of

17      refiners, Western States Petroleum Association,

18      or WSPA, to petition the California Air

19      Resources Board for more flexible and economical

20      sulfur test methods.

21           What WSPA and CARB needed was an economical

22      test method that can measure very low levels of

23      sulfur and give them the equivalent results as D

24      2622, when used for the analysis of higher

25      sulfur fuel levels.  Various laboratory studies
                                                       120




 1      and cooperative multi-laboratory testing

 2      revealed that D 5453 was such a sulfur test

 3      method.

 4           D 2622's questionable performance at low

 5      sulfur levels can be traced to several factors.

 6      Although probably a minor contributor, because

 7      of the cleanliness of modern fuels, metal

 8      contamination must be considered.  The presence

 9      of alcohol, which is commonly found in modern

10      alternate fuel mixtures, can also interfere with

11      D 2622 analysis.

12           Additionally, as Section 5.1 of the D 2622

13      test method states, "when the elemental

14      composition, excluding sulfur, of samples differ

15      significantly from the standards, errors in the

16      sulfur determination can result.  For example,

17      differences in the carbon-hydrogen ration of

18      sample and calibration standards introduce

19      errors in the determination."

20           Section 1.5 of the D 2622 test method scope

21      reinforces the problems that can occur with the

22      samples with a changing matrix.  Analytical

23      errors caused by these matrix effects could

24      become critical as sulfur concentrations

25      decline.  It is this issue that most limits D
                                                       121




 1      2622's usefulness in the dynamic blending future

 2      of Tier 2 gasoline.

 3           This excerpt from the scope section of the

 4      most recent revision of the D 2622 '98 test

 5      method confirms that the test, if so spent, for

 6      sulfur levels than twenty parts per million.

 7           The D 2622 scope also includes an

 8      estimation of the test methods pooled level of

 9      quantification.  This calculation, based upon a

10      special subset of the lowest samples analyzed

11      during the 2622 verification, otherwise known as

12      a Round Robin, finds a PLOQ for D 2622 of only

13      fifteen parts per million.

14           No interference for products covered in

15      this Tier 2 proposal, because halogen

16      contamination is stringently controlled in

17      modern motor fuels.

18           D 5453 has proven itself to be an excellent

19      test method for the determination of sulfur in

20      all sorts of motor fuels.  This is possible

21      because D 5453 uses a sample combustion

22      technology and is very selective and free from

23      the carbon hydrogen ratio in metal contamination

24      interferences that effects the proposed primary

25      sulfur regulatory method D 2622.  Instrument
                                                       122




 1      calibration is straightforward and not biased by

 2      the matrix of the calibration material.

 3           D 5453 has a proven history of performance

 4      in the measurement of sulfur at very low levels.

 5      The test method initial publication in 1993

 6      indicated the ability to measure down to one

 7      part per million.  A pooled level of

 8      Quantification for a recently completed -- that

 9      is, in 1998 -- ASTM Round Robin was less than

10      one part per million.

11           The California experience has shown and

12      brought out a number of important points, all

13      major refiners utilize D 5453 technology in lab

14      or on line, and in some instances both.  Almost

15      all small refiners' labs utilize D 5453 or some

16      routine analysis.

17           The incorporation of 5453 as the primary

18      test method would also offer additional

19      flexibility.  I would first like to note for the

20      record that neither ASTM D 5435 nor ASTM D 2622

21      specifically address the applications of these

22      methodologies for on-line determination of

23      sulfur in fuels.  However, the same technology

24      that is described in ASTM D 5453, with the

25      exception of the sample introduction system, is
                                                       123




 1      found in process instrumentation.  As of this

 2      date, I am not aware of the use of D 2622WDXRM

 3      technology for the on-line determination of

 4      sulfur in fuels.

 5           The use of D 5453 or UVF provides analysts

 6      in the refiners to increase application

 7      flexibility.  The development of an on-line

 8      certification program begins with the

 9      establishment of a direct correlation between

10      on-line and laboratory results.  The ability to

11      use D 5453 in the laboratory and UVF on-line,

12      for the determination of sulfur, eases the

13      simplifies the establishment of this correlation

14      of results.  The issue of test method bias is

15      eliminated.

16           As previously show, D 5453 is very

17      selective and free from the carbon hydrogen

18      ratio, or what is referred to as the matrix

19      effect interference.  This allows for accurate

20      sulfur determination in multiple streams with

21      widely varying component matrices.

22           In conclusion, we would like to state that

23      D 5453 provides superior sulfur test method

24      results at lower sulfur level and equivalent

25      measurements at higher sulfur concentrations.
                                                       124




 1      Allowing the use of D 5453 could enable

 2      significant capital savings for the

 3      fuel-producing community, while giving them a

 4      better measurement tool as sulfur concentrations

 5      continue to drop.

 6           The D 5453 test method has already been

 7      approved by other regulating agencies and has

 8      proven its worth time and time again in daily

 9      low sulfur fuel production, as well as in

10      general use on a worldwide basis.

11           When the California regulations for sulfur

12      in fuels were adopted and methods for the

13      determination of sulfur were designated, ASTM D

14      2622 was the logical choice.  Since that time,

15      as the California experience has shown, ASTM D

16      5453 is now the logical choice.  The designation

17      of ASTM D 5453, as the primary test method, will

18      serve the fuel producing and analytical

19      communities now and for the years to come as

20      sulfur levels in fuels continue to decrease.

21      EPA now has the opportunity to provide these

22      communities with the most viable test method for

23      low sulfur determination in fuels.

24           D 5435 should be designated as the primary

25      sulfur test method.  D 2622 and other --
                                                       125




 1      possibly other ASTM test methodologies should be

 2      designated as the alternate test methods.

 3           And I thank you for your time and would

 4      like to address some questions.

 5           MS. OGE:  Thank you.

 6           Ms. Stegnik, is that right, good afternoon.

 7           MS. STEGNIK:  Thank you.

 8           Good afternoon.  My name is Lisa Stegnik,

 9      and I'm here today on behalf of the Engine

10      Manufacturers Association.

11           Among the EMA's numbers are manufacturers

12      of pickup trucks, sport utility vehicles, other

13      light-duty trucks, and passenger cars and the

14      diesel engines that are being designed to power

15      them.

16           EPA has proposed a sweeping revision to its

17      light-duty vehicle regulatory program.  EPA's

18      proposal would treat large vehicles designed for

19      hauling, towing, and other work capacity, the

20      same as small vehicles.  And EPA's proposal will

21      have the net effect of, one, foreclosing the

22      most effective and most realistically available

23      opportunity to meaningfully reduce carbon

24      dioxide emissions and approved fuel economy;

25      two, eliminating fuel efficient technologies;
                                                       126




 1      three, narrowing consumer choice, in vehicle

 2      size, type, power and performance; and, four,

 3      preventing the use of clean diesel fuel engine

 4      technologies.

 5           Moderate changes in the proposed vehicle

 6      requirements and an increased focus on and a

 7      more aggressive approach to reducing the sulfur

 8      content of both gasoline and diesel fuel would

 9      make EPA's proposal realistic for larger work

10      capable vehicles and for diesel engine

11      technology, without any adverse emission

12      impacts.

13           EPA should adopt the rules that do not

14      preclude diesel engine technology as a means to

15      address fuel economy needs, growing concerns

16      about CO2 emissions and, yes, even air quality

17      needs.

18           The single most promising cost effective

19      and available technology to reduce CO2 and

20      improve fuel economy is the diesel engine.  This

21      has been confirmed by work coming out of the

22      Partnership for a New Generation Vehicle Program

23      and has been recognized by the Department of

24      Energy and the Administration.

25           According to EPA data, a diesel engine
                                                       127




 1      exhibits a sixty percent improvement in fuel

 2      economy while achieving a thirty percent

 3      reduction in CO2 emissions.  Diesel engines also

 4      are inherently low emitters of HC and CO and

 5      they are extremely durable which means savings

 6      to consumers and little or no degradation from

 7      initial air quality emission performance levels.

 8           Diesel engines also can perform more work

 9      more efficiently than other types of engines.

10      Despite the widespread use of SUVs and pickup

11      trucks to carry passengers, engine manufacturers

12      must design diesel engines for those vehicles

13      with a capacity to haul a load or pull a boat or

14      trailer when such work is required.  Those

15      engines of those unique design aspect have

16      different emission characteristics and require

17      different emission standards.

18           Diesel engine manufacturers already have

19      made dramatic improvements in the performance of

20      diesel engines.  Engines that are being tested

21      today and that are top of commercialization will

22      be quiet, free from excessive vibration and free

23      from visible exhaust emissions; and they will do

24      so while retaining their fuel economy and

25      durability advantages.
                                                       128




 1           The adoption of Tier 2 standards that allow

 2      a role for vehicles with diesel fuel engines in

 3      the light-duty market, has significant potential

 4      to stimulate, support and speed major research

 5      and development and clean diesel technology; and

 6      such new technology can be transferred to other

 7      applications to provide even more extensive

 8      benefits.

 9           Without a Tier 2 program that is realistic

10      for diesel fueled engines, those potential

11      future technologies and benefits may be lost or

12      substantially delayed, all to the detriment of

13      the environment and the air quality.

14           EMA recognizes that with the many benefits

15      of diesel fueled engine technology, common

16      concerns about the health effects of emissions

17      from diesel fueled engines, engine manufacturers

18      have taken great stride in reducing emissions

19      from diesel fueled engines.  Since 1970, for

20      example, engine manufacturers have reduced

21      hydrocarbon and particulate emissions from

22      on-hire trucks by ninety percent and from buses

23      by ninety-five percent; and in the near term,

24      they will have reduced NOx emissions by

25      approximately eighty-five percent.
                                                       129




 1           Engine manufacturers also have supported

 2      stated in-use inspection maintenance programs,

 3      aimed at assuring that the benefits of emission

 4      control technologies designed into the engine

 5      are not lost as a result of poor maintenance or

 6      illegal tampering.

 7           Engine manufacturers also have been in the

 8      forefront of efforts to improve the quality of

 9      diesel fuel and we are strong components of the

10      further desulfurization of on-highway and

11      non-road diesel fuels.

12           The frequently cited studies on diesel

13      health concerns are not based on data

14      representative of today's diesel engines or

15      fuels, nor obviously are they based on the

16      capabilities and performance of future diesel

17      engines and fuels, both of which can and must

18      continue to be improved.

19           EMA, along with others, have contributed to

20      an epidemiology feasibility study of diesel

21      exposure conducted by Health Effects Institute

22      and just published on June 4th.  HEI has

23      concluded that the leading studies are simply

24      not adequate to support any quantitative

25      exposure response analyses.  EMA continues to
                                                       130




 1      support further research to evaluate the

 2      potential health impact of diesel fuels'

 3      exhaust.

 4           The quality of diesel fuel is critical to a

 5      manufacturer's ability to comply with stringent

 6      NOx and PM standards such as the ones proposed.

 7      EPA must require that diesel fuel, with a sulfur

 8      content less than five ppm, and with

 9      improvements to other key joints, be available

10      for light-duty vehicles in order to support the

11      critical linkage among engine technology,

12      feasible standards and fuel.

13           Improving diesel fuel quality is integrally

14      linked to the ability to meet very stringent

15      standards such as the ones proposed.  Ultra-low

16      sulfur fuel is a technology enabler.  It is

17      necessary to allow for the development and use

18      of advanced NOx aftertreatment devices.

19      Ultra-low sulfur diesel fuel also is required to

20      maintain engine durability without its severe

21      enginewear and poisoning of the engine system

22      can occur.  For light-duty vehicle, a duty fuel

23      with an ultra-low sulfur level at five ppm or

24      less is essential.  It would provide direct PM

25      emission reductions.  It would enable
                                                       131




 1      substantial NOx emission reductions and it would

 2      provide fleetwide benefits for both new and

 3      existing vehicles with diesel fuel engines.

 4           Improved diesel fuel also has a role in

 5      responding to potential health effect concerns.

 6      Ultra-low sulfur fuel lowers the total amount of

 7      particulate from the entire fleet and enables

 8      the use of known active treatment technologies

 9      such as oxidation catalyst, which can reduce the

10      organic fraction of PM emissions and can enable

11      technologies to reduce NOx which, in turn, will

12      reduce secondary PM.

13           The proposed Tier 2 rule puts the

14      commercial viability in diesel fuel engine

15      technology at risk, resulting in the potential

16      loss of the many benefits of diesel fuel engine

17      technology can provide.  With moderate and

18      appropriate modifications to EPA's proposal,

19      however, EPA can assure that it does not miss

20      the opportunity to have low NOx emitting, high

21      performing, low CO2 producing, diesel fueled

22      engines available on the market.

23           Today -- And we urge EPA to incorporate an

24      independent midterm review of the proposed

25      standards in the final rule.  Diesel fuel engine
                                                       132




 1      technology can remain a viable option without an

 2      adverse emission impacts.  And with ultra-low

 3      sulfur fuel, widespread NOx and PM emission

 4      reductions can be achieved.

 5           EMA will provide more detailed comments and

 6      recommendations on EPA's proposal in our written

 7      comments to the agency.

 8           Thank you.

 9           MS. OGE:  Thank you.

10           Mr. Bob Jorgerson, good afternoon.

11           MR. JORGERSON:  Good afternoon.

12           I notice that Mr. Wysor is not here --

13           MS. OGE:  Could you please --

14           MS. STEGNIK:  I'm going to help with the

15      slides.

16           MS. OGE:  We want all of you to stay so we

17      can ask some questions.

18           MR. JORGERSON:  I was just starting to say

19      that I notice that Mr. Wysor's not here, our

20      timekeeper, so I've got longer in time.

21           MS. OGE:  So we have Ms. Dawn Martin here.

22      You cannot escape.

23           MS. MARTIN:  But if you want to time

24      yourself, too, that's perfectly fine.

25           MS. OGE:  Please go ahead.
                                                       133




 1           MR. JORGERSON:  My name is Bob Jorgerson.

 2      I'm the director of Environmental Management for

 3      Cummins Engine Company.  Cummins produces diesel

 4      and natural gas fueled engines for automotive,

 5      construction, agricultural, power-generation

 6      applications around the world.  We are the

 7      largest producer of heavy-duty engines, about

 8      two hundred horsepower, in the world.

 9           We have recently developed a new concept

10      engine for application and light-duty vehicles,

11      the subject of the proposed regulations under

12      consideration.  A portion of the funding for

13      this development is coming from the U.S.

14      Department of Energy.  The objective of this

15      effort, as laid out several years ago, in the

16      initiation of the program, are shown on this

17      figure (indicating).

18           The top bullet shows the first major goal

19      of this effort, to improve fuel economy from

20      current gasoline engines by at least fifty

21      percent.  The second one, of course, is

22      compliance with the standards.  At the time the

23      proposal went out, the Department of Energy did

24      not know what the Tier 2 levels would be.  And

25      so as a target, they set the standards that you
                                                       134




 1      see here.  These, again, were put forth with the

 2      reflection that they are to be reviewed upon

 3      publication of the Tier 2 standards, which is

 4      obviously what we're talking about here.  The

 5      total of funding for all the companies for which

 6      DOE funding has been made available is shown on

 7      the bottom line.  It's about -- just a little

 8      bit over forty million dollars over about a

 9      five-year period.

10           These emission goals were set looking at

11      the current levels for light-duty truck three

12      and light-duty truck four.  And as you can see,

13      they represent a significant reduction,

14      standards that were and still are felt to be

15      challenging for these fuel efficient

16      technologies.

17           As proposed, the Tier 2 requirements would

18      preclude engines which meet these objectives

19      from entering the marketplace in 2004 and

20      beyond.  It would foreclose the most cost

21      effective and most readily available opportunity

22      to improve fuel economy and meaningfully reduce

23      carbon dioxide emissions.  The Department of

24      Energy initiated this program to reduce the fuel

25      consumption of the growing light-duty vehicle
                                                       135




 1      segment known as light-duty trucks.  Light-duty

 2      truck sales represent an increasing percentage

 3      of an ever-increasing light-duty vehicle

 4      category approaching fifty percent this year.

 5           Transportation energy use represents about

 6      one-third of the total energy consumption in the

 7      United States.  These figures are from the

 8      Energy Institute.  Of the energy consumed by the

 9      transportation sector, approximately fifty

10      percent is consumed by light-duty vehicles,

11      passenger cars and light-duty trucks, as shown

12      on this slide.  So we're talking about a sector

13      that consumes about one-sixth of the energy in

14      our country.

15           Direct injection and compression ignition

16      diesel engines have the potential to

17      significantly reduce light-duty vehicle energy

18      consumption.  As shown on this slide, our

19      concept engine, as tested, has shown to have a

20      fuel economy of seventy-one percent better than

21      the gasoline engine counterpart.  And these are

22      the cap A or the fuel economy things that you

23      usually see on the sticker on your car.

24           For a vehicle that drives fifteen thousand

25      miles annually, the fuel savings would amount to
                                                       136




 1      four hundred and forty-six gallons per year.

 2      There were over seven million four hundred

 3      thousand light-duty trucks sold in the United

 4      States last year.  Had only fifty percent of

 5      these been diesel powered rather than gasoline,

 6      the fuel savings in the United States, in 1999,

 7      this year, would have been over 1.5 billion

 8      gallons.

 9           There is a lot of debate about global

10      warming.  But it seems more and more researchers

11      are becoming convinced that it's a real issue.

12      The magnitude of carbon dioxide emission

13      reductions, in addition to the numerous meetings

14      taking place around the world, would require

15      major changes.  To reduce the amount of carbon

16      dioxide emitted by light-duty trucks in the

17      United States in the year 2010, back to the

18      level emitted in 1990, would require a per

19      vehicle decrease of between thirty-five and

20      forty percent, depending on the growth

21      assumptions that you used.  As showing on this

22      figure, our diesel engine achieves a

23      thirty-seven percent reduction from the carbon

24      dioxide emission levels of its gasoline engine

25      counterpart.
                                                       137




 1           Earlier I showed you the Department of

 2      Energy program goals, including the emission

 3      targets.  The proposed Tier 2 standard are much

 4      more stringent, as shown on this figure.

 5      They're the numbers in the lower right-hand

 6      corner.  Tier 2 has seven bins.  Bin zero is a

 7      zero-emitting vehicle.  And bin seven is the

 8      least stringent of the bins, but you can see

 9      where that bears versus the DOE targets that

10      were set about three or four years ago.

11           Improvement in engine out emissions from

12      today's best light-duty diesel engines, which

13      employ cool exhaust gas recirculation, turbo

14      chargers and air-to-air aftercooler, can and

15      will be made.  Cummins believes that with

16      increased amounts of EGR, use of fuel systems

17      capable of higher injection pressure and

18      cylinder heads with four valves per cylinder to

19      give us better breathing, that engine-out oxide

20      and nitrogen and particulate matter emissions

21      can be cut in half.

22           Reductions beyond these levels would

23      require exhaust aftertreatment.  Lean NOx

24      aftertreatment is still in the development

25      stage.  However, Cummins believes that such
                                                       138




 1      systems capable of fifty percent oxide and

 2      nitrogen reductions will be commercially viable

 3      in the time frame for Tier 2 standards for heavy

 4      light-duty vehicles are proposed to begin to

 5      phase-in.  Particulate aftertreatment systems,

 6      such as catalyzed soot filters will also be

 7      required.  Regeneration of these soot filters,

 8      the process of removing the particulates from

 9      them, is still the biggest hurdle, especially

10      during the sustained light-load operation and

11      during cold ambient conditions.

12           Cummins is hopeful that filters of eight

13      percent or greater trapping efficiency will be

14      able to regenerate continuously under all

15      operating conditions.  The sulfur content of

16      diesel fuel must be reduced significantly in

17      order to enable the use of these aftertreatment

18      systems.

