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3 HEARING ON TIER 3 PROPOSED RULE 

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6 Monday, April 29, 2013 

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15 UNITED STATES ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY 

16 Double Tree Hotel 

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1 PARTICIPANTS 

2 BILL CHARMLEY 

3 CHRIS GRUNDLER 

4 JONNEL IFFLAND 

5 PAUL MACHIELE 

6 KATHRYN SARGEANT 

7 TIA SUTTON 

8 TAD WYSOR 

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

2 MR. GRUNDLER: We're waiting for the -- okay. 

3 Mic is on. 

4 Welcome, everybody, to EPA's Tier 3 public 

5 hearing. My name is Christopher Grundler. I'm the 

6 Director of EPA's Office of Transportation and Air 

7 Quality, and it's my distinct pleasure to introduce 

8 Susan Hedman to all of you. Susan is our Administrator 

9 of the Region 5 region and was appointed by President 

10 Obama. And she directs the Agency's operations in the 

11 Great Lake States -- Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Michigan, 

12 Wisconsin, and Minnesota -- including one of her most 

13 important roles, which is the National Program Manager 

14 for Protecting and Restoring the Great Lakes ecosystem. 

15 I was just mentioning to Susan I'm an alumni 

16 of Region 5 and was the former Director of the Great 

17 Lakes office there. And I have to say that since I 

18 left, the region is doing some really outstanding work 

19 to protect one of our greatest treasures. 

20 Before she came and joined us at EPA, Dr. 

21 Hedman was the Environmental Counsel and Senior 

22 Assistant Attorney General in the Illinois Attorney 
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1 General's Office. And she previously worked at the 

2 Environmental Law and Policy Center in Chicago, and 

3 taught environmental law. She has over 30 years of 

4 experience in the environmental protection field, and 

5 we're very lucky to have her here today. Susan? 

6 DR. HEDMAN: Thank you. Thank you, Chris, 

7 and good morning. I'd like to welcome you here today 

8 and to thank you for taking the time to participate in 

9 the second of two public hearings on U.S. EPA's 

10 proposed Tier 3 motor vehicle, emission, and fuel 

11 standards. 

12 The proposed standards will reduce the 

13 emissions of nitrogen oxides, volatile organic 

14 compounds, and particulate matter from new passenger 

15 vehicles and trucks. The proposed Tier 3 standards 

16 also require gasoline sulfur content to be reduced from 

17 3 parts per million to 10 parts per million starting in 

18 2017, which will provide immediate benefits for the 

19 existing fleet. These standards are an important step 

20 to improve air quality and to protect public health. 

21 The proposed standards will prevent thousands 

22 of premature deaths, hospitalizations, and emergency 
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1 room visits for respiratory ailments each year, and 

2 will help to avoid millions of lost school days, lost 

3 work days, and days when activities would be restricted 

4 because of poor air quality. In economic terms, Tier 3 

5 standards are expected to provide up to $7 in health 

6 benefits for every dollar spent to meet the standards. 

7 And the proposed Tier 3 standards will work together 

8 with California's clean car and fuels program to create 

9 a harmonized nationwide vehicle emissions program that 

10 will make it possible for auto makers to sell the same 

11 vehicles in all 50 States. 

12 As the auto industry continues to innovate, 

13 the Midwest will continue to play an important role and 

14 will benefit tremendously, economically, and 

15 environmentally. Cars that meet the proposed standard 

16 will continue to take us from point A to point B 

17 comfortably and safely. But those cars will leave a 

18 smaller environmental footprint. 

19 Once again, I'd like to thank you for being 

20 here today. EPA looks forward to your comments on the 

21 proposed rule. And with that, I'll turn the hearing 

22 over to the presiding official, Chris Grundler, who is 
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1 the Director of EPA's Office of Transportation and Air 

2 Quality. 

3 MR. GRUNDLER: Thank you so much, Madam 

4 Administrator, and thank you again for joining us. 

5 Let me just add a few words of introduction 

6 and then I'll have some logistical information about 

7 how these proceedings will be managed. 

8 As the Administrator said, the proposed 

9 standards would very significantly reduce public 

10 health-related pollution from new cars, SUVs, pickups, 

11 mini vans, large passenger vehicles, as well as large 

12 work trucks and vans, and medium duty passenger 

13 vehicles beginning in the 2017 model year. Once it is 

14 fully phased in, we expect the proposed Tier 3 program 

15 to cost-effectively prevent thousands of premature 

16 deaths and illnesses annually. These large health 

17 benefits would require significant new investments 

18 primarily by the auto manufacturing and the oil 

19 refining industries. 

20 We predict that auto makers would need to add 

21 an average of about $130 to the cost of vehicles for 

22 improved emission control systems in the year 2025, and 
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1 refiners would need to invest an average of about a 

2 penny a gallon to reduce gasoline sulfur levels to 

3 protect those emission controls for the full useful 

4 life of these vehicles. However, we project that the 

5 annual health benefits of the program in dollar terms 

6 would be much larger, far exceeding these costs. We 

7 project that the total health-related benefits in 2030 

8 would be between $8 and $23 billion annually compared 

9 to overall annual compliance costs of under $4 billion. 

10 Key to the success of this program is the 

11 proven approach that EPA has followed in the past, 

12 which is looking at vehicles and their fuels as a 

13 system. The auto companies and the fuel industry will 

14 have plenty of time to meet these standards, which are 

15 flexible and will be phased in over time. The 

16 requirements do not start until model year 2017, and 

17 January 1st, 2017 for the cleaner fuel. And the 

18 vehicles standards would be phased in, as I mentioned, 

19 in 2025. 

20 We also have some provisions to ease further 

21 the path of compliance by proposing a number of 

22 flexibilities for both industries, including special 
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1 economic hardship provisions and additional lead time 

2 for compliance that would be available to affected 

3 small businesses. 

4 Under the proposed standards, auto makers 

5 would reduce their vehicle tailpipe emissions of smog6 forming volatile organic compounds and nitrogen oxides 

7 by roughly 80 percent, establish a 70 percent tighter 

8 tailpipe fine particle matter standard and reduce fuel 

9 vapor emissions to near-zero levels. To enable new 

10 vehicles to meet these stringent standards throughout 

11 their life, refiners would reduce the sulfur levels in 

12 gasoline by more than 60 percent, down to 10 parts per 

13 million, as the Administrator mentioned, beginning in 

14 2017. 

15 This also means, and this is a very important 

16 part of this design, that all gasoline vehicles built 

17 prior to model year 2017 will run cleaner on this new 

18 low sulfur gasoline, providing significant and 

19 immediate benefits by reducing emissions from every 

20 gasoline powered vehicle on the road beginning on day 

21 one. This is very important to help the States and 

22 local regional air quality agencies meet the public 
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1 health standards established by EPA, our national air 

2 quality standards. 

3 As the Administrator mentioned, a key aspect 

4 of this new policy is to enable auto makers to sell one 

5 vehicle in all 50 States. The proposed standards work 

6 together with California standards to create a 

7 harmonized national vehicle emissions program. In 

8 addition, we have designed the proposal to be 

9 implemented over the same time frame as the next phase 

10 of EPA's national program to reduce greenhouse gas 

11 emissions from cars and light trucks beginning in model 

12 year 2017. 

13 Together, the Federal and California 

14 standards would maximize reductions in greenhouse 

15 gases, air pollutants, and air toxics from cars and 

16 light trucks while providing auto makers regulatory 

17 certainty and streamlining the compliance process. So 

18 together between Tier 3 and these greenhouse gas and 

19 CAFÉ standards, we have a comprehensive approach to 

20 this sector, providing auto makers with one set of 

21 targets to meet over time. 

22 This is just a brief summary of the proposal. 
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1 I encourage everyone to visit our website for any 

2 other information you may need. We have fact sheets 

3 out at the registration table further providing 

4 information, and they have instructions there on how to 

5 submit written comments for the docket. 

6 With that brief summary, let me share a bit 

7 of logistical information, and we'll get started with 

8 the testimony. 

9 While not everyone is here, we actually have 

10 a large number of people registered to provide 

11 testimony, so we're asking everyone to limit their 

12 testimony to five minutes or less. We've provided 

13 these helpful indicator lights to alert you to when 

14 your time is up. Yellow means wrap it up. Red means 

15 stop talking. This is to provide everyone a chance to 

16 provide their comments. We would welcome, of course, 

17 supplemental comments after today's hearing. You can 

18 get transcripts from the court reporter. You can give 

19 her your contact information during a break, and we'll 

20 get that to you. 

21 Today's hearing is scheduled to run until 

22 roughly 7:00 p.m., but we'll be here until everyone has 
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1 had a chance to speak, another reason why we're asking 

2 people to limit their comments so everyone has a 

3 chance. We're going to be using our panel process to 

4 speed up this process. We're asking everyone to sign 

5 in, and if someone has not signed in and wishes to 

6 speak, please let the people out front know. 

7 Now, I have some text to read that my lawyers 

8 have asked me to alert everyone. We seek testimony and 

9 comments on all aspects of our proposed rule. We're 

10 conducting this hearing in accordance with Section 

11 307(d)(5) of the Clean Air Act, which requires EPA to 

12 provide interested persons an opportunity for oral 

13 presentation of data, views, or arguments, in addition 

14 to an opportunity to make written submissions. After 

15 today, we will keep the official record of this hearing 

16 open through June 13th, 2013 for submission of any 

17 rebuttal or supplementary information. 

18 We're conducting this hearing informally, and 

19 formal rules of evidence will not apply. As presiding 

20 officer, I am authorized to strike statements from the 

21 record which are deemed irrelevant or needlessly 

22 repetitious and to enforce reasonable time limits on 
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1 the duration of the statement of any witness. 

2 If you'd like a transcript of today's 

3 proceedings, as I mentioned, please see our court 

4 reporter. 

5 And with that, I think we're ready to get 

6 started. So let me ask the first panel to take their 

7 seats. And if you would, write your name on the blank 

8 card at both ends of the table so we can see who you 

9 are. Thank you. 

10 I want to invite Judy Weimer and Dan Dolan11 Laughlin to come up if you're not already up. Here's a 

12 chair at the end, ma'am. 

13 We'll proceed from right to left. Mr. 

14 Mandel, please proceed. 

15 MR. MANDEL: Good morning. Is this on? It 

16 is on. I can't even hear myself. The feedback is very 

17 nicely set. 

18 Good morning. My name is Jed Mandel. I’m 

19 President of the Truck and Engine Manufacturers 

20 Association known as EMA. And, first of all, we're 

21 glad to have you in Chicago, which is EMA's home town. 

22 Among EMA's members are the manufacturers of 
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1 pick-up trucks, delivery vehicles, other light trucks 

2 and passenger cars, medium duty and heavy duty trucks 

3 and the diesel engines that power them. In addition, 

4 EMA's members include the manufacturers of the engines 

5 used to power small, non-handheld spark-ignited lawn 

6 and garden and utility equipment. 