19           The anticipated reductions from current

20      best technology to improvement in engine design,

21      through the use of aftertreatment systems as

22      just described, still falls short of reductions

23      necessary to comply with bin seven standards,

24      the least stringent of the Tier 2 bins.  Cummins

25      believes that the fuel economy and carbon
                                                       139




 1      dioxide emission benefits, compression ignition

 2      diesel cycled engines bring, warrant their

 3      inclusion in the light-duty vehicle market.

 4      Given the long time horizon and the major

 5      advances required to develop a conforming

 6      commercially viable diesel product, Cummins

 7      recommends that a midterm technology review be

 8      included to assess the progress of these highly

 9      fuel efficient engines towards Tier 2

10      compliance.  Cummins is pleased to see the

11      agency's advanced notice of proposed rulemaking

12      requesting comment on the need for changes in

13      diesel fuel.

14           Cummins will provide separate comments to

15      this Advanced Notice.  But in as much as fuel

16      changes have a large impact on the feasibility

17      of the standards proposed in this rulemaking, it

18      is important to state here that both highly

19      efficient oxide and nitrogen and particulate

20      aftertreatment systems will require the use of

21      ultra-low low sulfur fuel -- fuel with less than

22      five parts per million maximum sulfur.

23           In addition, Cummins believes, that the

24      additional flexibility that would be provided by

25      an averaging program, allows the setting of
                                                       140




 1      emission limits as needed.  The large gaps

 2      between the five interim bins and the seven Tier

 3      2 bins discourage emission reductions that are

 4      significant, but that fall short of the next

 5      lower bin.  Manufacturers would still have to

 6      comply with that same stringent oxide and

 7      nitrogen complete average.  So such an averaging

 8      system, while providing greater flexibility and

 9      reducing the cost of compliance, would not

10      negatively impact the environmental improvements

11      sought by the proposal.

12           In conclusion, Cummins recommends, one,

13      that the proposed bin structure be replaced an

14      averaging program; two, that a midterm

15      technology review be included to assess the

16      progress by these highly fuel efficient engines

17      for Tier 2 compliance; and three, that the

18      maximum sulfur content of the fuel stream for

19      light-duty vehicles be capped at five parts per

20      million.

21           MS. OGE:  Thank you.

22           Mr. Allan Jones, good afternoon.

23           MR. JONES:  Thank you, and I apologize for

24      being late.  I was waiting for my salad

25      downstairs.
                                                       141




 1           MS. OGE:  Please go ahead.

 2           MR. JONES:  Thank you.  My name is Allan

 3      Jones, I'm executive director of the Tennessee

 4      Environmental Council.  The Tennessee

 5      Environmental Council is a statewide, non-profit

 6      environmental education and advocacy

 7      organization, and we're located in Nashville,

 8      Tennessee.

 9           And I'd like to, on behalf of TEC, thank

10      EPA for the opportunity to comment on these

11      very, very important proposed rules.  I guess

12      the primary message that I would like to pass on

13      today is that we strongly support EPA's proposal

14      and particularly to commend EPA for looking at

15      vehicle emission standards and fuel standards as

16      integrated hope.  It's obviously very important,

17      as the testimony indicates here today.

18           The rules require most vehicles to meet the

19      same standards to eliminate the differences in

20      emission requirements for cars, SUVs, light

21      trucks; again, to tighten emissions for diesel

22      cars, diesel light trucks and reductions in lab

23      emissions for all these vehicles; also requiring

24      lower sulfur gas nationwide.  We believe this is

25      an essential step to address some of the
                                                       142




 1      nation's continuing serious air quality problem.

 2      And that certainly includes the State of

 3      Tennessee.

 4           At least nineteen counties in Tennessee,

 5      over half the state's population, because those

 6      counties are primarily urban areas -- At least

 7      nineteen counties in Tennessee will violate the

 8      eight-hour ozone standard and/or the PM two and

 9      a half standard.  Cars and trucks, of course,

10      and SUVs -- I guess from now on, when I'm saying

11      "cars," I mean all of those vehicles, regardless

12      of the labels that have been used to basically

13      justify less stringent emission limits for some

14      of these vehicle categories.  Cars and trucks

15      contribute a great deal of these problems and

16      their contribution based on growth, not only in

17      the number of vehicles, but also the number of

18      vehicle miles traveled will increase.  So that

19      slice of the pie in most parts of the country

20      probably will increase.

21           Tennessee's population, according to the

22      U.S. Census Bureau, was expected to increase by

23      1.3 million by the year 2015.  We're expecting

24      something like twenty-six percent growth in the

25      State's population.  And, of course, all those
                                                       143




 1      new residents are going to have vehicles and

 2      they're going to continue to contribute to the

 3      State's air pollution problems.  Coupled with

 4      the continuing increases in the number of miles

 5      that each of us travels, the number of miles

 6      that we drive those vehicles, we will have huge

 7      problems meeting the new ambient standards for

 8      both PM two and a half and ozone, without these

 9      new very important Tier 2 requirements and the

10      lower sulfur fuel requirements.

11           The benefits that the public will realize,

12      the benefits the public will enjoy, are huge.

13      Just to go over them very briefly, obviously

14      reductions in ozone, reductions in PM two and

15      half concentration, very small particles.  Other

16      benefits, reduced exposure to toxic substances.

17      Vehicle exhaust, as all of you know, of course,

18      is a very complex mixture of up to hundreds of

19      individual compounds, many of which threaten

20      human health.  EPA's cumulative exposure project

21      recently suggested that there are concentrations

22      of carcinogenic in the ambient air for many of

23      the nation's cities that exposed large --

24      millions of people, large numbers of people, to

25      individual risks of one and ten thousand or
                                                       144




 1      more.  And some of those concentrations, almost

 2      background concentrations, are caused not so

 3      much by industrial sources, but by area sources

 4      such as gas stations and dry cleaners and, of

 5      course, automobiles and trucks.

 6           The Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease

 7      Registry found that breathing diesel fuel vapors

 8      for long periods may cause kidney damage and

 9      lower your blood's ability to clot, diesel

10      exhaust, when classified as a human

11      carcinogenic, by the State of California.

12           Other benefits to -- particularly to the

13      State of Tennessee, but I would argue also the

14      nation, is reduced air pollution in the Great

15      Smokey Mountains.  As one of the speakers said

16      earlier today, we have the highest rates of acid

17      deposition in North America in the Great Smokey

18      Mountains.  And vehicles contribute significant

19      amounts to that acid deposition.  NOx reductions

20      will help that problem, also probably help in at

21      least some way with visibility.  The average

22      visibility in the Great Smokey Mountains now in

23      the summertime is about twenty-two miles, and

24      the absence of human-caused pollution.

25      Visibility in the Smokey's should be ninety-five
                                                       145




 1      miles.  Ozone also is a problem in the Great

 2      Smokey Mountains, which is ironic because I

 3      think most of us visiting there do so wishing to

 4      escape some of the problems of urban life.  And

 5      yet we find ozone concentrations in the Smokey

 6      ridge tops exceeding the new standard.  We've

 7      already violated the new eight-hour standard

 8      three times in the Smokey's this summer.

 9           Although the proposal is strong, I think

10      there are ways, as it's been said earlier, to

11      strengthen the proposal, to do a better job of

12      protecting public health and part of that --

13      protecting public health and environmental

14      resources is important, of course, it's

15      critical.

16           But even if you want to be hard nosed about

17      this and look at this in terms of economics,

18      there's a huge value in reducing this pollution

19      in terms of economic benefits.  Tourism in

20      Tennessee is our number one industry.  The Great

21      Smokey Mountains, that part is an economic

22      engine for the State of Tennessee, generating

23      huge benefits, not only quality of life

24      benefits, but hard numbers, economic benefits,

25      jobs for the citizens in our State.
                                                       146




 1           Several ways to improve the proposal, and

 2      I'll go through these quickly, they've been said

 3      before, put SUVs on the same schedule as cars

 4      for the next-to-the-largest category; 2007

 5      deadline, not the 2009 deadline -- And most of

 6      these suggestions, I think will also have the

 7      effect of simplifying and streamlining the

 8      proposal, making it easier, less complex, easier

 9      for the agency to implement it -- large SUVs,

10      such as the Ford Excursion or the Ford Valdez,

11      if you will, not required to meet the standards

12      at all, they should.  There's no good reason for

13      them not to.  Require diesel vehicles to meet

14      the same standards as other vehicles.  As my

15      colleagues on the panel have indicated, there

16      are benefits to diesel engines.  I guess the

17      only problem I have with that is, let's not

18      accept higher emission rates from diesel engines

19      in order to achieve those other benefits that

20      the other speakers mentioned.  Loopholes for

21      large SUVs and diesels, in some cases, may

22      provide a perverse incentive for manufacturers

23      and perhaps even consumers to manufacture and/or

24      purchase and use these vehicles.  It's almost a

25      perverse kind of incentive, the wrong kind of
                                                       147




 1      incentive.  What we want is less pollution of

 2      these vehicles; and the loopholes that EPA has

 3      set up in the proposal, I think may contribute

 4      to that.  The thirty parts per million of sulfur

 5      by 2004, no extra time for smaller refineries;

 6      reduce sulfur in diesel fuel as well, and do it

 7      by 2004 is a good interim step.  I do think it's

 8      important to pursue -- to have the agency think

 9      about, okay, what's the next step after thirty

10      parts per million as a long-term goal to get

11      sulfur in gasoline and diesel fuel down to five

12      or maybe even zero, if that's technologically

13      feasible.  The 2004 technology review, I don't

14      see the need for that.  There's always the -- if

15      there's new information available to EPA, EPA

16      can always decide to open up a new rulemaking.

17      But to attach it to this ruling seems like it's

18      primarily an opportunity for mischief and to

19      delay this decision when 2004 comes around.

20           I feel like I have to say this, and most

21      people would agree, that the best predictor of

22      future performance is current behavior or past

23      behavior.  And given that, I would encourage the

24      agency to consider previous historical industry

25      claims of economic catastrophe, technological
                                                       148




 1      impossibility and need for more time to meet the

 2      deadline.  That's like a historic marker from

 3      the industry regarding improvements in

 4      technology and reductions in emissions.  The

 5      second thing, again, historical lesson.  When

 6      faced with these requirements, they met them.

 7      Again, the best predictor of future performance

 8      is past behavior.

 9           Finally, the nation can achieve all these

10      benefits at a reasonable cost and with strong

11      public support.  EPA's published a very good

12      proposal; and with a few improvements, could

13      have a truly excellent final set of rules.

14           Thank you very much.

15           MS. OGE:  Thank you.

16           Ms. Lisa Stegnik, in your opening remarks,

17      I believe you stated that the Health Effects

18      Institute recently announced a study that they

19      had completed that relates to health effects of

20      diesel exhaust.  And you stated that according

21      to HEI leading studies don't allow for

22      quantitative assessment.  Could you please

23      elaborate on that statement.  What are the

24      leading studies that HEI was referring to?

25           MS. STEGNIK:  Which studies they were
                                                       149




 1      referring to?

 2           MS. OGE:  Yes.

 3           MS. STEGNIK:  I believe they were referring

 4      to the Garshick Study of Railroad Workers and

 5      the Steenland Study of Truck Drivers.

 6           MS. OGE:  My understanding, and I think we

 7      need to go back and both of us take a look at

 8      those studies, is that clearly HEI stated that

 9      the railroad study cannot be used for the

10      purpose of a quantitative assessment.  But I

11      believe that they didn't make the same

12      statement, finding, for the teamsters studies.

13      They were optimistic that the studies could be

14      looked at very carefully, and they didn't call

15      it the same way they called on the railroad

16      studies.  I would suggest that you go back and

17      take a look at the studies, and you may want to

18      correct the record.

19           MS. STEGNIK:  In our written comments?

20           MS. OGE:  Please.

21           Thank you.

22           Mr. Jorgerson, Welcome.  I guess this is

23      more of an observation in helping me out, if I

24      am correct.  We heard from Mr. Warren Slodowske,

25      and he's here so he can correct me if I say
                                                       150




 1      something inaccurate this morning, that Navistar

 2      is optimistic with a low diesel sulfur, and I

 3      believe he stated five parts per million, his

 4      company is optimistic that the proposed Tier 2

 5      standards, the 0.07 grams per mile, could be

 6      achieved.  I don't believe I heard the same

 7      optimism from you, and I'm just going to give

 8      you an opportunity to explain to us exactly what

 9      do you think you can achieve with five parts per

10      million as far as emission standards.

11           MR. JORGERSON:  Yeah.  And I think, for

12      diesels, the two issues are nitric oxides and

13      particulate matter.   The high temperatures and

14      pressures of the diesel cycle give us the good

15      fuel economy, give us the low CO2, et cetera,

16      but NOx and PM are the issues.  And for both of

17      those -- You know, when we look at what I would

18      consider the best available technology today of

19      diesels in the light-duty market, they're

20      approximately of NOx about one gram per mile.

21      We believe that further engine developments in

22      the time frame that we're talking about, in the

23      mid to next decade, can reduce the engine out

24      emission levels by about fifty percent, getting

25      us to the .5 per gram mile range.  So I think
                                                       151




 1      nitric oxide -- the question revolves around the

 2      development of lean NOx aftertreatment.  And I

 3      think that's where -- you know, that's where the

 4      real issue is.  And I think the disagreement as

 5      to what is going to become commercially viable

 6      in the time frame we're talking about -- You

 7      know, right now, the bin 7 level that you chose

 8      or that you proposed for Tier 2 is .2 and it has

 9      fifty-thousand mile interim standard at .14.

10      That would require approximately eighty percent

11      or ninety percent reduction of the engine out

12      level to achieve, given that typically for this

13      you need margin for variability in the

14      measurements and the manufacturing of these

15      products.  And, you know, with -- You know, all

16      the companies that are interested in producing a

17      product for this market that's very fuel

18      efficient are looking at similar techniques.

19           Bruce, from MECA, talked about his members,

20      other manufacturers of these other aftermarket

21      development, aftertreatment devices that we're

22      referring to.  It's our best guess that a

23      commercially viable product in that time frame

24      will probably be fifty, maybe seventy-five

25      percent efficient.  So that takes the number
                                                       152




 1      from .5 down to .25 or maybe down to .15.  Okay?

 2       And I think that's our best guess.

 3           MS. OGE:  So just to make sure that I

 4      understand, what you're suggesting is that clean

 5      diesel fuel, five parts per million, is needed

 6      for a standard for NOx of .2 grams per mile?

 7           MR. JORGERSON:  That's what we believe.

 8      And again, .5 would be the in general.

 9           MS. OGE:  I just want to make sure that I

10      understand what's your testimony.

11           MR. JORGERSON:  If, today, I were to give

12      you -- And again, I can tell you, internally,

13      between now and August 2nd, when the written

14      comments are due, there's going to be a lot of

15      discussion amongst all of the engineers at the

16      company to determine what our recommendation

17      would be and we'll as much data on the table as

18      whatever our development -- you know, in generic

19      and expeditiously as we can.  But right now, I

20      can say that what I heard about .3 is the right

21      standard.  And we think that engine out, where

22      the level is, is probably going to be around .2.

23      But that kind of margin is what need to ensure

24      compliance with the audits that are there.

25           Now, I think the debate will be, then, what
                                                       153




 1      kind of information do we give the agency.  Do

 2      we say .3 or do we say we're going to do our

 3      best, keep the standard where it is, we'll do

 4      our best and the midterm review will assess the

 5      progress?  I really -- I hope that's --

 6           MS. OGE:  Thank you.  Thank you.

 7           MR. JORGERSON:  -- our best assessment.

 8           MS. OGE:  Thanks.

 9           Any questions?

10           MS. STEGNIK:  May I make one additional --

11           MS. OGE:  Yes.  Please go ahead.

12           MS. STEGNIK:  With respect to, as you

13      referred to earlier, the Steenland study and the

14      record on the Steenland study, I did conclude at

15      least that a significant further evaluation

16      would be required in order to provide any

17      estimate of any risks that may be associated.

18           MS. OGE:  Yeah.  I was just commenting on

19      your statement that none of the studies can be

20      used.  I think that statement was accurate for

21      railroad, but not for the teamsters' study.

22           Thank you.

23           I'd like to thank you for coming forward and

24      testifying today.  We appreciate you taking time

25      on this very important an issue.  Thank you very
                                                       154




 1  much.

 2           I would like to call now forward, Mr. John

 3      Duerr, Mr. Michael Replogle, initials T.A.

 4      Kirkley, Ms. Kathy Kuzava; Reverend Joseph

 5      Wheeler and Dr. Robyn Levy.

 6           (Whereupon, the panel members come

 7           before the Board.)

 8           MS. OGE:  If you could please print your

 9      names on the cards in front of you.

10           (Complying).

11           MS. OGE:  We'll start with Mr. John Duerr,

12      and I would ask you to please keep your

13      statements to ten minutes or less than ten

14      minutes.

15           MR. DUERR:  Good afternoon and thank you

16      for this opportunity to address you today.  My

17      name is John Duerr, I am the manager of

18      regulatory activities at Detroit Diesel

19      Corporation.

20           Detroit Diesel or DDC is a manufacturer of

21      diesel engines and the world's largest

22      independent manufacturer of automotive diesel

23      engines.  We're here to recommend modifications

24      to EPA's Tier 2 proposal and encourage EPA to

25      adopt the alternative framework proposed by the
                                                       155




 1      Alliance of Automotive Manufacturers, AAM.  If

 2      EPA fails to consider the AAM's recommendation

 3      and other key inputs when finalizing the Tier 2

 4      rule, EPA may eliminate diesel engines, the most

 5      realistic and economically viable short-term

 6      solution for approving light-duty vehicle fuel

 7      economy.

 8           Diesel engines offer up to a sixty percent

 9      fuel economy improvement compared to gasoline

10      engines and will provide up to a thirty percent

11      reduction in carbon dioxide emissions, the

12      primary greenhouse gas.  Eliminating light-duty

13      diesel power trains will fail to exploit the

14      best available technology to reduce vehicle

15      carbon dioxide emissions in the United States.

16           Today our comments will focus on three

17      primary areas with the Tier 2 proposal, which we

18      believe would benefit from additional

19      refinement.  First, Tier 2 emission standards

20      must be accompanied by simultaneous fuel quality

21      improvements, reducing diesel fuel sulfur levels

22      to the zero to five ppm range.  Second,

23      additional time must be allowed to establish the

24      fuel supply infrastructure, develop high

25      efficiency diesel aftertreatment systems and
                                                       156




 1      launch a new generation of clean diesel power

 2      trains in North America.  Third, Tier 2 rules

 3      must include additional bin flexibility.  This

 4      involves providing greater bin resolution and

 5      implementing only the one hundred and twenty

 6      thousand mile emission standards.

 7           I will begin by addressing fuel quality.

 8      The proposed Tier 2 standards must be

 9      accompanied by improved diesel fuel quality.

10      EPA is already working to reduce gasoline fuel

11      sulfur levels.  Diesel engines require similar

12      fuel quality improvements for many of the same

13      reasons.  Fuel sulfur directly contributes to

14      increased particulate emissions for both

15      gasoline and diesel engines.  Unlike many

16      European companies, where diesel fuel sulfur

17      levels are already below thirty ppm, North

18      American diesel fuel sulfur levels range up to

19      five hundred ppm.  In addition to its

20      contribution to particulate mass itself, sulfur

21      poisons diesel aftertreatment devices, quickly

22      reducing their efficiency.  Fuel sulfur is a

23      barrier for diesel exhaust aftertreatment

24      technologies.  The EPA successfully removed

25      similar barriers for gasoline vehicles, which
                                                       157




 1      eliminated lead to facilitate improved catalyst

 2      life for gasoline engines.  They must take

 3      similar action to remove the sulfur from diesel

 4      fuel.

 5           DDC is actively developing the best

 6      aftertreatment devices with four operations from

 7      our government, aftertreatment industry and

 8      automotive industry partners.  Early work has

 9      been very promising.  DDC has outfitted a diesel

10      powered SUV with a prototype continuously

11      regenerating a track system.  This device can

12      remove virtually all the soot mass from the

13      engine's exhaust.  However, fuel sulfur inhibits

14      the chemical reactions necessary to remove the

15      particulate matter from the filter.

16           We are also testing advanced NOx reduction

17      systems, like selective catalyst reduction.

18      This system eliminates up to ninety percent of

19      the NOx emissions.  But the most efficient

20      systems lose effectiveness when exposed to

21      sulfur.

22           Two thousand and four is the first year of

23      the proposed Tier 2 standards, just four years

24      from now.  The automotive development cycle

25      usually requires three to four years from
                                                       158




 1      kickoff to production loss of a new power train.

 2      So 2004 is essentially tomorrow in the

 3      automotive world.  Such compressed timing

 4      significantly complicates the already

 5      challenging task of introducing the first modern

 6      diesel power trains into North America.  This is

 7      further complicated by the uncertainties

 8      regarding the availability of low sulfur fuel.

 9      Given the diesels important advantages, EPA's

10      Tier 2 rule should provide sufficient time for

11      infrastructure and product development to

12      prevent manufactured investment in these

13      programs.

14           DDC agrees with the AAM's proposal to

15      extend the Tier 2 phase-in period.  This

16      accomplishes three primary goals:  first, it

17      will provide fuel suppliers additional time to

18      implement an infrastructure which supports zero

19      to five ppm sulfur fuel; second, it will provide

20      engine vehicle and aftertreatment measures,

21      necessary time to develop and refine diesel

22      power train to meet the proposed emission

23      standards; and thirdly, it will allow engine

24      vehicle and aftertreatment makers time to

25      establish the production market from which to
                                                       159




 1      justify further investments in clean diesel

 2      technologies.

 3           The last main point in which we would like

 4      to address is the need to build additional

 5      flexibility into the bin structure and emission

 6      standards.  The primary bin structure can

 7      produce the same fleet average NOx as the Tier 2

 8      proposal, however adding additional bins will

 9      provide the vehicle manufacturer the flexibility

10      to meet this average.  Additionally, it will

11      provide manufacturers incentives to implement

12      refinements which result in small but meaningful

13      emission reductions.

14           Finally, we recommend that EPA eliminate

15      the proposed fifty thousand mile intermediate

16      useful life emission standards and promulgate

17      only the longer one hundred and twenty thousand

18      mile full useful life standards.  This change

19      will provide manufacturers additional

20      flexibility and provide incentives to develop

21      emission control devices which do not

22      deteriorate in use.  This approach will have the

23      added benefit of eliminating non-necessary

24      certification tests and; thereby, reducing

25      development costs.
                                                       160




 1           I would like to emphasize that the modern

 2      high speed direct injection diesel technology is

 3      the only economically viable year-term solution

 4      for reducing vehicle fuel consumption in United

 5      States while simultaneously reducing carbon

 6      dioxide emissions.

 7           Diesel engines provide many other consumer

 8      benefits, often exceeding the capabilities of

 9      their gasoline counterparts.  Modern diesels are

10      not nosy, poor performing, smoke belching

11      engines which many recall from the 1970s.  It's

12      new diesel engines rival gasoline engines for

13      nose and vibration and refinement.  One of our

14      full-size SUV vehicles achieves over thirty

15      miles per gallon on the highway while

16      demonstrating twenty-two miles per gallon on a

17      combined city highway cycle.  Even at these

18      early development stages, it is quiet, producing

19      gasoline-like sound quality and the exhaust from

20      this vehicle is odorless and colorless.  The

21      diesel's higher tort provides better towing and

22      driveability characteristics than larger

23      gasoline engines.

24           In conclusion, the success of the new

25      diesel technologies depends on a rationale
                                                       161




 1      approach to Tier 2 standards and timing.  A

 2      successful Tier 2 strategy wants to improve

 3      diesel fuel quality, with sulfur levels in the

 4      zero to five ppm range; sufficient time to bring

 5      high efficiency, clean diesel vehicles, engines

 6      and aftertreatment systems to the marketplace

 7      with a low sulfur fuel infrastructure to support

 8      them; and additional bins and increased

 9      flexibility in the structure of the Tier 2 rule.

10      With these considerations, diesel engine and

11      vehicle manufacturers can make fuel efficient,

12      clean diesel technologies to the United States

13      consumers.

14           Thank you.

15           MS. OGE:  Thank you.

16           Mr. Michael Replogle.

17           MR. REPLOGLE:  Hello.  It's my pleasure to

18      be here this afternoon.  I'm Michael Replogle.

19      I'm federal transportation director at the

20      Environmental Defense Fund, and I'm speaking

21      today on behalf of EDF's three hundred thousand

22      members, including many thousands in the

23      southeastern United States.

24           I'm pleased to testify in support of strong

25      improved vehicle tailpipe standards and low
                                                       162




 1      sulfur fuel requirements.  The number of miles

 2      that Americans drive in cars and trucks has

 3      increased by a hundred and twenty-seven percent,

 4      since the Clean Air Act was first adopted in

 5      1970.  This dramatic increase in our driving

 6      activity necessitates both increasingly cleaner

 7      vehicles and fuels and incentives to foster

 8      healthy communities with less traffic.

 9           The standards proposed by EPA would have a

10      variety of important clean air benefits.  While

11      levels of some air pollutants have been

12      declining over the years, national emissions of

13      nitrogen oxides have increased by eleven percent

14      in 1970, endangering our public health and our

15      welfare.  NOx is one of the major contributors

16      to ground level smog, which causes short and

17      long-term lung damage in children, asthmatics

18      and other vulnerable populations.  NOx is one of

19      the major contributors upon particles that cause

20      premature death, hospitalization and emergency

21      treatment among elderly and other vulnerable

22      populations.  NOx is a major contributor to acid

23      deposition and ecological damages in our

24      beautiful mountains, lakes and streams.  And

25      roughly half of the NOx is coming from our cars
                                                       163




 1      and our trucks.

 2           Asthma is the number one chronic disease

 3      inflicting children in the United States.  The

 4      reported incidents of asthma in the U.S. has

 5      risen by forty-two percent in the last decade to

 6      over fifteen million Americans.  Admissions to

 7      regional hospitals for respiratory-related

 8      illnesses increased significantly during days in

 9      the summer on which air quality violations are

10      recorded.  Most admissions are children and the

11      elderly.  The many doctors advise everyone to

12      refrain from exercise outdoors on smoggy days.

13           Research evaluating the relationship

14      between emergency room visits to a hospital for

15      childhood asthma and the exposure to ozone in a

16      predominately black population, here in Atlanta,

17      found that the average number of visits for

18      asthma or reactive airway disease was

19      thirty-seven percent higher on days after

20      incidents in which the ozone level in Atlanta

21      rose to eleven parts per million or above.

22           More than five thousand Americans died from

23      asthma in 1992, an average of fourteen people a

24      day, representing a fifty-eight percent increase

25      from thirteen years ago.  Hospitalizations and
                                                       164




 1      mortality rates have increased especially for

 2      preschoolers and African-Americans.  Thousands

 3      of lives can be saved by adopting the standards

 4      for cleaner vehicles and fuels and complimentary

 5      strategies to reduce traffic growth.  This is

 6      most obvious in cities like Atlanta, with its

 7      high rate of motor vehicle use, higher, in fact,

 8      than any other metro area in America.  Atlanta

 9      suffers from serious smog pollution and half of

10      that pollution comes from car tailpipes.

11           When fully implemented, the Tier 2 and low

12      sulfur standards will reduce NOx emissions in

13      Atlanta by over seventeen thousand tons a year

14      and more than two million tons a year

15      nationally.  Strong tailpipe standards and low

16      sulfur fuel are also necessary to reduce other

17      harmful particulate matter, all the organic

18      compounds and toxic air pollution.

19           EPA's own cumulative exposure project

20      indicates that millions of Americans are exposed

21      to unreasonable cancer risks from air toxins and

22      that motor vehicles are a principle a

23      contributor to this cancer risk.  This important

24      data is now in the public domain.  And indeed

25      it's available on the internet at
                                                       165




 1      www.scorecard.org.  It's estimated that millions

 2      of Americans are exposed to cancer risks from

 3      air toxins that seriously exceed the risk level

 4      acceptable under the Clean Air Act.

 5      Seventy-five million Americans are exposed to

 6      unacceptable concentrations of polycyclic

 7      organic matter.  Thirty-three million Americans

 8      are exposed to unacceptable concentrations of

 9      benzene and three million Americans are exposed

10      to unacceptable concentrations of 1-3 benzene.

11      Cars and trucks are the major contributor to

12      each of there harmful pollutants.  In Georgia,

13      cars and trucks account for about sixty percent

14      of the cancer risks from hazardous pollutants in

15      the ambient air.  And these pollutants

16      contribute to asthma and other health problems.

17           The national low sulfur fuel program is a

18      critical component of this clean air strategy.

19      High sulfur fuel damages the pollution control

20      efficacy of new clean car technology, leading to

21      substantially more air pollution.  Not

22      surprisingly, dirtier gasoline leads to dirtier

23      tailpipe emissions.  Conversely, cleaner

24      gasoline is necessary for the new state of the

25      art clean car technology to realize its full
                                                       166




 1      potential.  In Atlanta alone, it is estimated

 2      that the benefits of low sulfur fuel are

 3      equivalent to removing approximately eight

 4      hundred thousand vehicles from the road.

 5           This important clean air strategy is cost

 6      effective.  It will add less than one hundred

 7      dollars to the cost of cleaner cars and

 8      approximately two hundred dollars to the cost of

 9      cleaner trucks and sport utility vehicles.

10      Cleaner gasoline is estimated to cost an

11      additional one to two cents a gallon, well

12      within the noise level of what we see every day

13      today.  For a modest investment, Americans will

14      reap tremendous benefits in cleaner, healthier

15      air and less cancer risk.

16           The Environmental Defense Fund has five

17      specific comments on EPA's proposal:  first, we

18      strongly support fuel-neutral standards.  EPA

19      should establish standards that apply with equal

20      force to gasoline and diesel fuels and should

21      not favor a particular fuel type by establishing

22      relaxed pollution standards.

23           Second, we strongly support vehicle-neutral

24      standards.  EPA should establish tailpipe

25      standards that apply with equal force to all
                                                       167




 1      passenger vehicles, whether car, truck, minivan

 2      or a sports utility vehicle.  Americans

 3      increasingly choose to drive a wide range of

 4      vehicle types and sizes.  In making this choice,

 5      Americans should be allowed to drive clean

 6      vehicles.  The parents that drive minivans to

 7      transport their kids should be assured that that

 8      minivan will not contribute to unhealthy air

 9      quality for those same children but will instead

10      reap the same clean air standard as any other

11      passenger vehicle.

12           Third, the Environmental Defense Fund urges

13      EPA to eliminate the significant delay in

14      implementing this important clean air program.

15      We urge EPA to require all vehicles to meet the

16      new clean standard by 2006.  A three-year

17      compliance period beginning in 2004 allows ample

18      time for the vehicle manufacturers to phase-in

19      these new requirements.  In contrast, EPA's more

20      proactive compliance schedule is unreasonable.

21      We believe it is unnecessary to give automobile

22      manufacturers more time to implement available

23      proven technology than it took to put a man on

24      the moon.

25           Fourth, the Environmental Defense Fund
                                                       168




 1      urges EPA to more thoroughly examine the air

 2      toxins implications of this proposal.  EPA's own

 3      cumulative exposure project indicates that

 4      millions of Americans are exposed to

 5      unreasonable cancer risks from air toxins and

 6      that pollution from vehicles is a major

 7      contributor to those risks.  For example, EPA

 8      and DOT should cooperate to collect and analyze

 9      data to help evaluate how air toxic exposures

10      vary based on proximity to highways, traffic

11      composition and background conditions and other

12      factors.

13           Fifth, nationwide low sulfur fuel is

14      critical to ensure this strategy produces clean

15      air benefits in the western United States and to

16      ensure that eastern investments in clean

17      vehicles are not undermined by vehicle travel

18      across the country.  We're a highly mobile

19      society.  Low sulfur fuel will help ensure that

20      the millions of Americans from across the

21      country and those from overseas that visit our

22      great vistas, like the Grand Cannon, can see

23      those vistas that are so clear and so inspiring.

24      And they will, in fact, find a souvenir in the

25      west that is a vista and not something
                                                       169




 1      irreversibly damaged by poor pollution control

 2      equipment and strategies.

 3           Pollution from all types of cars and trucks

 4      and dirty fuel threatens our public health and

 5      our welfare.  It is EPA's responsibility to

 6      address this problem.  There's a compelling air

 7      quality need for cleaner vehicles and cleaner

 8      fuels, as well as measures to reduce traffic

 9      growth.

10           We respectively urge EPA to act

11      expeditiously in completing this important

12      rulemaking and to turn back cause for delay and

13      to put in place strong standards that will help

14      ensure in present and future generations and our

15      most and disadvantaged citizens have clean and

16      healthy air.

17           Thank you.

18           MS. OGE:  Thank you.

19           Mr. Kirkley.

20           MR. KIRKLEY:  Good afternoon.  Thank you

21      for the opportunity to share my thoughts this

22      afternoon at this hearing on EPA's Gasoline

23      Sulfur Reduction Proposal.

24           By way of introduction, my name is Allan

25      Kirkley, and I have the privilege of heading up
                                                       170




 1      the Norco Refinery.  Norco is a large modern

 2      refinery, located just up the river from New

 3      Orleans, formerly owned by Shell Oil Company and

 4      now a part of Motiva Enterprises, which is a

 5      venture between Shell, Texaco and Saudi-Aramco.

 6           I would like to acknowledge up front my

 7      very strong hope about the desired outcome of

 8      this process.  My strong hope is this process

 9      will facilitate continued improvement in the

10      quality of our environments and our

11      environmental resources, while also recognizing

12      and supporting the quality of life and economic

13      strength that we derive from the abundance of

14      inexpensive, high quality transportation fuels

15      in this country.  My fear is that all too often

16      strong positions are espoused from only one side

17      of this important equation.  And this can result

18      in decisions that are blind to the realities of

19      the other side.  We need balance in our thought

20      processes, we need compromise in our solutions.

21      I would hope that through this hearing, others

22      like it being held around the country, and the

23      ultimate rulemaking process comprised is

24      possible, compromise which allows us as a nation

25      to continue to see further gains in our air
                                                       171




 1      quality, in our communities, while not

 2      delivering a knock-out punch to an industry that

 3      provides so much in terms of economic

 4      capabilities and underpins our culture and

 5      quality of life.

 6           Let me begin, please, by describing the

 7      industry which I have great respect for and have

 8      been affiliated with for the better part of the

 9      last twenty year, first with Shell Oil and now

10      with Motiva Enterprises.  The refinery industry

11      in the United States today, as a routine,

12      refines approximately fifteen million barrels a

13      day of crude oil.  We collectively satisfy the

14      demand for approximately eight million barrels a

15      day of gasoline, three and a half million

16      barrels a day of viscosities and one and a half

17      million barrels a day of jet fuel that our

18      country consumes each and every day.

19           For those of you that may not be familiar

20      with barrels, that eight million barrels a day

21      of gasoline translates to three hundred and

22      thirty-six million gallons of gasoline which is

23      consumed every day in this country on average.

24      We use these products in personal pursuits:

25      getting to and from work, to and from school,
                                                       172




 1      traveling on vacation or to visit family.  In

 2      the wintertime, we use our products to warm our

 3      homes and so on.  We also use these products in

 4      business pursuits.  In also any business

 5      enterprise that requires products or services to

 6      be mobile or transported, you will find the

 7      product of the refining industry providing that

 8      transport fuel that is integral to that business

 9      enterprise's success.

10           So while I am very proud of our industry,

11      the many positive ways we impact the quality of

12      life and economic face in this company, let me

13      also share with you a very painful and

14      frustrated side of the refining business.  The

15      refining industry in the United States is under

16      tremendous pressure on many fronts.  We are

17      certainly under pressure from new and complex

18      environmental regulations.  There are costs

19      associated with compliance, both in an ongoing

20      sense of surveillance, record keeping and

21      reporting as well as capital investment being

22      required.  There is a consistent pattern over

23      time whereby new environmental regulations have

24      resulted in additional capital investment to

25      satisfy regulatory requirements.  However, the
                                                       173




 1      marketplace has not allowed that return on those

 2      investments.  We are under a great deal of

 3      pressure in refining, in that we are in a

 4      competitive, global commodity business.  We work

 5      very hard and make very little money in the

 6      refining business in this country.

 7           Speaking now only about Norco Refinery, we

 8      have averaged, over the last three years, a

 9      return on our investment that does not meet the

10      minimum level needed to justify additional

11      investment in this industry or in this refinery.

12      Our rate of return does not come close to that

13      which could be earned from investments in the

14      stock market and today it does not even compete

15      with the very safe, low-risk investment in

16      treasury bonds.  This is a business that is very

17      capital intensive and have a large safety and

18      environmental exposure, but yet provides a very

19      low return to our shareholders.  Why would you,

20      as an investor, continue to invest in a business

21      that has a long history of performing at

22      unsatisfactory levels of return for your

23      shareholders?  I believe the writing is on the

24      wall that many companies will choose to make the

25      decision not to invest or to significantly
                                                       174




 1      restructure in an attempt to stay in the game.

 2      I know, again, speaking for Norco Refining, we

 3      have had and I expect will continue to have a

 4      very difficult time of tracking investment

 5      capital at our current levels of return.

 6           These are very important numbers, so please

 7      hear them.  Nineteen eighty there were three

 8      hundred and nineteen refineries operating in the

 9      United States.  When the 1990 Clean Air Act was

10      passed, there were two hundred and five

11      refineries operating in United States.  Today

12      there are a hundred and sixty-one refineries

13      operating in the United States.  We believe that

14      if gasoline sulfur reductions proposals go

15      allowed -- are allowed to go forward in their

16      current form, additional refineries are likely

17      to be shut down as opposed to making the

18      additional investment requirement.

19           The implications of this trend are

20      significant and should not be overlooked or

21      under estimated by those making the

22      environmental regulation.  I personally like to

23      use California as a real-life example of what I

24      believe will happen nationwide should this

25      sulfur rule go forward as proposed.  Shell used
                                                       175




 1      to have a refinery in the Los Angeles area,

 2      which was a strategic manufacturing base and the

 3      largest gasoline market in the United States.

 4      However, due to concerns over adequate financial

 5      returns, including the expected size of

 6      investments, required to meet new environmental

 7      regulations, Shell chose earlier this decade to

 8      sell a portion of the refinery and shut down the

 9      rest, walking away from the manufacturing base

10      and the largest gasoline market in the United

11      States.  Other companies made similar decisions

12      and refineries were closed.  And today

13      California has the strictest gasoline sulfur

14      specifications in the nation, essentially what

15      is being proposed in this rulemaking.  But they

16      also have the most precarious supply-demand

17      balance in the nation.  Since the California Air

18      Resource for gasoline were enacted, there have

19      been several noticeable supply disruptions

20      resulting in significance gasoline price

21      increases in California.