7 EMA and its members have worked closely with 

8 EPA and the California Air Resources Board to develop 

9 and implement the world's most innovative and stringent 

10 emission control programs. We have been instrumental 

11 in assuring the adoption and smooth implementation of 

12 the 2007-2010 Heavy-Duty On-Highway Rule and its 

13 predecessors, including the mandate for ultra-low 

14 sulfur diesel fuel, the Non-Road Tier 4 Rule, the 

15 Locomotive-Marine Rule, the Small Spark-Ignited Rule, 

16 and, with NHTSA, the recently adopted Heavy-Duty On17 Highway Greenhouse Gas Fuel Efficiency Rule. And, we 

18 actively worked with EPA on the adoption of the Tier 2 

19 Rule. 

20 EPA now is proposing a sweeping revision and 

21 updating of that rule. Those proposed revisions go 

22 beyond the original scope of the Tier 2 Rule. The 
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1 proposed Tier 3 rule not only affects EMA and its 

2 members as participants in the passenger car and medium 

3 duty vehicle markets, it also affects all heavy duty 

4 on-highway and non-road diesel engine manufacturers and 

5 small non-road spark-ignited engine manufacturers. 

6 It is EMA's intent to provide EPA with 

7 comments on those aspects of the proposed rule that 

8 affect EMA's members. As always, we look forward to 

9 working cooperatively with EPA and other stakeholders 

10 to assure that EPA adopts a final Tier 3 rule that is 

11 cost-effective and implementable. In that regard, we 

12 note that CARB already has adopted its LEV III rule. 

13 As you know, EMA and its members have been 

14 long-time proponents of regulatory alignment in the 

15 United States and beyond. We urge ARB and CARB to work 

16 together to assure that LEV III and Tier 3 are aligned 

17 in both intent and practice. In addition, EMA and its 

18 members have also been long-time proponents of high 

19 quality fuels, and, as such, we are advocates for the 

20 removal of sulfur from both gasoline and diesel fuel. 

21 We will be submitting detailed comments 

22 before the end of the comment period. In the meantime, 
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1 obviously if you have any questions, we'd be happy to 

2 answer them. 

3 Thank you. 

4 MR. GRUNDLER: Thank you. 

5 Mr. Iwanowicz? 

6 MR. IWANOWICZ: Thank you. Good morning, I 

7 am Peter Iwanowicz. I'm Assistant Vice President with 

8 the American Lung Association, and I direct the 

9 Association's Healthy Air Campaign. On behalf of all 

10 those with lung disease in this country, I urge the 

11 U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to adopt final the 

12 Tier 3 Motor Vehicle Emissions and Fuel Standards 

13 Program by the end of this year. It's critically 

14 important for those with lung disease now and part of 

15 how we'll avoid lung disease from recurring in the 

16 future. 

17 Released last week, our annual "State of the 

18 Air Report" shows 132 million people currently living 

19 in counties in this country with unhealthful levels of 

20 air pollution, areas that get failing grades. If today 

21 is like the hearing last week in Philadelphia, you will 

22 hear from some who question the benefits of more 
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1 protective standards and some who also widely 

2 exaggerate the costs. We have heard at the Lung 

3 Association these claims in the past, and time and time 

4 again they've proven to be false or overblown. 

5 EPA's job is clear: set cleaner gasoline and 

6 vehicle standards to protect the public health, 

7 especially the most vulnerable, our children, older 

8 adults, and those with chronic lung disease and heart 

9 disease. EPA has the authority and, I believe, 

10 obligation to protect the public from dangerous 

11 pollutants. 

12 Although we have made tremendous progress in 

13 the U.S. towards healthier air, the air we breathe is 

14 still making millions of Americans sick. Pollution 

15 from motor vehicles is a major contributor to ozone and 

16 particulate matter. These pollutants trigger asthma 

17 attacks, they worsen existing conditions such as 

18 chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and diabetes, 

19 they harm heart and lung health, and can lead to early 

20 death. 

21 As the American Lung Association noted in our 

22 recently released report, "A Penny for Prevention: The 
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1 Case for Cleaner Gasoline and Vehicle Standards," the 

2 health benefits of this system approach to fuels and 

3 vehicles are significant. Cleaner gasoline will 

4 provide immediate air pollution reductions by cutting 

5 tailpipe pollutants from existing vehicles, while 

6 improved vehicle standards will ensure automakers 

7 continue to develop and sell cleaner burning vehicles. 

8 Our analysis estimates by 2030, these 

9 standards under consideration today will prevent more 

10 than 2,500 premature deaths and more than 15,000 asthma 

11 attacks each year. The standards will also provide up 

12 to $22 billion in economic health benefits annually by 

13 2030, and increase our productivity by preventing more 

14 than 3.3 million days missed at work and school each 

15 year by 2030. We believe these benefits are 

16 conservative estimates as our analysis only considered 

17 the eastern half of the U.S. The actual benefits of 

18 cleaner gasoline and vehicle standards will be much 

19 higher once fully implemented across the entire 

20 country. 

21 I'm going to just fast forward in my given 

22 two minutes left of my time to really talk about some 
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1 key pieces of what I've found as Director of the Health 

2 Air Campaign over the last two years. I have been 

3 personally blessed to hear the stories of and work with 

4 so many people across this country who have been 

5 touched by lung disease or caregivers of people with 

6 lung disease, two of which are actually on the panel 

7 with me today. You'll hear from Judy and Dan later. 

8 Others include the Conley family from Maine who have a 

9 young son, Jake, with asthma. They call him the canary 

10 in the coal mine because he's in the leading edge of 

11 pollution that comes in from the entire country and 

12 lands in Maine. They know when air quality is going to 

13 be bad a day before the alerts are issued in Maine 

14 because Jake's asthma flares up. 

15 My friend, Rachel, from Massachusetts has two 

16 young kids. Her pollution reduction plan right now in 

17 Boston, Massachusetts, is to shut the windows on bad 

18 air days. That's not something we want for our 

19 children, not something we want for kids with asthma. 

20 No, we want them outside and playing. Last week you 

21 heard from Dawn, a respiratory therapist from 

22 Philadelphia who lost two loved ones to lung cancer. 
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1 She knows the heartbreak of losing people with lung 

2 disease. Air pollution does trigger disease, makes 

3 people sick, and cuts short lives. 

4 In the past, EPA has heard from people like 

5 my good friend, Pam, from Pennsylvania, Icky Woods, 

6 formerly a running back for the Cincinnati Bengals back 

7 in the late 80s. I may date myself, but I hope there's 

8 plenty of people in the room that remember Icky Woods, 

9 he and his wife, powerful advocates for clean air. And 

10 Lydia from California. All three of the last group of 

11 people lost kids to asthma attacks prematurely. They 

12 know the heartbreak of what it means to lose a child to 

13 an asthma attack, and they're fighting out for clean 

14 air because they don't want other parents to go through 

15 what they've gone through. They all speak up for less 

16 pollution and less deaths associated with dirty air. 

17 And you'll hear some powerful stories later this 

18 morning from Dan and Judy on that point. 

19 So let me close. The American Lung 

20 Association applauds the U.S. EPA's effort to cut life21 threatening tailpipe pollution through the long-awaited 

22 cleaner gasoline and vehicle standards. To save lives 
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1 and protect public health, these standards must be 

2 finalized no later than the end of this year. 

3 So thank you for the opportunity to speak. 

4 And as we mentioned in Philadelphia, we'll have more 

5 detailed written comments submitted before the end of 

6 the comment period. 

7 MR. GRUNDLER: Thank you very much. 

8 Mr. Dolan-Laughlin? And thank you for 

9 speaking directly into the mic so everyone can hear in 

10 the back. 

11 MR. DOLAN-LAUGHLIN: Thank you. Thank you 

12 for being here this morning, and thank you for letting 

13 us come to talk to you. 

14 My name is Daniel M. Dolan-Laughlin. I'm 

15 here to testify this morning on how lower pollution 

16 will benefit millions of people who suffer from 

17 respiratory illness. Although I am not a scientist nor 

18 a doctor, I'm someone who lost their -- or nearly lost 

19 their life to COPD. I am also someone who received a 

20 double lung transplant, and someone for whom pollution 

21 standards, like the proposed cleaner gasoline and 

22 vehicle standard, will mean the difference between life 
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1 and death. 

2 I suffered from chronic obstructive pulmonary 

3 disease, or COPD, for decades. As the disease 

4 progressed, I could no longer work. My quality of life 

5 declined slowly at first, but then more rapidly as I 

6 approached end to stage. I required round-the-dock 

7 oxygen therapy to perform even the most basic 

8 functions. Eventually, I wound up in the hospital with 

9 end-stage COPD. My doctor told me the words no one 

10 ever is really prepared to hear, that I had only 

11 several days left to live before I had to be put on 

12 mechanical support. And yet, a miracle occurred. 

13 Through the wonder of organ donation and 

14 transplantation, I was given the wonderful gift of life 

15 and hope. I received a new pair of lungs. 

16 Even with this life-changing gift, I must be 

17 ever vigilant about avoiding air pollution of any kind. 

18 Poor air quality all too often forces me to stay 

19 indoors on days when ozone and particle pollution 

20 exceed healthy levels. I dread Code Orange days 

21 because pollution makes me sick and can send me back to 

22 the hospital in critical condition. I depend on 
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1 healthy air to breathe and live, and there are too 

2 many, many others who depend on it as much as I do, if 

3 not more. 

4 I'm not here simply to talk about my own 

5 battle for healthy air. I'm here as an advocate for 

6 everyone living with lung disease, including asthma 

7 sufferers, COPD patients, and others whose most basic 

8 quality of life depends on healthy air to breathe. 

9 If like me you live here in the Windy City, 

10 chances are you either spend your time at home or at 

11 work within 300 to 500 meters of a major roadway. 

12 Living and commuting by automobile here means we are 

13 constantly bombarded with tailpipe pollution, and we 

14 are unable to escape this unhealthy danger zone. That 

15 is why not delaying implementation of the proposed 

16 cleaner gasoline standard and vehicle standards is not 

17 only a necessity for our sprawling community, but for 

18 up to a staggering 45 percent of the rest of our 

19 Nation. 

20 Everyone deserves the right to breathe clean, 

21 healthy air, but we will not even begin to claim that 

22 right until the next round of cleaner air and vehicle 
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1 emissions standards is firmly in place. Once it is, 

2 we'll experience immediate relief from smog and 

3 particle pollution, so much so that, as Peter 

4 mentioned, we will feel like there are 33 million less 

5 cars on the highway immediately -- 33 million. 