22           While it is popular with the media or local

23      politicians to blame the refining industry for

24      these price increases, the reality is that

25      regulatory forces created this very precarious
                                                       176




 1      supply and demand situation.  I personally fear

 2      that a similar situation could be created on a

 3      national scale if the proposed sulfur rule goes

 4      forward in its current form.  I predict some

 5      refineries will choose not to meet the need of

 6      investments and will shut down.  I also predict

 7      that we will see an already tight supply and

 8      demand balance get even tighter to where the

 9      slightest disruption in supply causes tremendous

10      market pressure on the price.

11           Yes, we are a global commodity, but a

12      commodity business.  And, yes, such a disruption

13      might be short-lived until additional product

14      came in from another region or from offshore.

15      But the reality is that these regulations will

16      create a world more prone to supply a disruption

17      of market vitality than we have today.

18           I said in my opening remarks that we need

19      balance in our thought process.  I am very

20      confident that on many fronts we continue to

21      make progress for improving our country's

22      environment and air quality.

23           Earlier this week, a summer thunderstorm

24      rolled through New Orleans and shortly

25      thereafter, there was a beautiful rainbow across
                                                       177




 1      the sky.  I grew up in a world filled with

 2      rainbows, and I want nothing more than my

 3      children and their children and other children

 4      to experience the same awe and wonder that only

 5      nature can inspire in us in so many ways.  But I

 6      also want my children to respect science and

 7      facts and me.  And the data suggest we are

 8      seeing benefits in many areas, from the efforts

 9      of the past, that air quality in this country is

10      improving.  Therefore, the dramatic steps in

11      accelerating the timetable outlined in the

12      current Gasoline Sulfur Proposal are not

13      warranted or justified.  The vast majority of

14      our industry, along with associations

15      representing our industry, have put forward

16      detailed proposals that will significantly

17      reduce the sulfur levels in our fuels and are

18      run with the country's regional air needs.

19           The industry's proposals also provide more

20      time for new sulfur reduction technological

21      developments to catch up to this challenge and

22      allow the industry to make the investments in

23      the most cost effective manner possible.

24           I would like to provide some additional

25      insights into a proverbial rock and a hard place
                                                       178




 1      we find ourselves in in our industry.  There's

 2      no doubt that more stringent gasoline sulfur

 3      regulations are forthcoming.  And these

 4      regulations will require additional capital to

 5      be invested across the refining network.  The

 6      industry has said that we need a minimum of four

 7      years from the time that the rule is final until

 8      the comments can be completed and on line.  But

 9      the vagaries and the complexities of the

10      permitting process make this timetable much more

11      uncertain.  Do you realize that in today's world

12      to carry out a major capital project, the design

13      for the project must be completed at least

14      eighteen months prior to the starting of

15      construction.  It can take up to eighteen months

16      to have a reasonable chance of obtaining the

17      necessary permits to construct and operate.  And

18      even if you're successful at obtaining the

19      necessary permits to construct and operate, we

20      remain exposed to someone making a claim under

21      Title 6 of the Civil Rights Act effectively

22      blocking that permit.  This forces additional

23      litigation and negotiations which can further

24      delay the project.

25           When we were mandated to invest, to meet
                                                       179




 1      certain regulatory requirements, the existing

 2      process to obtain permits can create additional

 3      delays and increased cost.  EPA's desire to

 4      provide banking credits is commendable.  But

 5      without the permits, we cannot put any credit in

 6      the bank nor can we deliver the clean fuels

 7      earlier than what you are currently proposing.

 8           My plea is that EPA help in streamlining

 9      the permitting process, which is equally as

10      critical as the regulations themselves.

11           I have sat through this morning's session

12      and I respect and acknowledge EPA's stated

13      objectives of cleaner air, technically feasible

14      solutions and cost-effective solutions.  There

15      is nothing I want more than to be a player in

16      this pursuit.  But we do need help to ensure

17      that all three are truly met.

18           Several assumptions I have heard over and

19      over need to be addressed:  one, that low cost

20      technology exist.  The reality is that much of

21      this advertised low-cost technology is not

22      commercial today and it is in still various

23      stages of development and testing.  The other

24      assumption is that we can move quickly as an

25      industry.  As I have stated earlier, today's
                                                       180




 1      permitting process is greatly at odds with this

 2      assumption.

 3           In closing, I would like to again state my

 4      appreciation in the opportunity to participate

 5      in these hearings.  I think they are critically

 6      important.  For the sake of our country, I hope

 7      they result in a balanced solution.  With

 8      balance and compromise, we can reach an answer

 9      that promotes continued progress on an

10      environmental front while recognizing the

11      critically important role the refining industry

12      plays in both our economy as well as our quality

13      of life.

14           Thank you very much.

15           MS. OGE:  Thank you.

16           Ms. Kathy Kuzava.

17           MS. KUZAVA:  That's very good.

18           MS. OGE:  Thank you.  I'm getting better.

19      Come with me to Cleveland, probably I will

20      pronounce all the names correct by then.

21           MS. KUZAVA:   Thank you.  My name is Kathy

22      Kuzava, and I am president of the Georgia Food

23      Industry Association.  Our membership consists

24      of over two hundred and fifty grocers and food

25      wholesalers in the State of Georgia.  Now, some
                                                       181




 1      of our members are large supermarkets, like

 2      Publix, Kroger, those that you've heard of.  But

 3      many of my members are also independent grocers,

 4      very small grocers, who serve across the State,

 5      many in very rural areas.  And all of my

 6      brokers, all of my brokers, operate on a very

 7      small profit margin, usually less than one

 8      percent.

 9           As I listen to all these people, I'm a

10      little intimidated in that I know very little

11      about the vehicle emission issues today that

12      you're considering.  However, I have read that

13      you would require trucks under eighty-five

14      hundred pounds to meet the same emission

15      standards of passenger cars and trucks would

16      have to be smaller or less powerful.  I've also

17      read that the EPA estimates the cost of this new

18      regulation to be between one hundred and two

19      hundred dollars per vehicle.

20           Now, these cost estimate concern my members

21      and me.  I don't know if there are hidden costs

22      associated with these restrictions.  And

23      unfortunately I suspect that EPA does not know

24      either.  For example, will the regulations

25      curtail the activities of boaters and campers
                                                       182




 1      who use their vehicles for towing?  If so, how

 2      will this impact my smaller grocers in Hart or

 3      Greene or Lee counties who depend on the people

 4      in those areas who come to the lakes and account

 5      for a significant percentage of their business.

 6      I don't know if this will effect them; but,

 7      again, I don't suspect that the EPA knows

 8      either.

 9           Also, how will the regulations effect the

10      family farmer, the small family farmer who

11      brings his produce to market?  Will he have to

12      get a higher price for the produce because the

13      smaller pay loads will increase the

14      transportation costs?  Will these costs be

15      passed on to the brokers and then onto the

16      consumer?  Again, I don't know, but I suspect

17      that the EPA does not know either.

18           Even small increases in doing business can

19      mean the difference between the continued

20      existence or failure for many of my family-run

21      grocers.  I ask that you carefully weigh what

22      appears to be a very small gain of the air

23      quality against the potential adverse impact on

24      many of my hardworking Americans.

25           Thank you.
                                                       183




 1           MS. OGE:  Thank you.

 2           Dr. Robyn Levy.

 3           DR. LEVY:  Hi.  I'm Dr. Robyn Levy.  I'm a

 4      solo practicing pediatric and adult allergist

 5      and asthma specialist.  I canceled my day's

 6      event to be here, which is a big thing for me

 7      because there's no one back at the ranch to take

 8      care of my patients.

 9           And I don't have a written speech.  I read

10      what I can to understand the data that you're

11      presenting, and I wanted to take a couple of

12      personal observations from my prospective as a

13      physician in respiratory medicine.

14           I went into practice approximately a decade

15      ago in Atlanta.  I trained in Los Angeles, on

16      Sunset Boulevard.  So I trained in the heart of

17      the thickness of air, I know, in this country.

18      Even I, who don't have asthma, had difficulty

19      breathing at times walking to the cafeteria on

20      Sunset.  I have been struck over the past decade

21      at the lung arrhythmic increase in numbers of

22      patients in my practice who suffer with air

23      quality related diseases.  And it is with mixed

24      emotions of great joy and terrible bitterness

25      and sadness that my practice has tripled in the
                                                       184




 1      last year.  I was in a group and went solo two

 2      years ago, was a little bit worried about how I

 3      might fair.  Some of the managed care markets

 4      have made it very difficult to practice

 5      specialties like allergy and asthma and

 6      immunologies.  I'm happy that I'm still here and

 7      in private practice and doing well.  I'm very

 8      concerned that my practice has grown largely as

 9      a result of respiratory diseases because of

10      things that make me and my family quite ill.

11           I was excited to move to Atlanta ten years

12      ago.  I grew up near here.  Thinking that I

13      would leave Los Angeles and all of my

14      respiratory woes behind me.  Within a year and a

15      half, I had massive sinus surgery and last

16      summer had additional surgery, and I don't have

17      allergies.  It's related to problems that I

18      suffer when outdoors.

19           In my medical body of literature in the

20      asthma and allergy field, I noticed over the

21      past several years, increasing numbers of

22      articles in my reading journals related to

23      questions regarding air quality and respiratory

24      disease, particularly asthma.  I don't have to

25      reiterate the numbers.  You know how many
                                                       185




 1      millions of people have asthma, and all of you

 2      know somebody who coughs and wheezes daily.

 3           I oftentimes have to disguise what I do for

 4      a living when I go on holiday because everybody

 5      somewhere has a question about their allergies

 6      or their asthma.  So usually I make up some

 7      other occupation when I'm on holiday.  I am

 8      amazed at the increasing prevalence of asthma

 9      and allergic rhinitis and non-allergic rhinitis.

10           As I said, in my body of literature, in my

11      profession, increasing numbers of articles have

12      been written in the last several years by

13      excellent researchers such as Andy Saxon, at

14      UCLA; Jay Portnoy at Kansas City Children's

15      Hospital, and several other researchers across

16      the nation, indicating that problems with diesel

17      air particles and ozone and latex particles from

18      regular car tires are tremendous regulators of

19      the immune system and airway type of

20      responsiveness.  They clearly see a relationship

21      in many different studies related to air quality

22      and respiratory disease.

23           When I moved to Atlanta, I thought I was

24      moving to a cleaner city.  I know that the

25      growth is not going to be slowed, and I'm
                                                       186




 1      responsible for at least the population of one

 2      helping it to increase.  However, as I watch the

 3      population increase and our propensity for

 4      driving our own vehicles and driving larger and

 5      larger vehicles, I think we do see more SUVs

 6      than cars on some days, I remain quite concerns

 7      about what I see amongst my patients.  Many,

 8      many, many, many, many, many, many patients in

 9      our community feel that they have allergic

10      disease, so-called I.g.E., immunoglobulin

11      E-mediated disease.  That's classic allergies to

12      pollen and trees and grasses.  A large, large

13      percentage of my patients -- And two-thirds of

14      my practice are children.  I'm board-certified

15      also in pediatrics.  I also treat adults.  At

16      least over half of my patients come to me

17      thinking that they have a problem with outdoor

18      problem; and, in fact, are skin test negative.

19      And what they're reacting to and they feel

20      terrible going outdoors in the change of seasons

21      or in the heat of summer, are related to quality

22      of air issues.

23           As we speak right now, I have three

24      children at home who can't go to camp or play

25      soccer outdoors this week.  They're at home on
                                                       187




 1      round-the-clock breathing treatment, one of whom

 2      I nearly put in the hospital last night.  And

 3      clearly in the last two months I have treated

 4      more patients with medications, steroids,

 5      bronchodialators, and antibiotics in the last

 6      two months of my medical practice than every in

 7      the months of April and May in my entire career.

 8      That is not because it is the highest pollen

 9      count, that is not because we're all enjoying

10      the great outdoors and it certainly isn't

11      because Atlanta has more trees.  We're loosing,

12      I think it's twenty-seven acres of trees due to

13      construction.

14           What I see is that every year, as opposed

15      to my earlier years in the 1990s, when I was

16      somewhat akin to the May Tag repairman, I was

17      quite lonely and patients didn't call so often.

18      In the last several summer, three to four years

19      in the past, I have noticed increasing phone

20      calls and visits to the office in the summer

21      months.  I wasn't a lonely.  I was a bit happy

22      with the stability of my practice, but a bit

23      concerned about what that represented.  The last

24      several years, the summers have been quite busy

25      with respiratory illnesses.  And I have
                                                       188




 1      prescribed more antibiotics in the last two

 2      months than every before in those two months of

 3      any year of my practice.  My colleagues are

 4      calling me with similar stories.  They're all

 5      out there busy prescribing antibiotics,

 6      steroids, bronchodialators and encouraging

 7      individuals to stay indoors.

 8           I don't see an improvement in much of

 9      anything that we've accomplished in Atlanta in

10      the last decade.  I know there are sincere

11      efforts on the part of the EPA, EDF, other

12      conservancy groups here in Georgia, to help us

13      develop policies to have cleaner air.

14           I'm most impressed with the Tier 2 proposal

15      and strongly recommend that any and everything

16      that we can do today and forward to add to those

17      restrictions can only be a start.  This

18      certainly isn't a finish or even a middle, this

19      is only a start.  And our work is just

20      beginning.

21           I wanted to touch on one comment that my

22      colleague to my left made earlier about asthma

23      being an irreversible lung disease.  In my

24      training ten years ago, I was taught that asthma

25      was a reversible airways disease in contrast to
                                                       189




 1      chronic lung disease from cigarette smoking or

 2      emphysema or coal miners lung or lung disease

 3      from cancer or lupus.  We have learned from the

 4      last decade from a tremendous amount of

 5      pathophysiologic and histologic examination of

 6      lungs of asthmatics that asthma is a chronic

 7      inflammatory of the airways, most importantly in

 8      the lower airways.  And if not treated

 9      effectively and early, these children will go on

10      to develop permanent irreversible damage.  I see

11      it in my office every single day.

12           We are seeing now over the last decade

13      worsening asthma, greater prevalence of asthma

14      and greater severity of asthma.  The attending

15      physicians who trained me in Los Angeles ten

16      years ago began to postulate on their own

17      experience, that we were seeing a worse brand of

18      asthma than before.  I can collaborate their

19      concerns with my own over the last decade that I

20      am giving out stronger medications to younger

21      children, stronger medications to older women

22      who risk severe problems such as osteoporosis

23      from inhaled steroids.  But I don't have many

24      opportunities right now to help those

25      individuals.
                                                       190




 1           I am very, very aggressive at teaching

 2      patients environmental control in their homes,

 3      with their pets and pesticides and molds,

 4      teaching clean houses, environmentally sound

 5      houses, teaching them when to exercise in the

 6      mornings before air condition is bad,

 7      conservative placing some patients on therapy or

 8      allergy injections, and teaching over and over

 9      again every bit of preventive measures and

10      preventive medications.  My use of medications

11      is too high, my visits are too high.  Asthma is

12      the number one cause of missing school days of

13      all diseases of children of childhood of chronic

14      diseases.  It is the number one cause in the

15      nation to the Scottish Rite Children's Hospital

16      of which I am on the executive board.

17           And it's very concerning to me and by

18      listening to all of these comments that none of

19      us in this room would actually be here and none

20      of us would be concerned if, in fact, we didn't

21      have human lungs and human respiratory tracks

22      and human sinuses.  The human physique was never

23      built to inhale combustible particles of any

24      sort.  We could light this carpet and all

25      breathe it and we're not going to feel well.
                                                       191




 1      Because of the fact that we are stuck with our

 2      bodies and because of the fact that we're the

 3      only opportunity that our children and

 4      grandchildren and next generation have to live

 5      any sort of resemblance of a healthy outdoor

 6      life or indoor life, I think that we really have

 7      no choice.  We have to do what we can do no

 8      matter how painful, how costly, and how

 9      difficult it is.  No matter what the deadlines,

10      no matter what the needs, we've all met needs

11      and deadlines and suffered people cost in our

12      lives, financially and otherwise, for many,

13      many, many causes.  And I can't think of one

14      more than to preserve the health of ourselves

15      and future generation.

16           MS. OGE:  Thank you.  Dr. Levy, thank you

17      so much for taking time and to come here and

18      share your views with us, especially leaving

19      your practice.  You may want to go back.  Sick

20      children are waiting for you.  Thank you so

21      much.

22           DR. LEVY:  Shall I stay for the panel?

23           MS. OGE:  Please do.

24           Our last speaker is Reverend Joseph

25      Wheeler.
                                                       192




 1           REVEREND WHEELER:  Good afternoon.  Thank

 2      you for the opportunity to share my concern

 3      about what I feel is one of the most important

 4      topics leading into the New Millennium.

 5           I am Reverend Joseph Wheeler, president for

 6      the Clayton County Branch of the NAACP.  We are

 7      a civil rights active group.  Our constituency

 8      has been disproportionally impacted from

 9      pollution as it relates to illnesses like asthma

10      and other respiratory illnesses.  Therefore, I

11      am here to voice concern and to show support for

12      the EPA's standards proposed.  We support these

13      standards and its intention.  Our branch is

14      located here in the Atlanta area where the

15      pollution level is dangerously high.  We have

16      been working with local business and political

17      leaders to establish local transportation in an

18      effort to reduce automobile use and

19      substantially reduce pollution.

20           We feel that the proposal, or EPA proposal,

21      will have greater weight to the aforementioned

22      measures that we're taking.  We only hope that

23      special interest groups will not be allowed to

24      make use of loopholes in the proposal in the

25      proposal that would render our efforts
                                                       193




 1      meaningless.

 2           While I understand the concerns of the oil

 3      industry and vehicle manufacturers, I also

 4      understand that if we will continue to be the

 5      leaders of the free world, we had better

 6      maintain our health.  I am not going to be

 7      long-winded.  My position is pretty clear, our

 8      constituents have been affected by environmental

 9      racism, by environmental conditions that concern

10      all of us.  And I just want to make sure their

11      voice is heard, and that's why I'm here.

12           Thank you.

13           MS. OGE:  Thank you.

14           Any questions for the panel?

15           (No response).

16           MS. OGE:  I'd like to thank you very much

17      for taking the time to come and share your views

18      with us.  Your written and oral comments will go

19      to the docket and we will consider all your

20      views very carefully as we're moving forward to

21      put together the final recommendations.

22           Thank you very much.

23           MS. OGE:  I would like to ask our next

24      panel to please come forward.  Mr. Joe Beasley,

25      Mr. Rick Wynn, Mr. Foster McCaskill, Michelle
                                                       194




 1      Artz, Ms. Janice Nolan, Mr. Dennis Hopper.

 2           (Whereupon, the panel came before the

 3           board.)

 4           MS. OGE:  We'll start with you, Mr.

 5      Beasley.

 6           MR. BEASLEY:  Thank you very much for the

 7      opportunity to come and to share.  I did not

 8      prepare a written statement, but I want to

 9      respond to a couple of things I heard earlier.

10      And I wanted to let you know that my remarks is

11      strictly to do with Title 6, the regional

12      justice side of it.  And it might not be totally

13      off the point, but the African-Americans have

14      been very much disproportionally impacted by

15      asthma.  And the fact of the matter is, here in

16      Atlanta, we have the privilege of having some of

17      the dirtiest air in the country.

18           Children, African-American children -- Of

19      course this has been quantified and documented

20      in a study by Dr. Robert Fuller, from Clark

21      Atlanta University, very recently, to give you

22      the exact numbers, and we didn't get in this

23      dirty air situation just through happenstance.

24      It's a little deeper than that.

25           I am a native Georgian.  I've lived here
                                                       195




 1      sixty-two years, and we've got so many cars

 2      because when we really became industrialized,

 3      many of us had to leave the farms and move into

 4      the urban area.  That was a great plight, as you

 5      know, from Atlanta, in the fifties and sixties

 6      and seventies and even into the eighties, with

 7      all these cars and all these roads.  In the

 8      meantime, there's a group that didn't have the

 9      money, the resources, and this great vapor

10      that's over the metropolitan Atlanta is

11      presently over the area that is occupied by

12      folks that can't get out, locked into all that

13      dirty air that has grown out of some of these.

14           And I was listening to my friend, and I

15      have worked closely with Texaco, it's Motiva

16      now, and I worked closely with other people.  I

17      know what is going on with the oil industry.

18      And I have to say it, but it's true.  Even where

19      the oil is being extracted from, Nigeria and

20      places like that, the oil companies don't give a

21      rip, or damn, if you will, about the environment

22      there, nor do they care about it -- All they

23      want to do is more and more oil, more and more

24      cars and a higher profit margin.  At some point,

25      even the oil companies must be concerned, car
                                                       196




 1      manufacturers must be concerned, about the most

 2      important part of this whole equation about

 3      capital investment and all of this.  The most

 4      important component happens to the be human

 5      component.  And some way --

 6           And I hope the EPA, with the courage not to

 7      give any ground or any quarter, whatsoever, to

 8      the pleas that we need a longer period to comply

 9      or that we need extra consideration for these

10      big vehicles that the people I'm concerned about

11      can't even afford.  And we wouldn't have this

12      dirty air -- And also, EPA if you would share

13      with whoever is the appropriate federal agency

14      is, we wouldn't have this problem, all these

15      cars, if, in fact, there was some support for

16      public transportation, which we don't have.

17           And sadly, there's another ugly side to

18      that.  We don't want public transportation going

19      north to Cobb or Gwinnett or south to Clayton or

20      Fayette, where I came from.  And there's another

21      ugly dimension to that, that we, in fact, for

22      this public transportation going to these

23      arteries, these undesireables are going to come

24      out there and impact our quality of life.  It

25      really is kind of like an ethnic cleansing
                                                       197




 1      situation.  And of course, I think the idea now

 2      here in Atlanta and across the country is desire

 3      -- this move, if you will, people are tired of

 4      driving two hours to work and two hours back and

 5      stuck in the traffic, so we're saying we're

 6      going to have a removal situation.  We still

 7      don't want public transportation, which would

 8      really cut down on these cars.  We still don't

 9      want that because -- well, I've said that

10      earlier.

11           So in addition to sticking to the stricter

12      standards and -- And the doctor, when she spoke

13      about how her practice has tripled in the last

14      year, I think is very -- we need to take that to

15      heart.  And the young boy, at the news

16      conference that was held this morning, a young

17      white boy -- We didn't have any black kids.  But

18      he told a very heart-wrenching kind of response,

19      what this dirty air is doing to him.  And that

20      is -- But it is duplicating over and over and

21      over; and so my hope is that we would always

22      keep in mind the most important component in any

23      area, in any city, and that's people.  And you

24      know, if we are using vehicles and so forth that

25      we know is killing us, why would we want to beg
                                                       198




 1      with some more time.  Some people don't have

 2      time.  They're going to die from this poison,

 3      dirty air, that the automobile manufacturers and

 4      the oil producing companies have brought upon

 5      us.

 6           So I just hope that the EPA and your other

 7      kindred board, use your influence, your power,

 8      to make sure that this air will be cleaned up

 9      and stop telling lies about Atlanta, how it's a

10      wonderful mecca -- you know, just get to

11      Atlanta.  The fact of the matter is, if you just

12      get to Atlanta, you might die in this poison air

13      of these cars on these roads.

14           You can just see the cars.  I was in south

15      Africa a few -- '94, I guess it was, the

16      election.  You can see that stream of trains and

17      cars come into Johannesburg.  You see the same

18      pattern here in Atlanta.  In the morning, the

19      cars and the trains coming in from the north,

20      you know, it's built for people to come in and

21      make money.  And then the evenings, heading back

22      out.  And we can't build enough.  It's not wide

23      enough, so we want to cut another parameter.  We

24      can build ourselves with roads and so forth out

25      of this situation.  We've got to look at some
                                                       199




 1      alternative way of traveling.  And it's not with

 2      bigger and dirtier vehicles.

 3           Thank you very much.

 4           MS. OGE:  Thank you.

 5           Mr. Rick Wynn.

 6           MR. WYNN:  Thank you.  I'm Rick Wynn.  I'm

 7      manager of field planning, quality and

 8      regulatory compliance with Citgo Petroleum

 9      Corporation.  Citgo is based in Tulsa, Oklahoma,

10      and is a refiner of transporter and marketer of

11      transportation fuels, lubricants, special

12      chemicals for refined waxes, asphalt and other

13      industrial products.

14           Citgo controls about 1.3 million barrels

15      per day of refining capacity, and that's the

16      third largest in the country, and it's fifth in

17      the nation in terms of branded gasoline marketed

18      each year with 10.4 percent.

19           First of all, let me say that Citgo

20      supports the reduction of sulfur in gasoline.

21      Lower sulfur gasoline predicts to lower vehicle

22      emissions, which is good for our nation.

23      However, Citgo believes that a phase-in regional

24      approach such as the one recommended to the EPA,

25      by the NPRA and HEI would be a much more
                                                       200




 1      cost-effective approach and would ultimately

 2      revise sulfur levels similar to bills being

 3      proposed by the EPA, but in a much more

 4      reasonable time frame.  It is apparent from your

 5      proposal that you don't agree with this

 6      approach.

 7           I could spend time today telling you why we

 8      think the regional phase-in approach is better,

 9      why we feel the nation would be better off with

10      this more cost-effective approach and why it's

11      unrealistic to expect the industry to meet a

12      thirty parts per million sulfur level by 2004,

13      with technology that is still not being

14      commercially demonstrated.  But you have heard

15      these arguments for the past year and a half.

16      Therefore I would like to spend the time I have

17      today to talk about two specific areas of great

18      concern to Citgo; and that is flexibility to a

19      Title 8 refinery turnarounds and the proposed

20      banking and trading program.

21           The first major area of concern that Citgo

22      has with the rules as opposed is turnaround

23      flexibility or lack of.  A turnaround can be a

24      period of time where standard maintenance is

25      performed on a particular unit in the refinery,
                                                       201




 1      the integral bearing based on the type of

 2      processing unit.  The unit has to be shutdown to

 3      do work that would be infeasible or hazardous if

 4      the unit was still running.  In addition, it is

 5      necessary on desulfurization units they have to

 6      have a catalyst change-out at least biannually

 7      that would require the unit to be shut down.

 8      These are absolutely necessary to keep these

 9      units running efficiently.

10           Citgo operates three major refineries and

11      is a joint venture partnership with Ford.  If

12      the rule is proposed, we don't see how we will

13      be able to economically and efficiently perform

14      maintenance turnaround on our major

15      desulfurization units at our refineries and

16      still bin gasoline under the eighty parts per

17      million cap.  The same is true of unscheduled

18      outages that may occur.  Just as an example, at

19      our Lake Charles, Louisiana refinery, without

20      some relief on the cap, during scheduled

21      maintenance or unscheduled down time, we will be

22      forced to spend unnecessary capital to build

23      redundant hardware in order to keep our refinery

24      running while our and gasoline hydros are down

25      for catalyst change and maintenance for
                                                       202




 1      operational problems.  The other option is to

 2      shut our refinery completely down during the

 3      down time.  This is not cost efficient, but

 4      neither is building spare capacity.

 5           The designing equipment that can't tolerate

 6      a shut down, the standard velocity is to build

 7      two units, each of which have two-thirds of the

 8      needed capacity.  Both units normally operate at

 9      a turn-down rate.  When a shut down is reported

10      on one of the units, the other is running full

11      rate and effective up stream and down stream

12      refinery units are cut back two-thirds capacity.

13      Thus, there is a capital and a process penalty

14      associated with the gap.  The gap will require

15      for this dual unit approach is roughly sixty

16      percent more than that required for one hundred

17      percent capacity  unit.  I doubt if these

18      additional costs were built into your cost

19      estimate, but they are real.

20           This problem exists at all of our

21      refineries and I would imagine that most other

22      refiners are faced with the same dilemma.  This

23      means that if a number of refiners are faced

24      with -- a number of refiners can't justify

25      spending capital for redundant hardware, we
                                                       203




 1      could have a situation where multiple refineries

 2      in the system could be down at the same time on

 3      a too-frequent basis.  If you rely on past

 4      history, this will certainly lead to supply

 5      shortfalls and price hikes whenever this

 6      happens.

 7           A potential solution to this problem is to

 8      expand the banking and trade concept to allow

 9      each refinery an expressed number of dates per

10      year to handle down times, without having to

11      adhere to the very restricted cap.  The deemed

12      necessary and relaxed cap could be enforced

13      during this time period to ensure that sulfur

14      levels didn't exceed a maximum level.  Another

15      approach would be to do away with caps entirely

16      and allow an averages, which is a measure of

17      emission benefits.  I realize this just makes

18      down stream enforcement more difficult, but it

19      would save the consumer both money and

20      aggravation due to the supply shortages and

21      resulted price hikes and would revise the same

22      emission benefits at a much lower cost.

23           Another area of concern is the banking and

24      trading program as it currently proposed.  We

25      degree literally with the program in its current
                                                       204




 1      form.  The combined interim caps and averages

 2      and short periods to generate early credits are

 3      so restrictive that we don't feel that it

 4      provides us with any flexibility or relief from

 5      having to have all our hardware on the ground by

 6      the fall of 2003.  Modifications to the program

 7      that would lengthen the phase-in time period and

 8      relax the sulfur levels required for the cap and

 9      corporate averages would be a step in the right

10      direction.

11           This may allow refineries or several

12      refineries to make a phase-in investment or even

13      make operational adjustments in some of its

14      refineries in order to get down below the

15      hundred and fifty ppm sulfur level and generate

16      early breaks.  This could, in some cases, delay

17      the more expensive major capital investment by a

18      year or two.  This can happen only if the

19      corporate averaging cap can be set at the

20      reasonable level in 2004 and not bring it down

21      the following year.

22           As we demonstrated in the NPRA and API

23      sulfur proposal, the major jump in cost to these

24      sulfurized gasoline occurs around a hundred and

25      fifty parts per million sulfur level in order to
                                                       205




 1      get down to the lower sulfur levels being

 2      proposed.  If refiners are forced to go to a

 3      lower corporate average and cap at 2004 and even

 4      lower in 2005, then the banking and trading

 5      program simply doesn't work, at least for Citgo

 6      it doesn't.  By delaying the lower sulfur level

 7      by a year or so, it improves the chances of

 8      everyone being able to take advantage of the

 9      most cost-effective and cost-efficient sulfur

10      reduction technologies and revision to time

11      problems involved with permitting these

12      projects.

13           In closing, Citgo encourages you to

14      strongly consider the NPRA and API proposal.

15      Look at the cost effectiveness between the two

16      proposals and avoid high cost to consumers that

17      are not necessary, along with the potential for

18      gasoline supply problems.  At the very least,

19      let's work together and call for a program that

20      will allow flexibility for maintenance

21      turnaround and unplanned outages and not result

22      in redundant capital.  Let's design a banking

23      and trading program that accomplishes what you

24      want, a smooth transitions at a lower sulfur

25      level and one that allows refineries to take
                                                       206




 1      advantage of the most cost-effective technology

 2      while avoiding a permitting down time.

 3           Thank you for your time and I appreciate

 4      the opportunity to express Citgo's concerns and

 5      recommendations regarding EPA's proposed

 6      gasoline sulfur rule.

 7           MS. OGE:  Thank you.

 8           Ms. Michele Artz.

 9           MS. ARTZ:  Thank you.

10           My name is Michelle Artz, and I am a

11      conservation organizer with the Sierra's Club

12      Global Warming and Energy Program, in

13      Washington, D.C.  On behalf of our more than

14      five hundred thousand members, I appreciate the

15      opportunity to testify here today on the EPA's

16      low sulfur fuel and the Tier 2 auto pollution

17      proposal.

18           Like many others here today, I'd like to,

19      first, applaud the proposal that you performed,

20      but also emphasize several key areas where we

21      believe that the standards could be improved.

22           One of the first areas that I would like to

23      discuss is the low sulfur gasoline portion of

24      the rule.  First, let me say that we believe the

25      EPA is taking the right course by setting
                                                       207




 1      standards for both vehicles and fuel in this

 2      process.  As you know, we cannot have the

 3      cleanest vehicles if the gasoline used to fuel

 4      them is high in sulfur content.  The Sierra Club

 5      strongly supports the proposed national sulfur

 6      standard of an average of thirty parts per

 7      million.

 8           However, we're concerned and we really hope

 9      the EPA will not cave into pressures from the

10      oil industry to adopt a regional approach and we

11      feel that this simply won't work.  A national

12      standard is essential.  The air in western

13      cities is already unhealthy to breathe and many

14      of these cities are growing rapidly, meaning

15      more cars and trucks on the road and more

16      pollution.

17           Moreover, a regional approach simply won't

18      work in a mobile society.  A regional approach

19      would not protect the pollution control

20      equipment of vehicles that travel to and refuel

21      in states with high sulfur gasoline.  Americans

22      that travel to the west will return home with

23      damaged catalysts, causing their vehicles to

24      pollute more in their home states for many years

25      to come.
                                                       208




 1           It is clear that a regional standard would

 2      devalue the health and environment of one part

 3      of our country while investing in another.  The

 4      truth is that all Americans, regardless of

 5      region, deserve clean fuel and the cleaner air

 6      it will promote.

 7           And as you know, California has

 8      demonstrated that thirty ppm sulfur gasoline

 9      will cost no more than two cents per gallon, and

10      polls have shown that Americans are wiling to

11      pay more for clean gasoline and I believe that

12      this is a priority of Americans and is the right

13      thing to do to ensure that we lower the sulfur

14      standard as you proposed.

15           We're also concerned with regard to some of

16      the flexibility that's given to the oil industry

17      within the proposal, particularly the three

18      hundred parts per million per gallon average

19      that's allowed in the early years of the Tier 2

20      program.  We want to ensure that consumers'

21      investment in cleaner technology is protected.

22      Flexibility should not compromise air quality.

23           The next portion of this proposal I'd like

24      to discuss is cleaning up light trucks.  The

25      Sierra Club believes that the EPA is taking a
                                                       209




 1      critical step in establishing a set of standards

 2      that apply to all passenger vehicles:  cars,

 3      trucks, minivans and pickup trucks.  However, we

 4      are concerned about three gaping holes in the

 5      proposed Tier 2 rule.  The first is timing, the

 6      second is the specter of a technology review

 7      that could further postpone the day when light

 8      trucks will be as clean as cars and, finally,

 9      we're concerned with a growing class of

10      passenger vehicles over eighty-five hundred

11      pounds that we feel the proposal does not deal

12      with at the moment.

13           As for the timing issues, Sierra Club

14      opposes the EPA's proposed delay in cleaning up

15      the heaviest and dirtiest light trucks, those

16      between six thousand and eighty-five thousand

17      pounds until 2009.  Extending the compliance

18      deadline for these vehicles just means more

19      pollution for our children.  Because of this

20      delay, super-polluting SUVs, like the Chevrolet

21      Suburban and the Ford Expedition, could still be

22      polluting three times more than the dirtiest

23      Tier 2 vehicles until 2009.  Moreover, these

24      SUVs will be on the road for ten more years.

25      The sooner these vehicles meet the standards,
                                                       210




 1      the cleaner our air will be.

 2           It is also important to note that, while

 3      the EPA should be applauded for addressing the

 4      air pollution loophole, the loophole allowing

 5      light trucks to guzzle gas and spew out far more

 6      global warming pollution than cars still exists.

 7           The second aspect I'm concerned about his

 8      the technology review.  We're also strongly

 9      opposes the proposed technology review which the

10      auto industry seems to believe is necessary to

11      assess "difficulties" in compliance,

12      particularly for vehicles in the six thousand to

13      eighty-five thousand pound category.  Ford's

14      recent announcement that it is cleaning up

15      emissions from its pickups, and its prior

16      decision to clean up SUV emissions, shows that

17      technology exists to produce cleaner cars, even

18      with dirty gasoline that we have today.  Ford

19      should be commended for its action, which it

20      estimates will cost only one hundred dollars per

21      vehicle.  The question for the other auto makers

22      should be why aren't they following Ford's lead.

23           A study conducted this year for the MECA,

24      the Manufacturers of Emissions Controls

25      Association, provides further evidence that
                                                       211




 1      ample technology exists for auto makers to meet

 2      Tier 2 standards.  As you know, researchers at

 3      the Southwest Research Institute were able to

 4      make adjustments to a 1999 Chevrolet Silverado

 5      that allowed it to meet the proposed standard of

 6      0.07 grams per mile NOx even at one hundred and

 7      twenty thousand miles.  The Silverado is not a

 8      small vehicle.  It has a V-8 engine and weighs

 9      more than six thousand pounds.  This study was

10      conducted using today's technology and today's

11      California gasoline with thirty-eight part per

12      million sulfur content.  Car companies

13      themselves could likely achieve even better

14      reductions with access to the vehicle's

15      proprietary software, access that researchers in

16      the MECA simply did not have.

17           The EPA proposal would allow car companies

18      ten years to meet this standard and would in

19      fact allow them to certify vehicles such as this

20      to a much weaker standard of 0.2 gpm NOx at one

21      hundred and twenty thousand miles, providing the

22      fleet average meets .07 gpm NOx.  The MECA study

23      and Ford's promised reductions demonstrate that

24      the technology already exists to make Tier 2 a

25      reality and demonstrates that the technology
                                                       212




 1      review is unnecessary.

 2           Bids for technology review are simply an

 3      excuse for the auto industry to stall in

 4      providing Americans with the clean cars and

 5      cleaner air that they deserve.

 6           In addition to closing the light-truck

 7      loophole, the EPA must apply the Tier 2

 8      standards to the super-heavy SUVs, those over

 9      eighty-five hundred pounds, such as Ford's new

10      Excursion, or as we at the Sierra Club know it,

11      the Valdez.  Excluding these giant new passenger

12      vehicles from Tier 2 means ignoring the air

13      pollution problems represented by this new and

14      possibly likely growing sector of the market.

15      The exemption might also provide a perverse

16      incentive for auto makers to up the weight of

17      their vehicles in order to escape the Tier 2

18      program.  It's worth noting that this kind of

19      "weight creep" also exempts vehicles from CAFE

20      standards, currently in place, additional

21      incentives to make these larger vehicles.  The

22      EPA must remove these dangerous incentives

23      toward super heavy vehicles by applying the Tier

24      2 standards to all vehicles, regardless of

25      weight.
                                                       213




 1           I'd like to finally talk about diesel

 2      vehicles.  The Sierra Club strongly supports

 3      EPA's decision to issue fuel neutral standards.

 4      Unfortunately, right now we feel that these

 5      standards are only fuel neutral on their face,

 6      the details of the program reveal special

 7      consideration was given to diesels.  The

 8      dirtiest two bins in the Tier 2 program are not

 9      necessary for gasoline engines.  By including

10      them in the Tier 2 program, the EPA will

11      encourage the deployment of diesel engines,

12      particularly in SUVs. These diesels would be

13      cleaner than today's engines, but not as clean

14      as gasoline engines can be under Tier 2.