6 For me, I know what this will mean. I'll be 

7 able to spend more time outdoors with my grandkids. I 

8 won't have to miss trips to the zoo and other family 

9 outings that poor air quality often forces me to sit 

10 out. 

11 The fact that more than 2,500 premature 

12 deaths could be prevented every year if the EPA's 

13 proposed standards are allowed to move forward should 

14 be evidence enough of the most urgent need for this 

15 standard. When you add to that the more than 3.3 

16 million missed days of work and school that would be 

17 avoided, the magnitude of the suffering pollution from 

18 our cars and trucks cause is shocking. This is not to 

19 mention the loss in worker productivity, and the income 

20 loss, and also, of course, the taxes lost. 

21 Knowing we can do better for just about a 

22 penny per gallon of gasoline and roughly only $130 per 
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1 vehicle seems like a bargain, especially when so many 

2 lives are needlessly at stake. It is important to note 

3 that even the U.S. auto industry endorses these 

4 changes. 

5 At the end of the day, we're a country of 

6 cars and trucks. As much as we love our cars, I don't 

7 think anyone is willing to die because of them. I'm 

8 certainly not. I urge EPA to continue its role in 

9 uncompromisingly moving to implement this rule. Relief 

10 from air pollution cannot come soon enough. 

11 Thank you very much for your time and 

12 attention today. Have a great one. Thanks. 

13 MR. GRUNDLER: Thank you so much. 

14 Mr. Frenkel, you're up. 

15 MR. FRENKEL: Good morning, Administrator 

16 Hedman, Mr. Grundler. Thank you for including all of 

17 us today. It's a great opportunity to speak to you. 

18 My name is Steve Frenkel. I am the Midwest 

19 Office Director of the Union of Concerned Scientists. 

20 UCS is the leading national science-based organization 

21 that puts rigorous, independent science to work to 

22 solve our planet's most pressing problems. So on 
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1 behalf of UCS' more than 400,000 supporters and network 

2 of more than 23,000 scientists, engineers, and public 

3 health professionals, UCS strongly supports the cleaner 

4 gasoline and tailpipe standards proposed by the EPA, 

5 and urge the EPA to move quickly to finalize this rule. 

6 Why should EPA move so quickly to finalize 

7 the Tier 3 standards? Because failure to finalize the 

8 rule in 2013, this year, will mean that the standards 

9 will not take effect in 2017 as planned, resulting in 

10 the loss of entire model year worth of benefits. These 

11 benefits include reducing air pollution, improving 

12 public health, and creating thousands of new jobs in 

13 ailing communities that are suffering economically, 

14 both at refineries and at high-tech companies that will 

15 develop and deploy state-of-the-art air pollution 

16 control technologies for vehicles. 

17 One of the unique benefits of Tier 3 is that 

18 by lowering sulfur in the gasoline that goes into 

19 vehicles already on the road, the program will have an 

20 immediately positive effect. Reducing the sulfur 

21 content of gasoline helps catalytic converters work 

22 more efficiently, reducing the emissions from the 
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1 legacy fleet even while we wait for the vehicle fleet 

2 to turn over. By setting standards for fuel and the 

3 vehicle together using a systems based approach, the 

4 Tier 3 standards are able to achieve the greatest 

5 emission reductions at the lowest cost to society. And 

6 your cost benefit analyses shows this very clearly. 

7 This will be particularly important over time 

8 as new vehicle greenhouse gas standards begin to reduce 

9 exhaust temperatures, which can degrade catalytic 

10 converter performance. Reducing gasoline sulfur can 

11 help offset this problem. UCS worked hard to secure 

12 the greenhouse gas standards, and we are again 

13 committed to achieving the lower sulfur standards 

14 needed to protect public health, and ensure the 

15 efficiency of the greenhouse gas standards as well. 

16 Achieving air quality improvement from sulfur 

17 reductions is particularly important in the Chicago 

18 metro area, as you've heard. Chicago has persistently 

19 been classified as a non-attainment zone, and the harm 

20 from pollution is particularly acute in dense, urban 

21 areas like Chicago where so many people live, work, or 

22 go to school near major roadways, which puts them at 
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1 greater risk of exposure to tailpipe emissions. 

2 Organizations like UCS worked closely with 

3 local communities, other advocates, and the City of 

4 Chicago to shut down two coal plants within the city 

5 limits that for decades endangered public health and 

6 the environment. Now we need to put in place 

7 responsible and affordable mobile source standards that 

8 will further protect public health in Chicago's 

9 neighborhoods. 

10 We witnessed the success of the systems based 

11 approach that you've proposed to cleaning up our 

12 vehicle fleet with the Tier 2 standards, which were 

13 phased in through 2007. These standards successfully 

14 reduced tailpipe emissions and the sulfur content of 

15 gasoline, providing cleaner air for all Americans. 

16 But more can, and must, be done to protect 

17 the most vulnerable among us from unhealthy air, which 

18 is why moving ahead with the next phase of gasoline and 

19 tailpipe standards is critical, and to do 

20 expeditiously. 

21 And all of that can be accomplished with 

22 technology we already have. Tier 3 is consistent with 
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1 the global trend in reducing sulfur in gasoline. 

2 Refiners are already producing ultra-low sulfur fuel in 

3 California and much of the developed world, 

4 demonstrating that the technology to meet these 

5 standards has already been deployed. 

6 In 2012, the Hart Energy International Fuel 

7 Quality Center ranked the top 100 countries based on 

8 sulfur limits in gasoline. The United States 

9 unfortunately, with the current level of 30 parts per 

10 million, ranked 47th, with higher sulfur content than 

11 Japan, South Korea, Turkey, Taiwan, Thailand, Chile, 

12 and all of Europe. 

13 So on behalf of UCS and all our members and 

14 supporters, I urge you to finalize this rule before the 

15 end of the year. And thank you for the important work 

16 you are doing to protect public health, cleaner air, 

17 and create a more sustainable future for us all. 

18 Thank you. 

19 MR. GRUNDLER: Thank you very much. 

20 Ms. Clarke, welcome. 

21 MS. CLARKE: Good morning. My name is Nancy 

22 Clark. I'm the External Relations Manager for DuPont 
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1 Industrial Biosciences, which includes our biofuels and 

2 biomaterials businesses. 

3 I'm pleased to be here today to provide 

4 feedback to EPA on the proposed Tier 3 motor vehicle 

5 emission and fuel standards rules. I'm here to 

6 highlight the proposed provisions related to 

7 certification fuel and how renewable fuels can achieve 

8 the reductions in air pollutants that are the target of 

9 the rule. 

10 DuPont brings the perspective of a company 

11 deeply involved in the agricultural and biofuels 

12 industries. One of DuPont's advanced renewable fuels 

13 is cellulosic ethanol. We've been developing our 

14 technology for a decade, and since 2009, we have 

15 operated a demonstration facility in eastern Tennessee 

16 producing ethanol from both corn stover and 

17 switchgrass. This experience has made us very 

18 confident in our technology and engineering for a 

19 commercial-scale facility in Iowa. 

20 In addition, we have worked closely with 

21 farmers, equipment makers, and others for three years 

22 on large-scale corn stover harvest trials to 
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1 demonstrate the ability to manage the cost-effective 

2 cellulose supply chain. This work has culminated in 

3 our construction of the $30 million gallon per year 

4 facility located in central Iowa that is scheduled to 

5 begin producing cellulosic ethanol next year from corn 

6 stover. 

7 Corn stover capitalizes on existing 

8 infrastructure to provide rapid expansion in ethanol 

9 production from non-food feed stock. Existing farm 

10 equipment will harvest an appropriate amount of stover, 

11 leaving behind enough for soil conditioning and erosion 

12 control. The stover will be transported to a 

13 cellulosic conversion unit co-located with existing 

14 refinery where it will be processed and fermented. The 

15 result will be a 20-25 percent increase in ethanol 

16 production from the existing acreage, providing 

17 expanded economic opportunity to farmers and ethanol 

18 producers. 

19 DuPont supports EPA's Tier 3 proposed rule 

20 and believes that it is complementary to both the RFS 

21 and the CAFE standards. In enacting the RFS, Congress 

22 set a forward-looking 15-year policy intended to incent 
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1 the large-scale development of renewable fuels in the 

2 U.S. It succeeded ahead of schedule for grain ethanol, 

3 and has to date met its overall volume targets 

4 successfully. The existing suite of biofuels policies, 

5 of which the RFS is a significant component, has been 

6 very successful in standing up a U.S. biofuels industry 

7 that is making a material contribution to U.S. energy 

8 security, and reducing the environmental footprint of 

9 transportation, goals of both the RFS and the CAFÉ 

10 standards. 

11 We have to remember that we started down the 

12 road of alternative transportation fuels because of a 

13 variety of security, environmental, and economic 

14 ramifications of our dependence on petroleum. Those 

15 challenges have only grown more acute, and we are 

16 making solid progress. 

17 There are a number of provisions in the Tier 

18 3 rule that will achieve the desired reductions in air 

19 pollutants, but also support the objectives of the RFS, 

20 and if carefully implemented, can make renewable fuels 

21 more widely available and economically competitive. 

22 First, DuPont supports EPA's proposal to set 
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1 E-15 as the emissions test rule for light duty cars and 

2 trucks, as well as heavy duty gasoline vehicles. EPA 

3 must create requisite incentives for our manufacturers 

4 to pursue advanced engine technologies. Studying E-15 

5 as test fuel is a step in the right direction. 

6 I'd like to also briefly address some remarks 

7 that our opponents have made about the Tier 3 role. 

8 They've argued that the proposed fuel specifications 

9 should be based on sound science in order to 

10 accommodate legal technologies that auto makers will 

11 commercialize in significant volumes within the same 

12 time frame required of fuel providers. They fought EPA 

13 for not identifying automotive technologies that would 

14 be utilized to comply with increased CAFE standards or 

15 a Tier 3 standard that would benefit from lower sulfur 

16 gasoline. 

17 I'd like to make the point that these 

18 arguments seek to solidify the current obstacles that 

19 prevent both higher blends of ethanol from being 

20 realized, as well as advanced vehicle technologies. 

21 Without one, we cannot have the other, and this rule 

22 puts us in a position to incentivize the development of 
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1 higher ethanol blends. 

2 Thank you very much for the opportunity to 

3 comment, and we will also be submitting written 

4 comments before the deadline. 

5 MR. GRUNDLER: Thank you for coming. 

6 Mr. Conway? 

7 MR. CONWAY: Good morning. My name is Tom 

8 Conway. I'm a Regional Program Manager at the 

9 BlueGreen Alliance. BGA is a national partnership of 

10 America's largest labor unions and environmental 

11 organizations, uniting more than 15 million members and 

12 supporters behind a clean energy economy. 