15           Diesel exhaust is toxic and has been

16      identified as carcinogenic.  The Tier 2 program

17      should not encourage the use of engines whose

18      emissions pollute our air and directly threaten

19      public health.  Auto makers hope to use diesel

20      engines in SUVs in an effort to comply with the

21      existing low fuel economy standard for light

22      trucks.  In addition, the Partnership for a New

23      Generation of Vehicles is relying on

24      diesel-based technology.  It should surprise no

25      one that the auto makers are firmly behind
                                                       214




 1      standards that accommodate diesels.  But this

 2      compromise with Detroit compromises public

 3      health.

 4           The EPA can and should tighten up the Tier

 5      2 program to ensure that if the auto makers use

 6      diesels, they must be clean as gasoline engines.

 7      The EPA must close the door on diesel vehicles

 8      that can't be as clean as gasoline vehicles.

 9           The Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking

10      on diesel fuel quality, which was released by

11      the EPA in conjunction with the Tier 2 proposal,

12      will be an important tool for cleaning up

13      diesels.  We applaud the EPA for taking on this

14      next challenge, and look forward to working with

15      the agency toward the day when America will have

16      both low sulfur, clean gasoline and diesel fuel.

17           In summary, the Sierra Club commends the

18      EPA for the proposed national sulfur standard

19      and the Tier 2 program it has put forth.

20      Together these standards will reduce

21      smog-forming pollution and reduce soot and other

22      air problems.  The EPA's program would be

23      improved, however, by speeding up the phase-in

24      of the sulfur standard, closing the light truck

25      loophole by 2007, refusing the technology
                                                       215




 1      review, addressing the super-heavy SUVs, and

 2      dropping the two dirty diesel bins in the Tier 2

 3      program.

 4           We look forward to working with EPA to

 5      improve the proposed standards and to the

 6      issuance of the final rule by the end of this

 7      year.

 8           And just in closing, I wanted to mention

 9      that in spending time here in Atlanta, in

10      preparation of these hearing, I've met a lot of

11      people who this issue speaks to from the heart,

12      reaction from people on the street, people who

13      might have heard me talking and came up and

14      said, yes, the EPA really needs to hear about

15      this; we can't breathe here, we have a real

16      problem.  I feel that when an issue penetrates

17      just people on the street who happen to hear

18      someone talking as they're walking by, it really

19      indicates the need for action.  And I strongly

20      support your efforts in Tier 2.

21           Thank you.

22           MS. OGE:  Thank you.

23           Ms. Janice Nolan.

24           MS. NOLAN:  Thank you.  I'm Janice Nolan,

25      with the American Lung Association for the city.
                                                       216




 1      I won't take too long.  I just want to restate

 2      briefly some of things that our association,

 3      applauds and are concerned about Tier 2

 4      standards.

 5           One thing I would like to say is, I

 6      appreciate what I'm reading in EPA's document

 7      about the idea that we're trying to be more

 8      concerned about what the emissions are and

 9      process of getting to them.  The flexibility can

10      be important, but the concerns we have are that

11      there are things that we are seeing that the

12      proposals could be immediate in the year 2004

13      relief.  And we're concerned about the

14      phasing-in of things that are unnecessarily

15      extended.

16           One of the things that we're appreciative

17      of is the fact that you're treating SUVs and

18      minivans like passenger cars.  I come from a

19      group of people who can understand equity in

20      things like, that with these vehicles -- They

21      don't understand now, oftentimes, people who

22      drives these cars, that they are so much more

23      polluting than they are.  I think that in many

24      cases many of them would take a second look at

25      it.  And they like the idea.  Our studies are
                                                       217




 1      showing clearly, our polls show, that nine out

 2      of ten Americans when asked this question said,

 3      no, this is nuts, of course, SUVs and minivans

 4      should be under the same standards as passenger

 5      cars, this is crazy.  And I'm asking them more

 6      about their pocketbook issues, eighty-three

 7      percent said, absolutely, we would be willing to

 8      pay the money required to make this change

 9      happen.

10           One of the things that I learned recently

11      was the study that was done after the 1996

12      Olympics here in Atlanta, it's probably come up

13      before.  But the numbers were overwhelming to

14      me, the idea that when a city shut down its car

15      use, when it reduced its car use enormously to

16      take advantage of this one opportunity, the

17      unique opportunity to have the world in Atlanta,

18      and knew that the traffic problems were going to

19      be enormous and so resorted to changing their

20      minds about transportation and used public

21      transit, that we saw immediate and direct

22      response to health issues, that we saw an eleven

23      to forty-four percent decrease in pediatric

24      admissions in the emergency room for asthmatic

25      children.  This is the kind of thing that
                                                       218




 1      demonstrates to us clearly that as soon as we

 2      can get these things into place, we will see

 3      benefits.  As soon as we can get these lower

 4      sulfur gasoline bins, we can see benefits.

 5      Because it's effecting not only the new cars,

 6      not only the SUVs, but also the cars that I

 7      drive and the cars that are driven in counties

 8      where they're not in non-containment.  It can

 9      help the entire three hundred thousand people

10      who have asthma.

11           We have estimated that in national, we're

12      looking at somewhere in the neighborhood of an

13      equivalent emissions reduction over maybe two

14      hundred and seventy-four thousand cars; in

15      Memphis, removing two hundred and eighty

16      thousand cars.

17           The delays have a real cost.  As long as we

18      delay, if we continue to put these things off or

19      phase them in slowly, we are paying a price.

20      And the people who are paying the price are

21      children with asthma, are seniors, are the

22      elderly with emphysema, people are our most

23      vulnerable and need the most protection.  And

24      immediate relief can be had with the immediate

25      implementation of these provisions.
                                                       219




 1           We're very concerned about the 2004

 2      technology review for the same reason that the

 3      Sierra Club is concerned.  We think that this is

 4      not necessary unless you're looking at seeing if

 5      we need tighter standards, similarly the way we

 6      do reviews for the ozone standards or the

 7      particulate standards, making sure that what

 8      we're doing is currently protecting human

 9      health.  Those should be the driving guidelines

10      for what we do and to have as they have been for

11      what EPA's done in the past.

12           And finally, I would like to say that we're

13      wanting to make sure that EPA considers and adds

14      increased incentive for technology advance.  One

15      of the things that has been, I think, the most

16      obvious result of the standards is that EPA's

17      studies are marked higher and industry keeps

18      reaching it.  I think that the remarkable thing

19      that we've been able to do is to challenge the

20      industry.  But it is the impetuous that has lead

21      us to where we are today.  And I encourage EPA

22      to continue to include and to review these

23      standards to include additional incentives that

24      could be pushing and setting that envelope a

25      little bit further, setting that envelope a
                                                       220




 1      little bit higher, so that we continue to see

 2      increased development in alternative

 3      transportation, battery-powered electric

 4      vehicles, things that are -- we have now because

 5      places like California has set the mark higher.

 6           Thank you very much.

 7           MS. OGE:  Thank you.

 8           Mr. Wynn, thank you for your testimony.  I

 9      thought I heard you making two specific

10      suggestions that you recommend in proceeding

11      forward:  one was in the area of turnaround

12      flexibility or lack of it, as you are calling

13      it; and the other one is the proposed APT

14      program that the agency move forward.  I would

15      appreciate it if Citgo would provide us more

16      details with recommendations.

17           MR. WYNN:  We plan to so.  We're working

18      that as a corporation and also through the Trade

19      Association to be more specific on the comments

20      I made.  I just wanted to kind of raise the flag

21      that these were the two areas, from our

22      standpoint, that we needed some relief on.

23           MS. OGE:  Let me thank all of you for

24      coming here, especially the volunteers, for

25      taking their own time to come and speak to a
                                                       221




 1      bunch of bureaucrats from Washington and tell us

 2      what's going on in Atlanta.  We really, really,

 3      appreciate your interest in this program.

 4           Thank you.

 5           Is Mr. Dennis Hopper here?

 6           (No response).

 7           MS. OGE:  No.  Okay.

 8           Mr. Foster McCaskill, Mr. Tom Enright, Dr.

 9      Varanda Divgi, Mr. Eric Lofton and Dr. Erica

10      Frank.  Anyone here that would like to testify?

11      Not for the second time.

12           (Whereupon, a discussion ensued off

13           the record.)

14           MS. OGE:  Please state your name.

15           MR. McCASKILL:  My name is Foster

16      McCaskill, and I've heard the many benefits to

17      the EPA standards.  But the flip side of the

18      coin is the average working man like myself that

19      depends on these bigger sized vehicles, these

20      suburbans, these pickup trucks.  I, myself, own

21      a fleet of like ten vehicles and out of the

22      fifty percent, might be pickup trucks and the

23      other fifty percent are big haul capacity

24      trucks.  These trucks are used every day for my

25      business.  I run fifteen men.  So my livelihood
                                                       222




 1      and the livelihood of my men and their family is

 2      at stake.  So for me, this is a very important

 3      issue as to the freedom of choice of the

 4      vehicles that I want to choose, vehicle of

 5      business, freedom of speech, these are all

 6      issues that we as Americans, meaning myself,

 7      African-American, to get this level of not

 8      having the freedom of vehicles is a very, very

 9      serious issue.

10           So I'm going to give written testimony.   I

11      haven't had the time to weight all the facts of

12      what the EPA is going to do as far as the Tiers,

13      but I know it involves my freedom to choose the

14      type of vehicle for the next ten years that I

15      want to produce for my family and my business.

16           MS. OGE:  Thank you.

17           MR. ENRIGHT:  My name is Tom Enright, and

18      I'm speaking today on behalf of the over six

19      hundred members of the Georgia Coalition for

20      Vehicle Choice.   Our members, which include

21      such organizations as Chambers of Commerce

22      throughout the state recreation groups such as

23      boating groups, camping groups, businesses,

24      other small business owners, consumer groups,

25      public safety organizations, such as police
                                                       223




 1      departments and volunteer fire departments,

 2      particularly, and many others are interested in

 3      preserving Americas right to have safe and

 4      affordable transportation, transportation that

 5      meets their needs.

 6           Like most Americans, CVC members are

 7      concerned about the environment.  We're

 8      concerned about preserving and improving our

 9      quality of life.  We're concerned about the

10      quality of air we breathe.  We're also concerned

11      about preserving our personal mobility, along

12      with developing public policies to address the

13      energy and environmental concerns.  We believe

14      the government also has an obligation to protect

15      the mobility of Americans and the needs of car

16      and truck users for vehicles that give safe and

17      efficient, affordable transportation.

18           The EPA's new emission proposal may have

19      and certainly will have some environmental

20      benefits.  I'm not here to say how much because

21      I think that still depends on how this whole

22      issue plays out.  But they raised concerned

23      about those people who rely on those vehicles

24      and who must pay the bill for new government

25      relations.
                                                       224




 1           If it's alright with you folks, I would

 2      just like to submit the remainder of my

 3      testimony and maybe just make a few additional

 4      comments based on some of the things I heard

 5      today.

 6           In my past life, I spent almost thirty

 7      years with the National Highway Traffic Safety

 8      Administration, the last ten of those as a

 9      mutual administrator for the Region 4, in the

10      new federal building, one floor above the EPA.

11      I spent the last thirty-five years in the

12      highway safety business, which is a public

13      health business because we're concerned about

14      mobility and mortality.  We're concerned about

15      injuries and death.  We see injuries and death

16      as a result of reductions in motor vehicle

17      crashes go down significantly since I got in the

18      business.  What does this got to do with what

19      we're talking about today?  Well, in my career

20      I've had the opportunity of -- although my wife

21      says I was serving a sentence -- of being in our

22      Washington office for a few years.  I had an

23      opportunity to be involved in the rulemaking

24      process which we issued a lot of good rules that

25      effect the state highway safety operations as
                                                       225




 1      well as motor vehicle manufacturers.  I had the

 2      opportunity to conduct hearings and I don't envy

 3      the job that you folks have to go through now,

 4      because I know it's a thankless job that

 5      involves countless hours and you're never going

 6      to satisfy everybody.  I recognize that.  But I

 7      also recognize that when we're developing public

 8      policy, we've got to do our hardest to bring all

 9      the players to the table.

10           I got concerned as I was sitting here

11      listening today, I got concerned with people who

12      were referring to drivers of SUVs, just in the

13      last few minutes, as that uneducated public.

14           I happen to have four kids and ten

15      grandchildren, three girls and a boy.  All of

16      them have either SUVs or vans.  And they can all

17      give you very legitimate reasons why they have

18      these kinds of vehicles that range for needing

19      them for work, to taking the kids the soccer

20      games, to all of those things that people are

21      using these vehicles for.

22           I heard earlier today that these things are

23      nothing more than the station wagons of the

24      '90s.  You're right.  We accept that.  You're

25      absolutely right.  That don't make them bad.
                                                       226




 1      Because if we think back to what happened when

 2      we got the original CAFE standards, we saw

 3      vehicles downsize and the station wagons went

 4      away.  This unwashed, uneducated consumer

 5      decided that they still wanted something like

 6      that, so they voted with their wallets.  And now

 7      we have a infiltration of SUVs and large

 8      pickups.  Whether we like it or not, they're out

 9      there.

10           Woman particularly tell us that they like

11      the SUV because they're riding higher, they can

12      see better.  They like the SUV because it gives

13      them a greater mass of protection around them so

14      that they're safer than the passenger

15      compartment.  We could debate that, but that's

16      the perception.

17           Because sometimes we overstate the issue,

18      every time there is a newspaper article that

19      says SUVs are killing people because they're so

20      big they run over small cars, you know, SUV

21      sales go up because people don't want to be in

22      the unsafe vehicle.

23           I read a thing the other day in the New

24      York Times, somebody called emphasis on a column

25      in the New York Times, in which he said, "Those
                                                       227




 1      who connect the," quote, I'm quoting now, "sin

 2      of driving the SUV are driving straight to

 3      hell."

 4           A few years ago I coached a basketball

 5      team.  We took them to games in a van.  I didn't

 6      know that by taking my kids to basketball games

 7      in a large van was going to be lead to the road

 8      of eternal provision.

 9          The point that I'm trying to make here is that

10      we need to start talking to one another.  I heard

11      other people who represent the other side, if you

12      will, say, well, those tree huggers.  As long as

13     we're calling one another names, we're not going to

14      get anywhere.  We're not going to get anywhere.

15           Recently -- Not recently, I should say a

16      few years ago, a college professor of mine said,

17      "You know, the biggest sin, the curse of

18      humanity, is that somebody always needs somebody

19      who's nobody."  And I've heard some of that

20      today and this concerns me.  This isn't the way

21      we need to establish public policy.  We need to

22      bring everybody to the table.  We need to

23      recognize their concerns.  And they might not be

24      things that we agree with, but we need to at

25      least sit down and listen and compromise.  Do we
                                                       228




 1      need lower sulfur?  Sure, we do, absolutely.  Do

 2      we need a vehicle that emits less tailpipe

 3      emissions?  Absolutely.  Are these standards the

 4      one that's going to meet them?  I don't know.  I

 5      think they can go a long way, but I think there

 6      is room for people of good will to take a look,

 7      for example, at the 2004 reassessment to see

 8      whether the technology is there.  It's easy to

 9      say, sure, it's in the laboratory.

10           I did that in a time when none of you would

11      remember.  In the late 1970s, we produced a

12      research safety vehicle laboratory, with

13      off-the-shelf technology.  Some of that

14      technology is yet to be used in the

15      manufacturing of vehicles today, even though

16      they are many, many times safer than they were

17      then because part of that technology could not

18      be put into mass production of the marketplace

19      at a reasonable price so the consumer could

20      afford it.

21           All of these things I think are important

22      to consider:  cost effectiveness, oftentimes we

23      have to save us from our friends.  Quick

24      example, we used to always get pushed to issue a

25      national standard to have seat belts in school
                                                       229




 1      buses.   The political smart thing to do, the

 2      easiest thing to do, was to say, okay, we'll

 3      mandate school buses -- seat belts in school

 4      buses.  The fact of the matter is, that that's

 5      not what we would have saved according to our

 6      research, one life a year and a few dozen

 7      injuries.  Those same resources could be used in

 8      other ways to save a heck of a lot more children

 9      than that.  We took the hard-stance and took a

10      lot of political heat.  We said it just is not

11      cost effective.

12           I think it behooves the EPA to look harder

13      at people like Mr. McCaskill, people like that

14      homebuilders you heard today.  Yeah, I

15      understand that HEI has produced their vehicle

16      that they say can meet EPA standards.  I don't

17      doubt that.  I don't know whether they can do it

18      in mass production.  I don't know.

19           But I get concerned for these small

20      businessmen who normally never get heard.  But

21      now is the opportunity for us to bring everybody

22      to the table, including that consumer who is not

23      unwashed, who is not uneducated, who oftentimes

24      votes with his wallet, and we better take their

25      concerns into consideration in establishing
                                                       230




 1      public policy.

 2           I appreciate the opportunity to be here

 3      today.  Thank you.

 4           MS. OGE:  Thank you.  I understand that

 5      Mr. Bob Wilson is here with us. If you can state

 6      your name for the record and the affiliation of

 7      the organization you're with.

 8           MR. WILSON:  Bob Wilson, I'm the southeastern

 9      region director for the National Safety Council.

10           MS. OGE:  Please go ahead.

11           MR. WILSON:  I wish my -- Like Tom was just

12      here.  I was I had had an opportunity to be here

13      a greater portion of the day and heard other

14      testimonies.  So I'm sure some of my comments

15      will have already been stated.   But I'm really

16      here today representing -- maybe wearing three

17      different hats, obviously in one part with the

18      National Safety Council.  Nationwide we have

19      over eighteen member organizations.  I'm not

20      speaking on behalf of all eighteen thousand

21      obviously.  But we do have a larger percentage,

22      specifically here in Georgia, that I will make

23      some comments on behalf of.  I'm also speaking

24      on behalf of numerous friends who have relations

25      that have shared with me different concerns; and
                                                       231




 1      then lastly, speaking personally, as one who

 2      drives a full-size pickup truck.  So I have that

 3      point of view also.

 4           I know EPA has been very proud, obviously,

 5      in coming up with their Tier 2 recommendations

 6      of their Tier 1 accomplishments.  And from a

 7      lower emissions point of view, then, yes, I

 8      share that.  But I think as Tom just mentioned,

 9      I think the cost effectiveness is very

10      important.  And I think one of those cost that

11      frequently is there is the human cost.  Yes, we

12      have achieved lower levels and our automobiles

13      today are more fuel efficient.  But to a large

14      extent, we've accomplished that by significantly

15      downsizing some vehicles in size.  It's an

16      undisputed fact that smaller vehicles are not as

17      safe as larger vehicles.  Physics doesn't lie.

18      The smaller vehicles have, the less space, the

19      passenger is just not as large in small vehicles

20      as it is for larger ones.

21           And I have a personal friend that just

22      three weeks ago was finishing up another

23      teaching year.  She was looking forward to a

24      summer vacation and spending more time with her

25      daughter.  And it's been about three weeks ago
                                                       232




 1      now.  She was involved in a car collision.  It

 2      was not her fault.  She was wearing her seat

 3      belt, her air bag deployed.  Her upper body was

 4      properly cared for.  But because she was driving

 5      a more fuel efficient smaller vehicle, it did

 6      not have sufficient space and her legs were

 7      crushed.  Today she has steel pins in place and

 8      screws holding her legs together.  She may not

 9      ever walk again and she may not be able to teach

10      next year in the fall.  There is a human cost

11      involved in trying to come up with more

12      efficient vehicles with less emissions.  We have

13      paid the cost through a lot of human suffering

14      and human life in achieving our goals that we

15      have achieved to this point.  And I think it

16      would be a mistake not to consider those human

17      costs as we move forward in other endeavors and

18      certainly would apply as we move to larger

19      vehicles.  And if we force individuals that are

20      currently driving large, full-size pickups into

21      larger vehicles because the current vehicle

22      would not have the power to achieve that task,

23      then we're asking for more highway fatalities

24      and injuries out there.  So the human cost, I

25      think is something that definitely needs to be
                                                       233




 1      considered.

 2           I had another friend that is the owner of

 3      an industrial tire facility here in the Atlanta

 4      area, sells industrial tires throughout the

 5      State of Georgia and around the southeast.  He

 6      has an entire fleet of heavy duty pickup trucks

 7      that he uses to haul these heavy duty tires

 8      around to his particular customers.  If he were

 9      unable to -- A less powerful vehicle would not

10      accomplish the task of hauling these large heavy

11      duty industrial tires to his customers.  So he

12      would be left with basically two options:

13      either he would make double trips, which is

14      certainly less efficient and more polluting; or

15      he wold have to buy larger sufficient vehicles,

16      neither one defeats the goal that we're trying

17      to achieve here.

18           We also offer here in the Atlanta area and

19      throughout the southeast numerous training

20      classes primarily geared to the construction

21      industry, primarily highway and bridge and

22      paving contractors.  The majority of those

23      companies drive exactly the vehicle that we're

24      talking about here, the large full-size pickup

25      truck.  They use it every day in their business,
                                                       234




 1      pulling trailers, backhoes and other equipment.

 2      They need that size and powerful vehicle to haul

 3      their tools and equipment, building supplies.

 4      We also have to use these large full-size pickup

 5      with the extended cabs to haul crews around.

 6      That's not uncommon to see a pickup truck with a

 7      back seat full with crews there that are being

 8      carried around.  And again, if that vehicle was

 9      not available, the construction jobs on highways

10      and bridges and paving groups could not be

11      accomplished efficiently and end up costing all

12      of us higher money in construction cost.  And

13      again, their choices would be making more trips

14      or buying larger vehicles, both would defeat the

15      purpose of our goal here.

16           Just a couple of weeks ago, I was helping a

17      friend move.  The same situation came up again.

18      Several of us with our pickup trucks were

19      helping and there were different size vehicles

20      there and it was very obvious soon in the move

21      that the larger pickups were carrying twice the

22      load that the smaller ones were.  Again, if that

23      was unavailable, just the thousand of weekend

24      movers that we see just in the City of Atlanta

25      would be making twice as many trips in the
                                                       235




 1      smaller pickups; or even worse, using larger

 2      vehicles in our residential neighborhoods to

 3      accomplish the moves that we as a society do in

 4      helping our friends and neighbors out in a

 5      pinch.

 6           As Tom shared, I also have two family

 7      members that are own suburban.  They camp a lot

 8      and they need the suburban-type vehicle and the

 9      power it has to haul their travel trailers

10      around.  And they have shared numerous stories

11      just in the north Georgia hills -- We call them

12      North Georgia Mountains, but compared to some

13      other parts of the country, what we have here in

14      North Georgia are just hills.  But they have

15      shared horror stories of individuals trying to

16      use smaller powered vehicles to pull the campers

17      and get stranded on an incline in North Georgia,

18      tying up traffic for miles ending up ruining

19      their engines, their transmissions, because they

20      don't have sufficient power just to pull a

21      simple camper.  Again, they could switch to

22      larger vehicles if forced to, but then our

23      states and national parks aren't geared to

24      handle it.  If you pull a larger truck into a

25      state park, there's no place to park it.  And
                                                       236




 1      the camp ground roads are not designed and built

 2      to withstand the wear and tear of the larger

 3      vehicles put on them.  So just the camping

 4      community would be greatly impacted.  And

 5      personally, two family members who have suburban

 6      would not have vehicles with sufficient power to

 7      pull their campers.

 8           I think it's really important that we don't

 9      get the cart before the horse.  I understand

10      there's been some other testimony that the

11      technology may exist out there.  But I think we

12      need to be very careful that if we don't

13      establish rules for further reducing emissions,

14      until we can develop and improve the real-life

15      situation, that the technology is available

16      without reducing the power in the working

17      vehicles.  We have a tremendous segment of our

18      economy, the true working America, that depends

19      on these vehicles day in and day out for their

20      driving ability.  And I think it would be a big

21      mistake both from a financial and economic point

22      of view and also from a safety point of view if

23      we implemented rules prior to being fully tested

24      out and being sure that you could provide

25      sufficient power, towing, hauling capacity, to
                                                       237




 1      these folks.

 2           That concludes my comments.  Thank you.

 3           MS. OGE:  Thank you.

 4           Dr. Randall White.

 5           MR. WHITE:  Good afternoon, I'm Randall

 6      White.  I'm a Atlanta physician.  I would like

 7      to thank the EPA for proposing these regulations

 8      and allowing the public to comment.

 9           I remember in the spring and summer when I

10      was growing up in Atlanta, how the areas smelled

11      clean and fresh.  It still does sometimes, but

12      more often I associate the air, especially in

13      the summer when it's hot, with poor visibility

14      and smog.  My son doesn't have the same

15      experience that I once had.

16           But more importantly, all Atlantans are

17      subjected to unhealthy air during the summer.

18      And I think most people understand this now and

19      want to do their part.  People who own SUVs and

20      light trucks are at a disadvantage because their

21      vehicles blew more than they should.  And this

22      is really irrational, because in urban places

23      like Atlanta, these cars are now commonplace.

24      And I think they should not be exempted from the

25      emission standards that other cars have to meet.
                                                       238




 1      Anybody that can afford an SUV can certainly pay

 2      the hundred dollars extra it would cost for

 3      cleaner technology, as I understand it.

 4           Diesel engines are also a big concern

 5      because of their particulate emissions.

 6      Everyone can see the black sooty stuff that

 7      comes out of these vehicles.  And, of course,

 8      these particles are injurious to our respiratory

 9      systems and they may also cause heart damage.

10      And I urge EPA to require reduction in these

11      particular emissions.

12           Low sulfur fuels make a great deal of sense

13      to me because I don't want to damage my emission

14      equipment with the fuel that I have to buy.  And

15      I think this rule should be available everywhere

16      because we don't want our equipment to be

17      damaged when we have to travel to another state.

18      Polls show that consumers are willing to spend a

19      few extra pennies per gallon in order to have

20      cleaner skies.

21           And finally, I want to say that I support

22      the efforts of the EPA and I urge that the

23      regulations be consistent for all vehicles and

24      for all fuel types and that all vehicles -- or

25      requirements be phased-in simultaneously.
                                                       239




 1           Thank you.

 2           MS. OGE:  Thank you.

 3           Dr. Erica Frank.

 4           DR. FRANK:  Thank you.  I'm Erica Frank.

 5      I'm also an Atlanta physician and co-editor and

 6      chief of the Journal of Preventive Medicine.

 7      And as a specialist in preventive medicine, I'm

 8      very lucky because I get to help patients help

 9      themselves, such as heart disease.  I can teach

10      them how to eat a more plant-based diet; whereas

11      if a smoker, I can help them overcome their

12      barriers to quitting.  It's very gratifying to

13      see patients be able to take control over their

14      diseases.

15           But there is a cohort that I can't -- that

16      they can't take complete control; and that's

17      asthmatics.  Every time that I see an SUV or a

18      truck belching smoke, I get frustrated for

19      asthmatics who want to take control of their

20      disease, but find it hard because our air

21      quality is poor.  The asthmatics can control

22      their medications, but they can't control

23      vehicular emissions.

24           Now, obviously these excessive emissions

25      aren't just the fault of the drivers or the auto
                                                       240




 1      manufacturers, folks who are buying SUVs for a

 2      variety of reasons, as the gentleman speaking

 3      earlier said.  They don't buy a vehicle to

 4      maximize the pollution that they emit per mile.

 5      And obviously, also auto manufacturers don't

 6      want to destroy the environment either, but

 7      might find it financially difficult to justify

 8      being cleaner sooner than their competitors.

 9           I think that EPA and the country has the

10      opportunity to make it easier for drivers and

11      for manufacturers.  I think if we require all

12      heavy vehicles to be cleaner now, rather than

13      later, that this is the right thing to do.

14      Let's not encourage the sale of ever larger SUVs

15      or diesel engines by giving these particularly

16      egregious polluters special benefits.  Let's

17      level the playing field for the manufacturers.

18      Let's promote the development of really clean

19      personal and mass transportation and make it

20      easier for my patients to breathe.

21           Thank you.

22           MS. OGE:  Thank you.

23           Ms. Laura Cordes.

24           MS. CORDES:  Hi.  I'm Laura Cordes.  I work

25      with a non-profit, non-partisan group called the
                                                       241




 1      Fun For Public Interest Research.  And I know

 2      you guys have had a very long day, so thank you

 3      very much for letting me have the time to speak.

 4           The organization that I work for helps

 5      environmental citizen groups Organized

 6      Grassroots Campaign.  And what I do is go door

 7      to door and talk to folks, so I thought you

 8      might be interested in hearing the response from

 9      the public.  I think, one, that they're

10      delighted that the EPA is taking some great

11      efforts and some great strides towards in

12      cleaning up cars.  People are definitely aware

13      of the problem.  I'm based here in Atlanta, and

14      I want to tell you that two responses I get at

15      the door is that, one, you know, they'll tell me

16      something about someone they know with asthma.

17      The second thing that people commonly say is,

18      "Are you doing something about those SUVs" and

19      "Is the government doing something about it."

20      And they are delighted that, yes, we're setting

21      new standards for light trucks and SUVs.  The

22      thing that shocks them though is that the

23      current proposal actually has a loophole, so not

24      all SUVs are covered.  And that's something that

25      they want to see happen as well as myself.
                                                       242




 1           They are also very concerned about the

 2      fuels.  And right now, there's a poll for sulfur

 3      and gasoline.  They want to be on the table,

 4      certainly, but we're advocating that it should

 5      be lowered to thirty parts per million.  Low

 6      sulfur gasoline needs to be adopted nationally

 7      at the same time as the new emission standards.

 8      I'm certainly willing to pay one or two cents

 9      more and the public, the folks that I talked to

10      at least.

11           I have about two thousand postcards from

12      citizens in Atlanta and the national, the south,

13      that I'll be submitting, but folks are willing

14      to pay more when it will protect their public

15      health.

16           There really should be no special treatment

17      for diesel technologies.  All vehicles,

18      regardless of engine technology or fuel use,

19      should meet the same public health related

20      standards.  There doesn't seem to be any logical

21      justification for special treatment for the

22      diesel technologies, yet the Tier 2 proposal has

23      created two vehicle categories that would

24      currently allow diesel engines to pollute twice

25      as much soot as gasoline engines and up to ten
                                                       243




 1      times as much smog-forming nitrogen oxide.  And

 2      given that the toxic likely carcinogenic nature

 3      of diesel exhaust, the facts have proven that

 4      there really should be no incentive to increase

 5      the amount of diesel vehicles on the road.

 6           Certainly, the Tier 2 proposal is a great

 7      step in the right direction and one that the

 8      public is definitely behind.  But in terms of

 9      the SUV vehicles and the diesel fuels, we want

10      to go a step farther.  I've heard a lot today

11      about trying to compromise, and I feel that

12      we've been compromising the public health,

13      especially the children with asthma -- And I

14      think specialists have given you a stronger

15      picture of that, with the rates in the south,

16      and certainly hospitals and missed school

17      dates -- but I also want to make a point that

18      the SUVs that we're talking about, it doesn't

19      mean that we can't have large vehicles on the

20      road.

21           I've heard industries say that we must slow

22      down and we can't move that quickly, but I read

23      in the paper last week that the auto

24      manufacturers are moving very quickly to open up

25      new plants to build more SUVs.  While they're
                                                       244




 1      doing that, we want to encourage you to

 2      implement the technology that we know is out

 3      there and actually get the backing by the EPA to

 4      actually demand that they do that; that all

 5      SUVs, no matter how big, be included in these

 6      new standards.

 7           Thank you very much.

 8           MS. OGE:  Thank you.

 9           I'd like to thank all of you for taking

10      time this afternoon to share your views with us.

11      We really appreciate it.  Thank you very much.

12           (Whereupon, a discussion ensued off

13           the record; and the panel came before

14           the board.)

15           MS. OGE:  Welcome.  I'm sorry that we don't

16      have a room full of people to hear you, but we

17      are here and we're eager to hear your testimony.

18      And we'll start with Dr. Varanda Divgi.

19           Please go ahead and start.

20           MS. DIVGI:  I'm a pediatric pulmonologist.

21      I'm been in Atlanta since 1981.  The majority of

22      the patients are the children of over three

23      years, and then they are graduating in our

24      practice.  So I've been dealing with asthma,

25      pediatric asthma, for a long time.  Certain
                                                       245




 1      things concern me right now.  The treatment for

 2      asthma has changed in the recent years.  And

 3      despite the good medications we have, our kids

 4      are still sick.  In fact, this winter,

 5      fall-winter, was the worst year we ever had.

 6      And we had had too many smog alert days.  We

 7      have had too many air quality questions also.

 8      And the question is that, what are going to do

 9      now?  Because with new asthma, now there are

10      newer things coming on the front that only

11      managing asthma with the medication is not

12      enough.

13           Initially, a very long time back, people

14      were making the kids with asthma sit at home,

15      not let them play.  And knowing the recent air

16      quality, I hate to see us going back to that.

17      Kids are very vulnerable for the air quality

18      effects, because they are in the early phase,

19      their airways are very small, their defense

20      system is really immature and we don't know the

21      long-term effects of it.

22           Most of the studies here, right in the

23      literature, are telling me what the acute

24      effects do.  But I don't have -- Eighteen,

25      nineteen years of this, what is it going to be
                                                       246




 1      like?  You don't need to be smoking to have the

 2      lung damage.  We can be just breathing the air

 3      outside.

 4           And those are the concerns I have.  Some of

 5      the others mean not only having the good

 6      medication and compliance and all those things,

 7      we can see.  But we fight with asthma as

 8      all-around increasing in all parameters of this

 9      life, low income, high income, race.  Yes, the

10      air quality is poor, bad in other areas and all

11      that, but we are all seeing the effects of it.

12      And I'm just a little to concerned about it.

13      Yes, I'm a physician and, yes, it's a status

14      symbol.  But they are increasingly coming out

15      and increasing in number and they are becoming

16      very popular and I'm concerned about it.

17           Roads in Atlanta have changed a lot.  Roads

18      have become five and six lanes and still we are

19      stuck in the traffic.  And that's really,

20      without change -- I've seen Atlanta change so

21      much.  Yes, it's still a pretty city, but I'm

22      not sure it's a safe city anymore.

23           You can ask me any questions.

24           MS. OGE:  Thank you.

25           Ms. Vickie Hamilton.
                                                       247




 1           MS. HAMILTON:  My name is Vickie Hamilton,

 2      and I'm not an activist I guess until this

 3      moment, now I am.  I am a mom and audiologist

 4      and I'm here because of two reasons:  first, I

 5      think about eight, nine years ago, I noticed

 6      that my eyes were red and tired and irritated,

 7      and I thought I was just getting old, I hit the

 8      mid-thirties.   And then I moved to Omaha,

 9      Nebraska and they cleared up.  And they were

10      great for the five years that I was out there.

11      And now that I've moved back to Atlanta, I've

12      began having trouble with my eyes.  And I think

13      to myself, if it's effecting my eyes, how is it

14      effecting my lungs, how is it effecting the rest

15      of my health.

16           My second and more important reason perhaps

17      is, I have a ten-year-old who has asthma.  And

18      when we were in Omaha, he would get one, maybe

19      two attacks a year.  And he uses a little

20      inhaler and he was fine the next day, no

21      problem.  Since we're back here in Atlanta, his

22      occurrences have occurred five -- four to five

23      times a year.  When they're severe, he has to

24      stay home.  I can't let him run and play.  I

25      have to restrict him.  And the pediatrician told
                                                       248




 1      us as he got older, that his asthma would be

 2      better.  And so we thought he would just outgrow

 3      it, and instead it's getting worse.

 4           I at first thought, well, maybe Omaha just

 5      doesn't have as many allergist or allergy-type

 6      things.  But actually that's not true.  Atlanta

 7      maybe be the number one city for allergy

 8      problems, but Omaha is number two.  And I really

 9      do feel that it's due to the air.  We live in

10      Decatur City, so we're not outside of 85, so we

11      do have more pollution in our area.

12           But those are my main concerns and it

13      concerned me enough to come down today to talk

14      to you.

15           MS. OGE:  Thank you very much.  I'd like to

16      thank both of you for taking the time.

17           Dr. Divgi, taking your time from your

18      practice and Ms. Hamilton, taking time from your

19      life and your family to come and share your

20      views with us.

21           This is our second public hearing.  We're

22      traveling across the country.  We have proposed

23      a set of regulations and we believe we've come a

24      long way for the future of air quality in this

25      country.  And your comments and suggested have
                                                       249




 1      been recorded and we will consider them as we're

 2      moving forward to finalize this at the end of

 3      the year.  So thank you so much.

 4           DR. DIVGI:  I have a question.

 5           MS. OGE:  Yes.

 6           DR. DIVGI:  What's going to be done about

 7      it after this?

 8           MS. OGE:  Basically, the process that we're

 9      following, we're going to Denver, Colorado, next

10      week, and Cleveland.  We're going to have the

11      same forum as we have had here today.  Then

12      we're going back to Washington.  We're going to

13      review the record.  The record will be open

14      until August 2nd for additional written

15      comments.  And we will revise the proposal the

16      way that we believe is appropriate that needs to

17      have any revisions.  We will take it to the

18      Office of Management and Budget and the agency

19      review, that the other agencies will review our

20      final proposal.  And at the end of the year, we

21      will finalize the proposal and it will be

22      implemented.  Right now, based on the proposal,

23      it will be the 2004 time frame.

24           DR. DIVGI:  Because I'm going from a

25      different prospective to this.  We're supposed
                                                       250




 1      to deliver the health when the fact is somebody

 2      else's controls are not under -- We can't do

 3      anything about it, but appear for the public

 4      hearing like this.  And those are the impact.

 5      We're the people who lose the sleep at night

 6      when the asthmatics come into the emergency room

 7      or go to ICU and get admitted.  And it is very

 8      frustrating for us right now.  So I would like

 9      you to hear us at our level also.  I mean, you

10      can give us all the guidelines, but I'm looking

11      at what's the bottom line of what's going to be

12      done?

13           MS. OGE:  What the bottom line is that at

14      the end of the year we will finalize this

15      proposal.  The bottom line is that we're going

16      to be reducing air pollution from cars and

17      trucks up to ninety-five percent from where they

18      are today.  The result of that, with the program

19      implemented, it's going to be equivalent of

20      removing a hundred and sixty million cars from

21      the roads.  You, by doing something like this,

22      the air quality of the country will benefit us

23      all.

24           DR. DIVGI:  There is something that I did

25      not touch on.  What's going to be done regarding
                                                       251




 1      removal of the sulfur from the gas?

 2           MS. OGE:  Well, we have proposed to remove

 3      sulfur down from three hundred and thirty parts

 4      per million, on average, that it is currently in

 5      the fuel down to thirty parts per million.  And

 6      as a result of that, obviously sulfur dioxide is

 7      going to be reduced; but also very critical, the

 8      sulfur level is going to be reduced in the

 9      gasoline, so it's going to impact the catalyst

10      converters that are going to go on these new

11      cars.  So then the cars will be able to perform

12      according to the standards.

13           DR. DIVGI:  Because the way I look at it is

14      that California has stricter regulations, and

15      the people fight about it or resent it.  But I

16      think it's the safety issue that comes in, then

17      why can't the other states be so strict about

18      it?  Why is my state suffering from that?

19           MS. OGE:  I believe the City of Atlanta is

20      moving forward with a cleaner fuel.  I believe

21      the time to introduce cleaner fuel is early as

22      this year.  So there are some states that are

23      moving forward beyond what the federal

24      government is doing, including your state.