13 I'd first like to commend the Obama 

14 Administration, and specifically the EPA, for their 

15 outstanding leadership on reducing air pollution from 

16 passenger vehicles and trucks through a variety of 

17 innovative programs. The Tier 3 program enhances a 

18 comprehensive Federal approach, making our vehicles 

19 more energy efficient and less polluting. 

20 As we have seen in the automobile and other 

21 industries, investment in pollution reduction 

22 technologies leads to gains in efficiency and job 
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1 creation. As a resident of northwest Indiana, with 

2 family throughout the Chicagoland area, I was dismayed 

3 to see the results of the latest "State of the Air 

4 Report" from the American Lung Association. In a 

5 region as diverse as the area surrounding Southern Lake 

6 Michigan where unique natural resources and beauty, 

7 including a national park, exists alongside a major 

8 city and a variety of heavy industries and 

9 infrastructure, there will always be the need to 

10 balance public health and environmental stewardship 

11 with sustainable economic growth. 

12 Dramatic improvements have been made in 

13 recent decades, yet with grades in the range of C to F 

14 for ozone and some counties receiving failing grades 

15 for particulate matter, it is clear there is still room 

16 for improvement. America's working families deal 

17 firsthand with the impacts of dirty air in terms of 

18 missed work and school days, increased medical costs, 

19 and long-term health effects. 

20 The implementation costs of the Tier 3 

21 program will greatly offset -- will be greatly offset 

22 by savings in health costs alone in addition to 
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1 improving quality of life for all Americans, also since 

2 since pollution reduction is strongly tied to fuel 

3 efficiency. In addition to direct benefits to public 

4 health, these efforts will assist in the mitigation of 

5 greenhouse gases that are causing climate change. 

6 Americans are working in a variety of 

7 industrial sectors in the Midwest and across the 

8 country. Members of the auto workers and steel workers 

9 will manufacture vehicle emission control technologies 

10 to meet these standards. As the BlueGreen Alliance's 

11 Regional Program Manager for Illinois and Indiana, I am 

12 frequently in contact with people working in the 

13 automotive industry. 

14 Indiana ranks third in the country and 

15 Illinois seventh for jobs in the automotive parts 

16 industry, and they are also both in the top 10 for 

17 States with jobs in automotive assembly. The Tier 3 

18 standard will bolster the auto industry's ability to 

19 meet a strong fuel efficiency standard and generate net 

20 positive economic outcomes. 

21 Cleaner fuel makes emission systems more 

22 effective for both new vehicles and those currently in 
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1 operation. Refinery workers and building trades 

2 members will install systems in the refining process 

3 that will create cleaner fuels which are sought after 

4 on the global market. Upgrading refineries could 

5 create more than 20,000 construction jobs, more than 

6 5,000 jobs in refinery operations in the first three 

7 years of implementation. 

8 Wisely, the program includes critical 

9 elements that will allow refineries to deliver clean 

10 fuels to the market in an economical and timely manner, 

11 as well as provisions that ensure smaller manufacturers 

12 and refiners can reach compliance without unfair 

13 burden. 

14 As the Administration finalizes this 

15 innovative program, we look forward to continuing our 

16 engagement with EPA and other stakeholders working to 

17 implement a strong standard. American innovation and 

18 smart policies like Tier 3 will contribute 

19 significantly to healthier families, cleaner skies, a 

20 strong auto industry, and more opportunity for workers 

21 throughout the economy. 

22 The BGA partnership is committed to 
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1 demonstrating that cleaner cars and cleaner fuels are a 

2 win-win for America. We applaud the efforts undertaken 

3 so far and believe that strong, feasible standards can 

4 guarantee the best possible outcome for American 

5 workers, our communities, the economy, and the 

6 environment. 

7 Thank you for your time. 

8 MR. GRUNDLER: Thank you very much. 

9 Dr. Singer, welcome. 

10 DR. SINGER: Thank you. Thanks for inviting 

11 me. My name is Hal Singer. I'm a Managing Director at 

12 Navigant Economic. And along with Dr. George Schenk, I 

13 co-authored a study on behalf of the Emissions Control 

14 Technology Association, which represents companies that 

15 manufacture after treatment systems. 

16 I want to make three simple points today in 

17 my remarks about the net benefits of adopting the 

18 proposed standards. First, there are serious flaws in 

19 the approach employed by Baker and O'Brien on behalf of 

20 the American Petroleum Institute to estimate the 

21 compliance cost to refineries. Second, I've examined 

22 EPA's cost benefit analysis. It comports with economic 
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1 logic and best practices, and it validates our 

2 conclusions. Third, we examined the effects of the 

3 Tier 2 sulfur rule on the price of gasoline and found 

4 little to no impact suggesting the Tier 3 effect will 

5 be negligible. 

6 So going to my first point on the flaws in 

7 the Baker and O'Brien approach, there are several, but 

8 today I just want to address three. Baker and O'Brien 

9 failed to account for averaging and trading of credits, 

10 which reduces the compliance costs to refineries. As 

11 EPA explained, refineries with pre and post treaters 

12 are able to achieve further sulfur reductions below the 

13 10 parts per million standard at a relatively low 

14 incremental cost, and sell credits to refineries who 

15 would otherwise be faced with grass roots investments. 

16 Averaging and trading reduces EPA's estimated 

17 compliance cost from .97 cents per gallon to .79 cents 

18 per gallon, a reduction of nearly 20 percent with 

19 averaging in trading. Between eight and 25 high-cost 

20 refineries out of 11 would prefer to consume credits 

21 than to upgrade their facilities. Baker and O'Brien's 

22 mistaken assumption that those high-cost refineries 
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1 reduce the sulfur content of their gasoline they 

2 produce to 10 parts per million severely inflates their 

3 compliance cost estimates. 

4 Second, Baker and O'Brien assume without 

5 support that the refinery with the highest cost of 

6 compliance will set the price of gasoline. However, if 

7 this were true, then the profits of the refinery 

8 industry, defined as the difference between the 

9 marginal cost and the average cost per gallon, would be 

10 four to seven cents, at which point the refiners should 

11 endorse Tier 3. Given the refiners' opposition, it 

12 seems that Baker and O'Brien's logic is faulty. 

13 Third, Baker and O'Brien's estimated capital 

14 cost for a grass roots FCC post treater is not 

15 reasonable according to companies that construct or 

16 install desulfurization units. Indeed, Baker and 

17 O'Brien's capital cost estimates are between two and 

18 four times higher than industry benchmarks. Baker and 

19 O'Brien states that their estimates were based on 

20 actual installation for the Tier 2 program, but as EPA 

21 explains, a grass roots FCC post treater installed for 

22 Tier 2 would remove about 10 times more sulfur than one 
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1 installed for Tier 3, and, thus, would have 

2 significantly higher capital costs. Correcting this 

3 one defect in the Baker and O'Brien study causes their 

4 cost estimates to come into alignment with those of 

5 MathPro and of EPA. 

6 My second point is that EPA's cost benefit 

7 analysis comports with economic logic best practices 

8 and validates our conclusions. EPA's decision to 

9 simultaneously reduce vehicle emissions and sulfur 

10 content is astute, as it aligns the interests of 

11 consumers, who care about clean air, with the interests 

12 of the auto makers who care about reducing emissions at 

13 the lowest possible cost. 

14 Reducing sulfur generates immediate benefits 

15 for consumers, even while the current fleet of vehicles 

16 is in place. Not only does sulfur decrease the 

17 efficiency of catalytic converters in reducing 

18 emissions, but it also impairs the ability of new 

19 technologies, such as lean burn GDI to reduce fuel 

20 consumption. And auto makers also benefit from the 

21 harmonization and standards with California, Japan, and 

22 Europe, who have already adopted the 10 parts per 
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1 million standard. 

2 EPA conducted a rigorous analysis of the 

3 benefits of reducing emissions. The annual benefits by 

4 2013 are estimated between $7 and $23 billion, with 

5 roughly three-quarters coming from the reduction in 

6 premature deaths. These annual health benefits swamp 

7 the estimated annual Tier 3 compliance costs of 

8 approximately $3.4 billion. Under what economists 

9 called the Pareto criterion, consumers would happily 

10 pay car makers and gas stations $3.4 billion extra for 

11 between $7 and $23 billion in health benefits. 

12 To the extent that car and gas suppliers pass 

13 through these costs to consumers, Tier 3 will 

14 effectuate this welfare improving trade. And to the 

15 extent that car makers and gas companies don't pass 

16 through these costs, then consumers still get the 

17 benefits. 

18 Consistent with our findings, the EPA found 

19 that Tier 3 would spur job creation as car makers 

20 invest in low emission technologies and as refineries 

21 upgrade their facilities to reduce sulfur. Before 

22 accounting for any factor shift or demand effects, 
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1 increased expenditures by car makers are expected to 

2 generate between 400 and 2,000 new jobs, and increase 

3 expenditures by refiners are expected to generate 1,000 

4 front end design and engineering jobs and 6,000 

5 construction jobs. 

6 I see my time is up, but these estimates are 

7 consistent with the job effects in the Navigant 

8 Economic study. 

9 Thank you. 

10 MR. GRUNDLER: Thank you, Dr. Singer. 

11 Mr. Bienenfeld, welcome to the Midwest. 

12 MR. BIENENFELD: Thank you. I'm Robert 

13 Bienenfeld, Assistant Vice President of Environment and 

14 Energy Strategy for American Honda Motor Company. And 

15 I'm here today to voice Honda's strong support for key 

16 aspects of EPA's proposed Tier 3 motor vehicle 

17 emissions and fuel standards. 

18 Honda has a reputation as a company committed 

19 to the environment, and we have consistently been first 

20 to market with vehicles that meet the lowest emission 

21 standards in the country. Honda was the first to 

22 commercialize and market low emission vehicles, ultra-
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1 low emission vehicles, super ultra-low emission 

2 vehicles, and just this year we launched the very first 

3 LEV III SULEV 20 car, cars that help advance emissions 

4 technology as well as emission regulations. In the 

5 last 40 years, tailpipe emissions from the cleanest 

6 cars have been reduced 99.9 percent. The proposed Tier 

7 3 regulations will make the average U.S. vehicle as 

8 clean as today's cleanest Tier 2 and LEV II cars. 

9 We appreciate the Agency's efforts to reduce 

10 vehicle emissions and the adverse health impacts 

11 associated with them. Honda believes that the Tier 3 

12 motor vehicle emissions and fuel standards are a 

13 significant step forward. Tier 3 will, for the first 

14 time since emission standards were introduced in the 

15 1970s, align the entire U.S. market into a single 

16 national fleet for the purposes of emissions 

17 compliance. 

18 We are in an era when governments and 

19 industry are working together to harmonize regulations 

20 between countries and between regions. Everyone 

21 recognizes that while regulations are important to 

22 achieve certain key social goals, harmonized 
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1 regulations have the potential to reduce costs to 

2 industry and consumers. A single common emission 

3 standard for the U.S. fleet represents an important 

4 step forward. 

5 We'll be submitting detailed comments on the 

6 regulation as we move forward and have a chance to 

7 study them. But let me make a few comments, and this 

8 echoes what's been said before. 

9 Through the use of sophisticated emissions 

10 control technology, the automotive industry has been 

11 able to achieve extraordinarily low exhaust emissions 

12 through a vehicle's life. The anticipated Tier 3 

13 standards and the LEV III standards of California will 

14 push those emissions to near-zero levels. And doing so 

15 requires the use of vehicle technologies and fuels that 

16 complement one another. 

17 Sulfur in gasoline has long been known to 

18 adversely catalyst performance, and, as a result, 

19 achieving the Tier 3 and LEV III stringencies is highly 

20 dependent on the vehicle's use of low sulfur fuel. 

21 California has recognized this in its LEV III 

22 standards, requiring an average gasoline sulfur content 
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1 of 10 parts per million, and a very low cap. Honda 

2 believes it is critical that EPA set a national 

3 gasoline sulfurous average and cap levels equivalent to 

4 and within the same time frame as those specified in 

5 the California regulations. 

6 Lowering sulfur will enable new vehicles to 

7 better meet the cleaner proposed emission standards for 

8 the duration of their useful life, improving air 

9 quality as those vehicles work their way into the 

10 vehicle population. It's also worth mentioning that 

11 lowering the sulfur content of gasoline has another 

12 less gradual benefit. As has been noted in the 

13 Agency's proposed rule, it facilitates immediate 

14 emission standard reductions from all vehicles on the 

15 road at the time the sulfur controls are implemented. 

16 Failing to bring cleaner fuel to market in a timely 

17 manner would miss a fundamental opportunity presented 

18 by the systemic approach to regulating both fuels and 

19 vehicles. 

20 It should also be noted that the Tier 3 

21 standards have an important relationship with the 

22 recently finalized 2017 to 2025 fuel economy and 
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1 vehicle greenhouse gas standards. As a result of the 

2 latter set of standards, numerous efforts are now 

3 underway to improve the thermal efficiency of advanced 

4 internal combustion engine vehicles. These efforts are 

5 successfully reducing waste heat and delivering more 

6 energy to the wheels. Yet because catalysts use engine 

7 heat to reach operating temperatures, catalysts at 

8 these lower temperatures are more likely to be poisoned 

9 by the sulfur in the fuel. Without lower sulfur 

10 gasoline, auto makers would need to deliberately heat 

11 the catalysts by unnecessarily burning more fuel, and 

12 eroding fuel economy, and putting additional greenhouse 

13 gas emissions into the atmosphere, exactly the opposite 

14 of the intended fuel economy and greenhouse gas 

15 regulations. 

16 So I'll stop there, and the rest will be 

17 submitted. Thank you. 

18 MR. GRUNDLER: Thank you so much for coming. 

19 Ms. Weimer, welcome. 

20 MS. WEIMER: Thank you. Wednesday I am 

21 celebrating my fourth birthday. That's right, I said 

22 my fourth birthday. That is when I received Lucy and 
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1 Ethel as a nice gift from some kind soul. I was sick 

2 and I needed a double lung transplant, and with Lucy 

3 and Ethel, I am able to do things that I didn't ever 

4 think I was able to do before. 

5 Before Lucy and Ethel came along, my health 

6 was deteriorating rapidly. It all began when I 

7 returned home from a cruise just not feeling myself. 

8 Initially, my doctor thought I had picked something up, 

9 and took some blood tests, and mailed them off to the 

10 CDC. They came back negative. So he started to do 

11 some more tests, and he did some X-rays, and found out 

12 that I had a problem with my lungs. From there, my 

13 doctor referred me to a pulmonologist, who again did 

14 some more lovely tests, and diagnosed me with COPD, and 

15 predicted that I would possibly need a transplant. 

16 Well, I could barely wrap my head around 

17 having a transplant. Yet as we got further into the 

18 details, it was going to be a double lung transplant. 

19 I had always been active and rarely ever missed a day 

20 at work, yet soon my world was turned upside down. My 

21 health began to decline to the point where I was being 

22 admitted to the hospital every six to eight weeks with 
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1 either pneumonia or acute bronchitis. And as my luck 

2 would have it, I always end up in room 13 of the ICU. 

3 My efforts to distance my time between 

4 hospital visits was becoming a lost cause. Barely able 

5 to breathe, navigating around my home was exhausting. 

6 I had to have chairs placed every five feet because 

7 that's about all I could walk. And I could sit, catch 

8 my breath, walk another five feet, dah, dah, dah, dah. 

9 When I went to go eat, I had the shakes so bad that my 

10 food would end up either on my clothes or on the floor. 

11 It would take me about four hours to take a 

12 shower, work a little shampoo in, take a breath. Do a 

13 little bit more, take, you know, time out. And I was 

14 hopefully able to do that once a week. Sometimes it 

15 was maybe every 10 days, so I would get a little 

16 stinky. I was connected to oxygen 24 hours a day. I 

17 was pretty much in a wheelchair and had those lovely 

18 adult diapers. I do not miss that at all. 

19 Life was depressing, and it was clear that in 

20 my wait for Lucy and Ethel that time was quickly 

21 running out. Soon I would know -- sorry. Soon I would 

22 know the names of each of the paramedics that would 
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1 frequently dispatch to my home. Even in my condition, 

2 I still wanted to be a good host. I encouraged the 

3 fire fighters to take a pop out of the fridge, grab an 

4 apple, grab some oranges as they were strapping me to 

5 the gurney to take me to my favorite place. 

6 Thanks to Lucy and Ethel, I have my life 

7 back. I can once again live independently and so 

8 gratefully this gift I have received. This amazing 

9 gift comes with one condition. That condition is that 

10 I have to have clean air to stay alive. I demand it. 

11 Someone had to die for me to get this way, and I 

12 believe everybody in the world deserves clean air. 

13 This is why I urge the EPA to not delay in 

14 implementing the proposed Tier 3 standards. I am just 

15 one the millions of in America who lives near major 

16 roadways. Cleaner gasoline and vehicle emissions 

17 standards will ensure Lucy, Ethel, and I have many, 

18 many more years and adventures ahead of us. 

19 And actually on Sunday, I am going to be 

20 repelling 278 feet off the top of the Wit Hotel down to 

21 the ground for awareness for lung disease. Without 

22 Tier 3 passing, I don't know what I could next year. 
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1 But right now I'm able to do this, and I am so willing 

2 to go to the skies and do whatever I can. 

3 I also would like to be able to ride my 

4 bicycle more than two blocks. I have to get in my car 

5 and drive six blocks to Walgreen's or to the store to 

6 pick up a few things. Because of the air that I 

7 breathe, I can't go six blocks. So if I can't do that, 

8 there's got to be millions of others that are out there 

9 that are unable just to ride the bike. I can go to the 

10 post office. That's like seven blocks. Why should I 

11 get in a car? I can just putz around in the house. I 

12 can ride my bike three to five miles and not be 

13 anything, but I can't ride it outside. 

14 So I ask and urge you to please think about 

15 the Tier 3 standards. Thank you. 

16 MR. GRUNDLER: Thank you for sharing your 

17 story. 

18 Let me ask the panel if they have any follow19 up question for our first panel. 

20 MR. MACHIELE: Just a follow-up for Hal 

21 Singer. Thank you for the, I guess, the support for 

22 our cost analysis. But if you could just spend just a 
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1 moment, because you were cut a little short. So what 

2 are the main differences between, you know, our one 

3 cent a gallon and the six to nine cent estimate from 

4 Baker and O'Brien? 

5 MR. SINGER: So I think the points that I 

6 rattled off were the main drivers. One is this 

7 conflation of the average and the marginal. I think 

8 that what -- when you actually saw for the average of 

9 the Baker and O'Brien, you don't get that big of a 

10 divergence. You get something like one versus two. 

11 But even there, the difference can be 

12 entirely explained away with just one change, and 

13 that's this capital cost component of these treaters. 

14 And the way that we tried to ascertain that it was 

15 exaggerated was by interviewing actual providers of 

16 these equipments, these types of equipment and founding 

17 out whether their costs were reasonable. And they told 

18 us they weren't. 

19 MR. MACHIELE: Thank you. 

20 MR. GRUNDLER: Thank you very much, all of 

21 you, for taking the time out of your day to provide 

22 these comments. It's very useful. Thank you. 
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1 UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Thanks. 

2 MR. GRUNDLER: I would invite the second 

3 panel up. Before I do that, I neglected to introduce 

4 my EPA colleagues who are with me today. On my left is 

5 Mr. Bill Charmley. He's the Director of our 

6 Assessments and Standards Division. To my right is 

7 Kathryn Sargeant, Bill's deputy. And at the end is 

8 Paul Machiele. He directs our Fuel Center. 

9 The second panel will be composed of Faith 

10 Bugel, Peggy Salazar, Patrick Kelly, Joe Kubsh, Brian 

11 Ubaszewski, Debbie Bakker, and Bob Babik. Welcome. 

12 If you could fill out your name tags, please, 

13 or place cards, and also remember to speak directly in 

14 the microphone. We have people on the phone who have 

15 called in to listen, and they are having trouble 

16 hearing everyone. 

17 Just to keep things confusing, we'll go left 

18 to right this time, beginning with Mr. Robert Babik. 

19 MR. BABIK: Thank you. Good morning, 

20 everyone. My name is Robert Babik. I'm the Director 

21 of Environment, Energy, and Safety Policy for General 

22 Motors. We at GM have embraced the call for more 
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1 environmentally-friendly vehicles, and this is evident 

2 from our groundbreaking Chevrolet Volt, the world's 

3 first mass produced extended range electric vehicle. 

4 The Volt is just one piece of a broader electrification 

5 strategy that includes the Chevrolet Spark, PUR EV, the 

6 Cadillac ELR, a luxury EREV, and various hybrid 

7 offerings. GM is the industry leader in plug-in sales, 

8 and we intend to keep it that way. 

9 We are continuing to follow our principle of 

10 energy diversity as we produce numerous E-85 flex fuel 

11 vehicle models, diesel vehicles, including the new 2014 

12 Chevrolet diesel Cruze, and CNG offerings on our full 

13 size pickups and van segments. We are also introducing 

14 more improvements to conventional technology, and our 

15 engineers are working around the clock to 

16 simultaneously improve fuel economy, greenhouse gas 

17 emissions, criteria emissions, and the safety of all of 

18 our products. 

19 That brings me to the key reason that we're 

20 here today working closely with EPA and other 

21 stakeholders to achieve a harmonized and appropriately 

22 structured Tier 3 program. The establishment of a 
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1 single national standard for fuel economy regulation 

2 was quite simply a much needed breakthrough that will 

3 enable more timely and efficient introduction of 

4 technologies customers, manufacturers, and regulators 

5 want to succeed. 