25           MS. HAMILTON:  Ms. Oge, is there anything
                                                       252




 1      else we can do?  From what I understand from

 2      this morning, no.  My ten-year-old was at the

 3      press conference this morning.  There is two

 4      loopholes.  I was thinking if there was anything

 5      we could do to help close these up:  one is that

 6      the sport utility vehicles won't have to be into

 7      standards until two years after everybody else.

 8      And I believe there was -- oh, that we would

 9      only use the gas without sulfur during the

10      summer months and not year-round.  Those are two

11      issues that were brought up.

12           MS. OGE:  The sports utility -- First, I

13      would like to answer your question what else you

14      can do.  I think you've done enough by being

15      here and giving us your testimony.  If you have

16      any additional issues to raise beyond what

17      you're doing here, you can do that and we will

18      give you the address to forward the information

19      today.  We are going to keep the record open

20      until August 2nd of this year.

21           The two issues that you raised, just to

22      clarify for you, right now SUVs are allowed to

23      pollute three to five times more than cars.

24      Based on our proposal, we're going to reduce the

25      SUVs emissions by eighty percent, starting 2004
                                                       253




 1      time frame.  By 2007, we're going to reduce the

 2      SUV levels by ninety-five percent.  And at that

 3      point, we will come to same level as cars.

 4           As far as different sulfur levels for

 5      winter and summer, we have not made that

 6      proposal.  Our proposal is a nationwide low

 7      sulfur gasoline program, that will be an

 8      all-year around program.

 9           MS. HAMILTON:  Thank you.

10           MS. OGE:  Thank you both so much.

11           I would like to ask for Mr. Erin

12      Englebrecht.  Is it Ms. Erin.  I'm sorry.  And

13      Dr. Lorne Garrettson.

14           (Whereupon, the panel came before the

15           board.)

16           MS. OGE:  Ms. Englebrecht, we'll start with

17      you.

18           MS. ENGLEBRECHT:  I came today to testify.

19      As a marathon runner, I am extremely concerned

20      about the health effects of air pollution.  I

21      live here in Atlanta, and most always have to

22      prepare my running and schedule based on times

23      and day in the year when the air quality is

24      least unhealthy to breathe.  And more

25      specifically, I'm restricted from running during
                                                       254




 1      rush hour because of the increase in air

 2      increase in air pollution and must limit my

 3      running while outdoors during the summer.

 4           I consider myself lucky that I do not have

 5      asthma; but each and every time I run here in

 6      Atlanta, I feel I am becoming closer to

 7      obtaining asthma, of which I have several

 8      friends of mine that have had in the past.  And

 9      I am living here in the Atlanta now, but I have

10      lived in other places throughout the country.  I

11      grew up in southern California.  I lived in Los

12      Angeles, the air quality is extremely severe

13      there.  And I've also lived in Chicago, Illinois

14      and even in more rural areas in Maine.  And I'm

15      still seeing the situation, I feel that the air

16      quality, whether it be from automobiles, power

17      plants, it is severe.  And it's the same

18      situation, I'm always having to plan when I'm

19      running, where I'm running, non-traffic streets,

20      because of cars.

21           And I run to stay healthy and safe; but

22      ironically I feel that each and every time I

23      run, I'm becoming -- my lungs are becoming more

24      and more unhealthy.  And I just do not think

25      that that's right.
                                                       255




 1           And I feel that the EPA, and you all here,

 2      can actually do something about that by issuing

 3      the standards and strengthen the strongest they

 4      can be without loopholes.  Like what the woman

 5      earlier was saying, in terms of the loophole,

 6      with automobiles having to come to the standards

 7      at the same time.  I'm sorry.  The sports

 8      utility vehicles having the same standards and

 9      having to meet that at the same time that cars

10      do, I think that's very important.  And also I

11      urge them to eliminate the special breaks for

12      diesel vehicles and to actually adopt strong

13      incentives for them as well and adopt a

14      nationwide standard for low-sulfur gasoline and

15      also for all times of the year and not just for

16      the summer.

17           MS. OGE:  Thank you.

18           Dr. Lorne Garrettson, good afternoon.

19           DR. GARRETTSON:  Good afternoon.

20           I'm Lorne Garrettson, and like my colleague

21      at the table here, I, too, was born and raised

22      in Los Angeles.  But I have lived in Atlanta for

23      some time now.  I am a pediatric toxicologist.

24      I have spent my career dealing with

25      environmental toxins as well as the acute toxins
                                                       256




 1      that pediatricians deal with.

 2           Through my career, because primarily as in

 3      the role of doctor at every place I have lived,

 4      I have gradually moved my discipline view of my

 5      practice into the now berthing discipline of

 6      pediatric and environmental health or

 7      environmental toxicology.  And it is from that

 8      vantage point that I have joined with physicians

 9      for social responsibility which is the medical

10      group which has, for the last several years now,

11      identified children's environmental health as a

12      topic for their interest, scientifically and in

13      advocacy.  And it is in that role that I come to

14      speak with you this afternoon.

15           First, let me say that I support and I

16      applaud the EPA for its actions in behalf of our

17      nation's children.  The land-to-math mark

18      regulations that have come out two years ago,

19      for the first time setting non-industrially

20      based or environmentally-based, but health-based

21      regulations and using the appropriate members of

22      our society for that regulation, children.  It

23      is an act of courage by the EPA; and I refer, of

24      course, to the new pesticide regulations on

25      food, that, I think, you have not, as an agency,
                                                       257




 1      received the kudos from our society as you

 2      should.  And I honor the agency and its leader

 3      doctor, Carol Brown, for those actions.

 4           I applaud you also for -- understanding, as

 5      I feel so many people don't, the silence that

 6      has lead to these proposals of regulations that

 7      you have made.  There can be no compromise on

 8      this.  We are in the midst of an epidemic of

 9      asthma that you have undoubtedly heard people

10      recognizing that epidemic all day as I know you

11      already know.

12           I tell my students -- I'm here on the

13      facility here at Emory.  And I tell me students

14      that when I entered pediatrics, a child with

15      asthma under the age of one was considered

16      marked with this very severe case and we pulled

17      out all the stops, got all the consultants, and

18      so forth.  Now a child with asthma under the age

19      of one is treated as just another case, they are

20      so common.  The answer to the epidemic is not

21      clear.  There is no single event.  There is no

22      single cause.  Of course some people come to

23      live with the genes to develop asthma and do so.

24      But the younger age, the greater severity, and

25      the increasing death rate of this illness has
                                                       258




 1      caused us to substantially reassess where we

 2      are.  This is a disease now that is

 3      multi-factorial surely.  I do not believe that

 4      any single action is going to solve our asthma

 5      problem.  But we must do all we can and all we

 6      know because it's probably going to be in the

 7      conglomerate that we begin to see our results.

 8      That's my opinion.

 9           You are probably more familiar than I with

10      the welter of studies that have looked at

11      outdoor pollution and asthma.  We always must

12      look at asthma in two ways:  one is, those

13      things that trigger an attack.  But now we know

14      and now we fully believe that we almost also

15      must be looking at those things that cause the

16      disease, and this is something that has become

17      evident only in recent years.  And we are now, I

18      think, talking about -- with air pollution,

19      about things that are clearly triggers that may

20      indeed, be etiologic for the disease for some

21      people or at least be a part of the etiology.

22           So my comment here is, I urge you the speed

23      in making sure that your regulations as proposed

24      get through and that I wish they could be

25      implemented more quickly.
                                                       259




 1           And I also think that we must be asking

 2      this nation, can we go on invading each other

 3      space in the way that we're doing here?  We have

 4      laws that prevent us from going on to our

 5      neighbor's property and shooting him for

 6      destroying his property.  But here we have a way

 7      at which we can attack each other and there is

 8      no law against it.  And that bothers me

 9      enormously that we can invade each other's space

10      in such an impressive way with the thing that we

11      can create that harm each other.  And of course,

12      the people we're harming are our little

13      children, and that's the thing that I have to

14      see on a daily basis as though -- as the last

15      pediatrician that was up here.  And it just --

16      This is a moral wrong that we must learn, so

17      there is no correct moral right here, but we

18      must learn as a society to be kinder to each

19      other.

20           MS. OGE:  Thank you.

21           Mr. George Waring, good afternoon.

22           MR. WARING:  Good afternoon.

23           MS. OGE:  Did you need a few seconds to

24      finish?

25           MR. WARING:  No.  Yeah, I'm all done.
                                                       260




 1           I would also like to voice my support for

 2      cleaner air, and the EPA's proposal to cut auto

 3      emissions.  I am concerned about the health

 4      impact of air pollution, the impact that air

 5      pollution has on our health.

 6           Like Ms. Englebrecht, I also feel the

 7      effects of increased air pollution during

 8      exercise; however, I am an asthmatic.  My

 9      condition is absolutely irritated during times

10      of heavy traffic; and as a result, I have to

11      carefully plan my activities around heavily used

12      roads and I am finding fewer and fewer roads

13      that I can actually use.  In fact, recently, my

14      running has become limited to parks.  I have two

15      close friends in their mid-twenties that have

16      been recently been diagnosed with asthma who

17      live in Atlanta.

18           The proposal is a great start to addressing

19      this issue by the EPA.  But passenger vehicles,

20      including minivans and SUVs should meet the same

21      standard at the same time.  Finally, the EPA

22      should do more to get advanced technology

23      vehicles on the road.

24           Thanks.

25           MS. OGE:  Thank you.
                                                       261




 1           I would like to thank all of you for coming

 2      here this afternoon.  I understand the weather

 3      is pretty bad outside.

 4           DR. GARRETTSON:  We needed it.

 5           MS. OGE:  We do appreciate your interest in

 6      this problem.  And we do appreciate the words of

 7      support and encouragement.  Thank you very much.

 8           Ms. Kimmy Phan.

 9           (Whereupon, Ms. Phan came before the

10           Board.)

11           MS. OGE:  Good afternoon.

12           MS. PHAN:  Good afternoon.  How are you?

13           MS. OGE:  Fine, thank you.

14      Could you please state your name for the record.

15           MS. PHAN:  My name is Kimmy and I came

16      today just to give testimony.  It's great that

17      you guys have the EPA proposal for cleaner air,

18      and I'm here today to vote my support for

19      cleaner air, definitely, and to support the

20      EPA's Tier 2 proposal because of the air's

21      pollution.

22           I'm greatly concerned with the health

23      impact that automobiles have on our health here

24      in Atlanta City.  I've been campusing for about

25      a month and half.  I've been talking to a lot of
                                                       262




 1      folks here.  And they are very surprised to

 2      learn that SUVs are allowed to pollute three

 3      times as motor vehicle cars.  So therefore, I'm

 4      here today to say that the EPA proposal is a big

 5      step in the right direction.

 6           But there are three things that I think

 7      must be improved in order to -- important to

 8      work more efficiently; that is, making sure that

 9      all the passenger vehicle cars meet the same

10      standards, including the minivans and the SUVs

11      meet the same standards at the same time.  And

12      also, the heavier SUVs should not be given more

13      time or special treatment for it to get more

14      time for it to clean up.  And also, the second

15      thing is that they should not be a special case

16      for those -- we should not give an extra time

17      for those dirty diesel vehicles.  Finally, I

18      just want the EPA to spend more time to put more

19      advanced technology vehicles out there on the

20      road.

21           The last thing I want to say is that I've

22      been running for every university -- and I've

23      been a runner for almost six, seven years of my

24      life, and I see the quality air change

25      drastically in, especially in the summer, with
                                                       263




 1      the smog alert days.

 2           And I think it's great that you guys are

 3      doing that, if you can just improve the

 4      breathing, and that I have mentioned, that would

 5      be awesome.  And we really need the strongest

 6      possible regulations of the pollution out there.

 7           That's all I have to say.

 8           MS. OGE:  Ms. Pamela Perry, good afternoon.

 9           MS. PERRY:  Good afternoon.  Sorry.

10      Traffic was pretty bad.

11           My name is Pamela Perry, and I'm an

12      attorney and consultant and environmentalist

13      here in Atlanta.  And I came down here to offer

14      to you an outside view.  I realize that -- Well,

15      first of all, I'd like to say that I'm very

16      grateful to the EPA for all you have done.  I

17      really am very grateful.

18           I think that sometimes when you're working

19      within a system, sometimes you get caught up in

20      seeing things a specific way.  So I would like

21      to just say, well, let's step outside for a

22      moment and look at something -- look at it from

23      a little bit of a different prospective.  It

24      sounds to me from the proposal that it's

25      basically looking at the problem and the cause
                                                       264




 1      of the problem.  The problem is air pollution

 2      and the cause of the problem is that

 3      manufacturers are creating dirty cars.  I'd like

 4      to say I think that the cause of the problem --

 5      the core cause of the problem is that air is

 6      free and we are free to pollute.  And once that

 7      problem is addressed, the other problems will

 8      just melt away.  They'll naturally find their

 9      order in things.

10           And so if it would be possible to address

11      that first.  I would feel like we're making

12      better progress.  And so I have some ideas on

13      how that could be done.  I'm sure that people

14      have thought of this before, but I would like to

15      just reemphasize it.  And that would be to have

16      a -- you could call it a clean air contribution

17      that's charged at the pump when you buy gas.

18      Because how much you pollute is directly related

19      to how much gas you're buying.  And then also

20      there could be a clean air contribution charge

21      based on the level of your emissions testing.

22      So in that way, the effects of the pollution is

23      being felt in a pocketbook where it's more real

24      than what is theoretical.  Everybody wants the

25      air to be cleaner, but nobody wants to be the
                                                       265




 1      first person to go out and spend twice as much

 2      money on an electrical vehicle and know that

 3      they're still going to be breathing the same air

 4      as the guy that's driving the SUV.  And so to

 5      me, it seems like that would be a way to create

 6      a natural market demand.

 7           And the manufacturers, they are set up,

 8      they are responding to our demands rather than

 9      responding to pressure.  You know, whenever you

10      pressure someone, they push back.  But if you

11      get them to do something that they actually want

12      to do, you have a much further response.  It

13      also allows the citizen to feel an immediate

14      sense of taking responsibility the problem.  You

15      know, and I think when I look at this and say,

16      oh, my, I have to sit back for six years to wait

17      before anything is going to be done or I can

18      have any options to do something.  It's very

19      frustrating to feel like, oh, you can start now.

20      Maybe you can't buy an electrical vehicle or a

21      natural gas vehicle, but you're contributing.

22      The contribution would then go to help fund the

23      purchase of those types of vehicles.  You know,

24      when somebody wants to buy it so that the cost

25      of the vehicle is more in line with what it
                                                       266




 1      would cost to buy that same car as a gas-powered

 2      car.

 3           So that was the idea I wanted to bring to

 4      you.

 5           MS. OGE:  Well, thank you for your idea.

 6      We'll consider it.

 7           MS. PERRY:  Thank you very much.

 8           MS. OGE:  We'll put it into consideration.

 9      And I'd like to thank both of you for coming

10      here and sharing with us your views.

11           MS. PERRY:  Thank you for listening.

12           MS. OGE:  Is there any other member of the

13      public that is interested in testifying?

14           (No response).

15           MS. OGE:  Well, we'll take a short break.

16      But we'll be here for a couple more hours.  I

17      guess Chet France is going to be here.  I have

18      to catch a plane.  But thank you very much.

19           (Whereupon, a recess ensued and Mr.

20           Tom Tomaka came before the panel.)

21           MR. FRANCE:  If you could state your name

22      and any affiliation.

23           MR. TOMAKA:  Sure.  My name is Tom Tomaka.

24      And I am a ten-year resident of the City of

25      Atlanta, and I'm also a member of the Atlanta
                                                       267




 1      Bicycle Campaign former board member and also a

 2      member of the U.S. Public Interest Research

 3      Group.  I came here today to comment on the Tier

 4      2 proposal.  I find that the frequently poor

 5      quality of metro Atlanta's air both troubling

 6      and unacceptable.  We need to take stronger

 7      measures to control non-point sources of the

 8      pollution, especially in cities that rely

 9      heavily on cars and trucks for personal

10      transportation, such as we have here in Atlanta.

11           My next door neighbor works at Georgia

12      Baptist Hospital right down the street as a

13      pulmonologist and he could personally attest to

14      the elevated levels of the admissions at the

15      emergency room there, mostly by wheezing

16      children and elderly people and on days when

17      Atlanta's air is particularly foul.

18           The EPA's proposal is a big step in the

19      right direction, but there are a few things that

20      should be improved before the rule becomes

21      final.  First, given the serious condition of

22      our air, I cannot understand why the Tier 2

23      proposal provides vehicle manufacturers with

24      special treatment for their larger SUVs and for

25      the diesel-powered products.  To meet this
                                                       268




 1      aspect of the current proposal gives a limited

 2      set of manufacturers a loophole and an

 3      opportunity to expand the commercial interest at

 4      the expense of the public welfare.  These

 5      manufacturers continue to enjoy plush SUV sales,

 6      for instance, accompanied by high profit margins

 7      for SUVs and they have -- as they have for the

 8      past two to four years.

 9           I fear that the proposed ten-year phase-in

10      schedule and the Tier 2 proposal for heavier

11      vehicles could lead to increased sale and

12      production of these overgrown passenger

13      vehicles.  I don't understand, then, why they

14      need a special break.  The Tier 2 proposal

15      should ask these manufacturers to make all their

16      passenger vehicles conform to the same

17      standards.   These manufacturers can afford to

18      do so, especially in these larger category

19      vehicles and the public deserves it.

20           There should be no special treatment for

21      diesel technologies, secondly.  All vehicles,

22      regardless of engine technology or fuel use,

23      should meet the same public health related

24      standards.  Yet, the Tier 2 proposal would

25      create two vehicle categories which would
                                                       269




 1      permanently allow diesel engines to pollute

 2      twice as much soot as gasoline engines and up to

 3      ten times as much smog forming nitrogen oxide.

 4           Mobile-Exxon and other petroleum

 5      corporations must seriously argue that they need

 6      a special break, while they collaborate with

 7      vehicle manufacturers on what they call "clean

 8      generation of diesel engines."  I don't believe

 9      their efforts are as realistic as they sound

10      since they never commit to anything, this

11      includes a paid peace effort advertisement that

12      Mobile-Exxon ran in the New York Times of that

13      page yesterday.  They promise nothing if they

14      were given the special breaks.  Also their

15      statements never proposed to replace dirty or

16      internal combustion technology over any time

17      period.  I see them acting to expand their

18      product lines and their markets, not to clean up

19      their act.

20           Interestingly, those who protest against

21      the Tier 2 proposal using the professionally

22      corrected messages, such as the one ad appearing

23      in the Times yesterday, never acknowledge their

24      role in the problems that the EPA is justly

25      trying to address.
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 1           Through their commercial activities, they

 2      don't accept their responsibility for the

 3      increased hospital emergency room admissions on

 4      days when the air is filled and smog and

 5      particulate caused by their products.

 6           I think the general public and thankfully

 7      the EPA uses the logic more than a narrow set of

 8      business values when deciding on a responsible

 9      strategy.

10           The Tier 2 proposal is a step in the right

11      direction.  We need the strongest possible

12      regulations to control automobile pollution.

13           I thank you again at this late time of the

14      day for your leadership on this and your

15      attention.

16           MR. FRANCE:  I appreciate your comments and

17      we'll take them back with us.

18           (Whereupon, the public hearing

19           concluded at approximately 6:30 p.m.)

20

21

22

23

24                    MARY PARHAM, CCR, CVR
                     CERTIFICATE NO. B-1727
25                         (CCR SEAL)

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