6 We know that EPA and California are committed 

7 to further reductions in tailpipe criteria emissions, 

8 and in order to achieve the levels of reductions 

9 proposed, our vehicles will be so clean, that there 

10 should be no need for competing requirements. Our 

11 precious engineering resources are already stretched 

12 thin, and requiring them to design, develop, and 

13 certify two of everything is counterproductive. We 

14 need to be able to focus on developing one of 

15 everything, which we can then sell throughout the U.S. 

16 and provide everyone here with the cleanest vehicles in 

17 the world. That is why a harmonized Tier 3 program, 

18 properly structured, can achieve this. 

19 Another key aspect of this proposal is the 

20 cleaner fuels that are included. Auto makers will need 

21 the cleaner fuels to meet the stringent Tier 3 emission 

22 standards EPA and California envision. We must have 
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1 clean fuels because the vehicles and fuel function as a 

2 single system in determining the emissions performance 

3 of the vehicle. 

4 As EPA moves ahead to finalize the Tier 3 

5 requirements, GM believes the provision for lower 

6 sulfur fuels and other clean fuel properties is 

7 essential as is outlined in the Alliance of the 

8 Manufacturers' comments. And while clean fuels are 

9 needed to meet the Tier 3 standards on new vehicles, 

10 they also provide the added benefit of reducing 

11 emissions immediately across the entire fleet. 

12 Finally, we would like to see some changes to 

13 the MPRM. For example, there are a number of things 

14 that are not harmonized with California's LEV III 

15 requirements that we will be asking to be harmonized. 

16 We will continue to review the MPRM and work closely 

17 with the Alliance, EPA, and others, and we will submit 

18 detailed written comments. 

19 Thank you very much. 

20 MR. GRUNDLER: Thank you, Bob. 

21 Mr. Kelly, welcome. 

22 MR. KELLY: Thank you. Good morning. I am 
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1 Patrick Kelly with the American Petroleum Institute. 

2 API is the national trade association representing all 

3 segments of the U.S. oil and gas industry. The 

4 industry supports 9.2 million jobs, 7.7 percent of the 

5 U.S. economy, and since 2000, has invested over $2 

6 trillion in U.S. capital projects to advance all forms 

7 of energy, including alternatives. 

8 This rulemaking could have significant 

9 impacts on domestic refiners, which are already heavily 

10 regulated. 

11 API opposes this discretionary rulemaking as 

12 we have serious doubts as to the Agency's justification 

13 for it. We have been insisting that EPA demonstrate a 

14 scientific justification for two and a half years. API 

15 commissioned research on the cost and benefits 

16 associated with further reductions of gasoline sulfur. 

17 We found some clear conclusions. The proposed 

18 standard would yield little immediate or longer-term 

19 air quality benefits, and reducing the average sulfur 

20 from 30 parts per million down to 10 would impose 

21 enormous costs. 

22 Further reducing sulfur is not necessary for 
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1 meeting new stringent vehicle emission standards, and 

2 auto makers are unlikely to introduce the vehicle 

3 emission technologies that are enabled by the lower 

4 sulfur fuel. And I'm talking about lean burn GDI. 

5 EPA is pursuing a flawed process in 

6 developing this rule. It is outrageous for EPA to hold 

7 public hearings as the docket continues to be populated 

8 with supporting information. It is invalid for EPA to 

9 hold these hearings in advance of publishing the rule 

10 in the Federal Register. 

11 EPA must follow the Clean Air Act's 

12 procedural requirements. Section 307 sets clear 

13 requirements for the rulemaking process that begins 

14 with EPA first publishing a proposed rule in the 

15 Federal Register. In this publication, EPA shall 

16 specify the comment period. EPA cannot set a deadline 

17 for public comments on a proposal that has not yet been 

18 published, and the supplemental publication that merely 

19 identifies the hearing dates and locations is a clear 

20 attempt to circumvent public participation in the 

21 rulemaking process. 

22 Clean Air Act Section 307 also requires EPA 
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1 must include with the Federal Register publication 

2 factual data on which the proposed rule is based, the 

3 methodology used in obtaining the data and in analyzing 

4 the data, and the major legal interpretations and 

5 policy considerations underlying the proposed rule. In 

6 short, this means all the information EPA uses as the 

7 basis for the rule must be available. As of last week, 

8 over 700 new documents had been added to the docket, 

9 leaving not time to analyze the information to provide 

10 meaningful input. 

11 Once the proposed rule is published, the 

12 comment deadline needs to be revised. Another public 

13 hearing should be scheduled, and it must be held long 

14 enough after publication to allow for public review of 

15 all of EPA's data and analysis. The availability of a 

16 pre-publication rule cannot be used as a reason to 

17 truncate the review period. 

18 Reducing gasoline sulfur to an average of 10 

19 parts per million is expensive. Research API shared 

20 with the Agency shows nearly $10 billion in capital 

21 costs. The annual compliance cost is $2.4 billion or 

22 roughly six to nine cents per gallon, marginal costs in 
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1 most markets. 

2 EPA uses a cost estimate based on average 

3 cost that ignores the important role that marginal cost 

4 plays in gauging the market response to the regulation. 

5 EPA should not consider these costs in a vacuum. 

6 Refiners need to balance these costs with the 

7 cumulative cost of other Federal and States 

8 regulations. 

9 EPA's three-year lead time is grossly 

10 inadequate. As I said in Philadelphia, six years is 

11 workable, five years is the absolute minimum, and three 

12 years is insufficient time to design, permit, 

13 construct, and start up the equipment needed to produce 

14 the fuel. Three years is inadequate to ensure against 

15 market disruptions. A three-year lead time means that 

16 the normal maintenance schedules of about five years 

17 are likely to be disrupted, potentially impacting 

18 gasoline supply and increasing the costs. 

19 The so-called flexibilities proposed do 

20 little to offset the burden of compliance. The 

21 benefits of averaging banking and trading in the Tier 3 

22 rule are not comparable to the Tier 2 rule, and it 
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1 would be beneficial. And as I said in Philadelphia and 

2 I request again today that EPA publish the aggregate 

3 data on remaining Tier 2 credit balances in order to 

4 determine the extent that an average banking and 

5 trading program would provide a benefit. 

6 API will be submitting more detailed comments 

7 in our written response, and I'm happy to answer any 

8 questions. 

9 MR. GRUNDLER: Thank you very much. 

10 Ms. Salazar, welcome. 

11 MS. SALAZAR: Good morning, everybody. I'm 

12 just going to make a brief statement. I am Peggy 

13 Salazar with the Southeast Environmental Task Force. 

14 The Southeast Environmental Task Force is located in 

15 southeast Chicago, an area known as a transportation 

16 hub within the city. 

17 Our neighborhoods are surrounded and 

18 dissected by rail, water, and major roadways. Our 

19 communities are bombarded daily by emissions from 

20 train, boat, truck, bus, and automobile traffic. Our 

21 local air quality is some of the worst in this city. 

22 Asthma, as well as other respiratory 
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1 illnesses, rates are high. As a grass roots 

2 organization dedicated to a healthier environment, we 

3 support the new Tier 3 vehicle emissions and gasoline 

4 standards because they would mean cleaner air for us. 

5 And we recognize that these benefits go well beyond the 

6 southeast side of Chicago, as they would mean cleaner 

7 air for the rest of the city, as well as the rest of 

8 the country. 

9 Now, on a personal level, I grew up on the 

10 southeast side of Chicago, and I can tell you as a 

11 child, and back then there were easily 100 kids per 

12 block, if not more. I did not know a single child 

13 growing up with asthma. So it always has perplexed me 

14 as why all of a sudden there's all these rates of 

15 asthma. I can honestly say that I believe it's because 

16 of the cars and trucks that now choke our streets and 

17 roadways that didn't exist when I was young. So 

18 anything we can do to improve the situation, improve 

19 the air quality. It should not come down so much to 

20 dollars and cents, but what we need to do because cars 

21 and trucks aren't going anywhere. And it's important 

22 that we address the situation today. 
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1 Thank you. 

2 MR. GRUNDLER: Thank you so much. 

3 Ms. Bakker? 

4 MS. BAKKER: Good morning. I'm Debra Bakker. 

5 I'm the Director of Regulatory Affairs for Hyundai-Kia 

6 American Technical Center. And I'm here today 

7 testifying on behalf of Hyundai Motor Group, 

8 representing both Hyundai and Kia Motors. It's a 

9 pleasure to be here today to provide our perspective on 

10 this important rulemaking. 

11 We appreciate the significant effort on the 

12 part of EPA and the difficult task of developing 

13 regulations which continue to reduce tailpipe emissions 

14 from vehicles, and ensuring they're harmonized with the 

15 California Air Resources Board's low emission vehicle 

16 III standards. 

17 As you know, this harmonization is very 

18 important for us and the auto industry as it allows us 

19 to design to one national standard. Additionally, we 

20 have found it very beneficial that EPA was willing to 

21 provide many opportunities to meet with industry and 

22 other stakeholders to discuss the provisions of the 
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1 rule while they were under development. 

2 The Hyundai Motor Group agrees with EPA's 

3 goals of reducing harmful pollutants that can cause 

4 premature death and respiratory illnesses. As such, we 

5 believe that it's important to reduce the emissions of 

6 NOx, VOCs, particulate matter, carbon monoxide, and air 

7 toxics. We know that it will be challenging to meet 

8 these standards, and we appreciate that EPA has 

9 developed the regulations in a way that reduces the 

10 standards and/or phases them in over time. We also 

11 appreciate flexibilities included in the proposal, such 

12 as the ability to average across the fleet for most 

13 pollutants. 

14 Additionally, we support the averaging 

15 banking and trading provisions, which allow companies 

16 to obtain or sell emissions credits with other 

17 manufacturers, and the carry forward and back of 

18 credits, which are helpful flexibilities. As I 

19 mentioned already, Hyundai Motor Group is pleased with 

20 EPA's efforts to align the Tier 3 rule with CARB's LEV 

21 III program. It's challenging to meet different 

22 requirements for various regulatory agencies, 
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1 particularly when it comes to testing. Having one 

2 consistent national standard will increase laboratory 

3 throughput in addition to design and development cost 

4 savings. 

5 We realize that there are challenges in 

6 adopting the same provisions as CARB, but we hope that 

7 EPA and CARB will continue to work together to try to 

8 resolve as many of the remaining differences as 

9 possible. 

10 The Hyundai Motor Group supports EPA's 

11 proposal to lower the annual average sulfur retail 

12 gasoline levels to 10 ppm. We believe a systems 

13 approach is necessary to reduce emissions to the 

14 stringent levels called for in the proposal. There is 

15 a large body of evidence that shows that with reduced 

16 sulfur levels, we will see an immediate benefit from 

17 all vehicles in the existing fleet, not just on 

18 vehicles with the latest technology. 

19 Sulfur inhibits the ability of after20 treatment technology to reduce emission levels of NOx, 

21 VOCs, PM, carbon monoxide, and air toxics, by 

22 depositing on the precious metal catalysts. 
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1 As we work to meet all of the low emission 

2 levels proposed in the Tier 3 rule, particularly the 

3 ppm standards. We need the catalyst to be working as 

4 efficiently as possible to meet both certification and 

5 in use requirements. Also as sulfur degrades the 

6 catalyst, it reduces useful life. Auto makers are 

7 required to meet useful life standards of 150,000 miles 

8 for emission-related equipment as part of this 

9 regulation, so it is important that the technology 

10 works as intended. 

11 Additionally, as auto makers introduced lean 

12 burn technologies that we see as necessary to meet 

13 stringent future GHG regulations, low sulfur levels 

14 must be implemented to minimize detrimental impact to 

15 NOx after treatment. While we understand some 

16 refineries may face challenges in meeting the level 

17 proposed in this rule, we want to point out that by 

18 setting a 10 ppm average annual standard, EPA will be 

19 bringing the U.S. gasoline specifications in line with 

20 California, Japan, Korea, and the European Union. 

21 In particular, South Korea has an average 10 

22 ppm standard in place -- has had an average 10 ppm 
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1 standard in place since 2009. Also California has a 

2 cap of 20 ppm, and the average sulfur level in the fuel 

3 in the State is 10 ppm. Lastly, Japan and the EU have 

4 set a cap of 10 ppm, which is much more stringent than 

5 an average annual level proposed by EPA. All of these 

6 jurisdictions have recognized the importance of 

7 ensuring low sulfur levels in fuel. It is a reasonable 

8 and necessary standard for the U.S. as well. 

9 In conclusion, I'd like to add that we 

10 support the statement made by our trade association, 

11 Global Auto Makers, at the hearing in Philadelphia, and 

12 we'll work with them to develop detailed comments to 

13 the proposal. 

14 Thank you. 

15 MR. GRUNDLER: Thank you. 

16 Ms. Owen, proceed. 

17 MS. OWEN: Thank you and good morning. And 

18 thank you for holding the hearing and for letting me 

19 participate in this rulemaking for the clean gasoline 

20 and pipeline emission standard. 

21 My name is Lorena Owen. I'm a private 

22 citizen. I live in Winthrop Harbor right here in 
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1 Illinois, and I'm a member and a lead volunteer for the 

2 Sierra Club. I chair the Sierra Club's Beyond Coal 

3 campaign. The Beyond Coal is one of the -- one of 

4 Beyond Coal campaign's main objective is to replace 

5 dirty coal with clean energy. I got involved because I 

6 worry about the effects of air pollution on my 

7 community and my family. I lost a very dear friend to 

8 a lung ailment, and that really got me motivated to do 

9 more. 

10 Last year, together with friends and allies, 

11 we celebrated a hard-fought victory in Chicago when the 

12 two coal plants located within the city limits retired 

13 and thousands of tons of pollutants will no longer be 

14 emitted into neighborhoods. However, as important as 

15 this was, stationary sources are only part of the 

16 picture when it comes to air pollution. Tailpipe 

17 emissions from cars are also major contributors to 

18 ozone and particulate matter. 

19 On Saturday finally, the weather was nice 

20 enough to go biking, so we spiffed up our bikes, and my 

21 son and I went on our first of the year shakedown 

22 cruise. There's a bike trail we like. You meet all 
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1 kinds of people -- bikers, runners, moms with 

2 strollers, dog walkers, kids on roller blades, 

3 families, and the occasional real athletic person. We 

4 all make room for him. It's a very friendly place. We 

5 all say hello to each other. This trail runs north and 

6 south for miles. 

7 I live in Lake County. Kenosha County in 

8 Wisconsin is just to the north, and Cook County where 

9 we're in right now is south of there. All three 

10 counties got failing grades for air quality from the 

11 American Lung Association in its 2013 "State of the Air 

12 Report." Big fat Fs. I can't escape that air 

13 pollution. 

14 Our communities are paying for the cost of 

15 air pollution. One in three Americans live where the 

16 air is sometimes dangerous or even deadly to breathe. 

17 I am one of them, so are all the people in my family, 

18 and my town, and my county, and the counties next to 

19 me. And it's time to do something about that. 

20 EPA has acted before on gasoline and diesel 

21 emissions that threaten public health. Among other 

22 things, EPA took action in 1970s on lead, and in 2000s 
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1 on sulfur and diesel. Unfortunately it seems that big 

2 oil is opposed -- often opposed to anything that would 

3 make them clean up their act. 

4 The proposed new standards are cost 

5 effective, it's achievable today, and other countries 

6 are already doing it. No wonder it has broad-based 

7 support. EPA has the authority under the Clean Air Act 

8 to issue Tier 3 cleanup pipeline and gasoline 

9 standards, and I urge you to do your job and to 

10 finalize a strong standard as soon as possible. 

11 And thank you again for the opportunity to 

12 talk to you. 

13 MR. GRUNDLER: Thank you for coming. 

14 Dr. Kubsh? 

15 DR. KUBSH: Good morning. 

16 MR. GRUNDLER: Good morning. 

17 DR. KUBSH: My name is Dr. Joe Kubsh. I'm 

18 the Executive Director of the Manufacturers of Emission 

19 Controls Association, a non-profit association of the 

20 world's leading manufacturers of emission control 

21 technology for mobile sources. And I'm pleased to 

22 provide comments in support of EPA's proposed Tier 3 
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1 proposal this morning. These proposals, when 

2 finalized, will reset the bar for state-of-the-art 

3 exhaust and evaporative emission controls for light 

4 duty vehicles through 2025. 

5 MECA agrees with EPA staff's assessment that 

6 achieving the proposed Tier 3 standards and associated 

7 emission reductions are both technically feasible and 

8 cost-effective. This fact is clearly demonstrated by 

9 more than two million super ultra-low emission vehicle 

10 and partial zero emission vehicles that have been sold 

11 in the U.S. market since these near-zero emission, 

12 gasoline vehicles were first introduced more than 10 

13 years ago. 

14 This technology base of advanced three-way 

15 catalysts, exhaust hydrocarbon adsorber materials, high 

16 cell density substrates, emission system thermal 

17 management strategies, secondary air injection systems, 

18 advanced carbon canisters, advanced low fuel permeation 

19 materials, and air intake hydrocarbon adsorber 

20 materials that have already been commercialized for a 

21 variety of PZEV gasoline vehicle applications can be 

22 extended and further optimized to allow all light duty 
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1 vehicles to achieve the Tier 3 proposals put forward by 

2 EPA. 

3 In addition, advanced diesel emission control 

4 technologies, including diesel particulate filters, 

5 lean NOx adsorber catalysts, and selective catalytic 

6 reduction catalysts will be combined with future, 

7 advanced diesel engines to allow light duty diesel 

8 vehicles to comply with these same standards. 

9 A critically important element to ensuring 

10 that future gasoline vehicles will be able to comply 

11 with EPA's proposed Tier 3 emission limits is the 

12 proposal for the reduction of gasoline fuel sulfur 

13 levels to a 10 ppm national average starting in 2017. 

14 Numerous published studies have documented fuel sulfur15 related deactivation of three-way catalysts that are 

16 used on gasoline vehicles here in the United States and 

17 around the world. 

18 EPA has released a thorough and well-designed 

19 sulfur effects study on 81 in-use Tier 2 light duty 

20 vehicles that clearly shows significant reductions in 

21 criteria pollutants in comparing emissions performance 

22 on gasoline with 28 ppm sulfur versus 5 ppm sulfur. 
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1 Work authored by Umicore in a 2011 Society of 

2 Automotive Engineers technical paper shows similar 

3 significant emission benefits on a 2009 model year PZEV 

4 vehicle operated with 3 ppm sulfur gasoline versus 33 

5 ppm sulfur gasoline. 

6 In a MECA study published in a 2007 SAE 

7 paper, an advanced three-way catalyst system installed 

8 on a large 2006 V8 powered SUV showed clear evidence of 

9 sulfur deactivation in successive FTP testing with aged 

10 catalysts using 17 ppm sulfur gasoline. FTP emissions 

11 for this full size SUV started at the proposed Tier 3, 

12 Bin 50 levels and increased to slightly above proposed 

13 Bin 70 levels by the third FTP test, an emissions 

14 increase of more than 80 percent over just three FTP 

15 tests. 

16 Sulfur deactivation of three-way catalysts 

17 negatively impacts the active precious metal catalysts, 

18 oxygen storage materials, and other activity promoters 

19 found in these sophisticated catalysts. The coverage 

20 and negative impacts of sulfur poisons on a three-way 

21 catalyst depends, in part, on the temperature history 

22 of the catalytic converter found on the vehicle. 
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1 Exhaust temperatures are expected to cool in 

2 the future as manufacturers reduce vehicle waste heat 

3 to meet future vehicle fuel efficiency and greenhouse 

4 gas standards. These cooler converter operating 

5 temperatures cause catalysts to accumulate higher 

6 amounts of sulfur poisons with today's gasoline sulfur 

7 levels, resulting in higher tailpipe emissions. 

8 Ultra-low gasoline sulfur levels of 10 ppm on 

9 average are needed to ensure that manufacturers will be 

10 able to meet proposed Tier 3, Bin 30 fleet average 

11 emission standards over their 150,000 mile useful life, 

12 for the full range of light duty vehicles that 

13 consumers wish to buy and manufacturers want to 

14 produce. 

15 MECA believes that advanced emission control 

16 systems have a critically important role in future 

17 policies that aim to reduce mobile source criteria 

18 pollutant and greenhouse gas emissions, and we strongly 

19 supports EPA's Tier 3 emission proposal. 

20 Thank you. 

21 MR. GRUNDLER: Thank you, Dr. Kubsh. 

22 Mr. Urbaszewski, welcome. 
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1 MR. URBASZEWSKI: Thank you. My name is 

2 Brian Urbaszewski, and I'm the Director of 

3 Environmental Health Programs for Respiratory Health 

4 Association. RHA has been a public health leader in 

5 metropolitan Chicago since 1906, and today we address 

6 asthma, COPD, lung cancer, tobacco control, and air 

7 quality with a comprehensive approach involving 

8 research, education, and advocacy activities. I'm here 

9 today to speak in favor of finalizing the strongest 

10 possible Tier 3 standards and to drastically reduce 

11 smog-forming intoxicant emissions from gasoline-powered 

12 vehicles. 

13 It's been well over a decade since the last 

14 Federal standard, Tier 2, was set, and the technology 

15 to comply with the strong updated Tier 3 standard 

16 already exists. 

17 Smog pollution generated by vehicles affects 

18 people with lung disease. Ozone triggers asthma 

19 attacks. It increases breathing difficulties for 

20 people living with COPD. And both of these situations 

21 can result in emergency room visits and 

22 hospitalizations. Air toxics cause lung cancer, and 
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1 the five-year survivability rate is still around 15 

2 percent. To say that another way, most people who get 

3 a diagnosis for lung cancer are dead within five years. 

4 Anyone who has trouble breathing or has 

5 limited lung capacity will benefit from cleaner, less 

6 polluted air. Now, the ozone standard was updated and 

7 tightened in early 2008, yet EPA's own scientific 

8 advisors strongly objected to the way the standard was 

9 set. They rightly pointed out that the standard was 

10 illogically set higher than the range of values set 

11 forth in their recommendation, even though their 

12 directive was justified by the collected science used 

13 in the official review process. The ozone standard was 

14 set by ignoring the very scientific and medical experts 

15 EPA relied on for advice to ensure a protected health 

16 standard is chosen. 

17 Today the current ozone standard is still not 

18 in line with those recommendations made years ago. It 

19 is disappointing that this situation remains 

20 unresolved, and we urge that it be fixed as soon as 

21 possible to preserve Americans' health and well-being, 

22 as well as to restore integrity to the process. 
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1 Despite this, the Tier 3 rule will help 

2 achieve the drastic ozone reductions still needed to 

3 achieve the current inadequate ozone standard. A 

4 strong Tier 3 standard will also be extremely helpful 

5 in meeting an ozone standard based on science that the 

6 EPA should establish later this year. 

7 As the ozone standard still isn't correctly 

8 set, the reality is that the number is certainly higher 

9 than the 158 million people EPA says are exposed to 

10 unhealthy levels of air pollution. Far too many people 

11 do not even know that their air is not meeting 

12 standards that will protect their health. 

13 Lung disease is also growing. The CDC says 

14 that five million more people have asthma than a decade 

15 ago. It was about one in 14 nationally. Now it's 

16 about one in 12. They also noted that the asthma rate 

17 for African-American children rose from one in nine to 

18 one in six, a 50 percent increase in a decade. In an 

19 urban area like Chicago, which has a very sizable 

20 African-American population, and still fails to meet 

21 air quality standards, we desperately need Tier 3 

22 standards. 
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1 This is not just a problem African-Americans 

2 face either. It's also not just a big city phenomenon. 

3 Local county health departments have found much higher 

4 children's asthma rates in places a fraction the size 

5 of Chicago, as high as one in six where the population 

6 is a mix of Latino, African, and European ancestry. 

7 At the same, COPD has recently gone from the 

8 fourth to the third leading cause of death in America, 

9 and unlike cancer and heart disease, it's still 

10 growing. Nationally it's over 15 million people who 

11 are diagnosed, but it may be double that. 

12 At the present time, we don't enjoy the air 

13 quality benefits of tighter California car standards 

14 here in Illinois or in the Midwest, and there is no 

15 reason why people in the Midwest should be treated like 

16 second class citizens when it comes to air quality. 

17 While the EPA finalized greenhouse gas standards last 

18 year, we're still waiting on final standards that will 

19 reduce the immediate health effects triggered by non20 greenhouse gas pollutants. 

21 Harmonizing Federal standards with California 

22 vehicle emission standards will bring deserved and 
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1 equitable relief from local pollution beginning in 

2 2017. Late is better than never, and the proposed Tier 

3 3 rules uses a smart systems approach that treats fuel 

4 and the engine as intertwined. It is the most cost5 effective way to tackle the problem posed by the 

6 emissions for millions of vehicles, and it will improve 

7 the lives and health of people living with or who face 

8 increased risk of lung disease. We need EPA to 

9 finalize the strongest Tier 3 standards possible. 

10 And I'm reserving the prerogative to submit 

11 further comments in writing. Thank you very much. 

12 MR. GRUNDLER: Thank you. 

13 Ms. Bugel. 

14 MS. BUGEL: Hi there. My name is Faith 

15 Bugel, and I am a senior attorney with Environmental 

16 Law and Policy Center. I work on our clean air 

17 program. I want to thank you for the opportunity to 

18 testify today. I and ELPC have worked on local air 

19 quality in the City of Chicago for 12 years. We are 

20 concerned about pollution from motor vehicles that can 

21 be addressed by the Tier 3 standards. 

22 One of the reasons we're concerned about 
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1 pollution is the impact on local air quality, and in 

2 turn, the impact that pollution has on health. We are 

3 concerned about children, elderly, and those with 

4 respiratory disease who live in the City of Chicago, 

5 and as well as surrounding areas, and the areas that 

6 are designated as non-attainment. 

7 Personally I live in Chicago as well, and I'm 

8 raising three young kids in the City of Chicago. We're 

9 concerned about the impact that pollution has on 

10 children with developing lungs, and I personally am 

11 concerned about the impact that has on my own children. 

12 I understand that asthma rates are higher in urban 

13 areas, that asthma in Chicago is a concern, especially 

14 in some of our densely-populated minority 

15 neighborhoods, and that those rates are extraordinarily 

16 high compared to national rates. 

17 ELPC supports the Tier 3 standards. And like 

18 other people you've heard from today, we support the 

19 most stringent standards possible. I've spent 12 years 

20 working on local air quality in Chicago, and spent much 

21 of that time addressing pollution from stationary 

22 sources. However, I have seen in that work that there 
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1 is a limit to how far we can we push our stationary 

2 sources. 

3 There are diminishing returns that we're 

4 seeing from tighter permits for stationary sources, and 

5 there is a desperate need to address pollution from 

6 mobile sources. 

7 Cars and trucks are one of the largest 

8 sources of pollution that causes smog. In fact, they 

9 are the second largest source. It is urgent that we 

10 now take steps to make reductions in pollution from 

11 mobile sources, and the Tier 3 standards are an 

12 important step in that direction. 

13 In reducing the sulfur content from 30 parts 

14 per million to 10 parts per million, that is a critical 

15 step to improving air quality. And we know that that 

16 standard is achievable because it is being met in 

17 California, Europe, and Japan. 

18 In the last years -- the many years that I've 

19 worked on air pollution, every time that the EPA comes 

20 with a tighter standard, we always hear the same 

21 response from industry. We hear that it can't be done. 

22 We hear that it will put people out of business. We 
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1 hear the threat of job loss. We hear that it's 

2 impossible, that it is economically infeasible and not 

3 achievable. Over and over again that has been proven 

4 to be a cry that the sky is falling, and, in fact, that 

5 these standards are achievable and are feasible. 

6 In sum, these -- we would urge you to pass 

7 the strongest standards possible and that there will be 

8 lives saved, improved health, and improved air quality, 

9 and that is a benefit that far outweighs the cost. 

10 Thank you. 

11 MR. GRUNDLER: Thank you. 

12 Mr. Cogan? 

13 MR. COGAN: Thank you. 

14 MR. GRUNDLER: Welcome. 

15 MR. COGAN: Good morning. My name is Richard 

16 Cogan. I'm the owner and CEO of a company here in 

17 Chicago called Textile Industries, Incorporated. We 

18 are manufacturers and distributors of secondary dust 

19 collector bags and dust collector cartridges used in 

20 many industries to mitigate air pollution. 

21 This is the third time I have testified 

22 before the EPA at these hearings in the past three 
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1 years. I would like to thank the EPA panel for 

2 allowing me to testify. 

3 Though I don't have anything to do directly 

4 with tailpipe emissions other than the fact that I am a 

5 new owner of a Tesla Model S 100 percent electric car, 

6 which produces no tailpipe emissions, I do have some 

7 knowledge on the overall subject of air pollution about 

8 which I would like to comment. 

9 I am admittedly not a scientist or an expert 

10 on sequestration of greenhouse gases, but due to my 

11 profession, I am required to keep myself apprised of 

12 all tings having to do with our environment. As such, 

13 I can say with some confidence that there is enough 

14 scientific evidence now to show that air pollution, and 

15 especially greenhouse gases, are mainly responsible for 

16 global warming, also known as climate change, in the 

17 world we currently live in. And this is the only world 

18 we've got. 

19 Some scientific evidence indicates that we 

20 have perhaps already passed a tipping point beyond 

21 which we cannot prevent the domino effect of increased 

22 greenhouse gases being released from beneath the ocean 
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1 bottoms in the form of methane, which is worse even 

2 than the CO2 which has been primarily responsible for 

3 climate change until now. 

4 About four or five years ago, the Discovery 

5 Channel ran a series on how to mitigate and sequester 

6 carbon dioxide, and some solutions were proposed, all 

7 of which would require billions or perhaps trillions of 

8 dollars of investment to have a chance of working. 

9 Though we now know of some actions which would work to 

10 mitigate CO2 emissions, as far as I'm aware, nothing is 

11 being done to do so yet, and the clock is ticking. 

12 The world, meaning all of us, including our 

13 politicians, continues to talk about it, but little 

14 except talk is being done. Meanwhile, as I've said 

15 before at these hearings, the greenhouse gases that are 

16 being released into our atmosphere are leading to a 

17 runaway greenhouse catastrophe. We need only to look 

18 at our sister planet, Venus, to know what that means. 

19 An atmosphere of sulfur dioxide methane carbon dioxide, 

20 none of which will support life as we know it, and 

21 surface temperatures of around 900 degrees Fahrenheit. 

22 Scientists are finding some promising ways to 
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1 deal with our climate problems, such as finding 

2 microbes that love to feast on methane. But unless we 

3 actually start to develop these new-found technologies, 

4 our planet will continue to spiral down the same road 

5 that Venus has already taken. 

6 Meanwhile, our oil and gas companies continue 

7 to find ways to produce more oil, natural gas through 

8 fracking, and so-called clean coal technologies, which 

9 would be so expensive to initiate as to be basically 

10 unaffordable. I'm not here to debate whether fracking 

11 is safe or not or whether microbes will eat our 

12 greenhouse gas problems away. I merely want to point 

13 out that continuing to produce more and more so-called 

14 fossil fuels is not the way to a cleaner air future. 

15 These fossil fuels will only continue to exacerbate the 

16 climate change problem. 

17 The only way out is to develop and promote 

18 clean renewable energy technologies, electric vehicles, 

19 and other technologies that will mitigate the problem 

20 we currently face from global warming and climate 

21 change, whatever they might be. 

22 More wind power, solar energy which holds the 
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1 most and best promise waive power from our oceans, 

2 mitigation and sequestration of CO2, methane, other 

3 greenhouse gases, and development of new and better 

4 battery technologies for development of all kinds of 

5 electric vehicles that produce no tailpipe emissions, 

6 and other technologies to overcome the damage we've 

7 already done in terms of air pollution, water 

8 pollution, deforestation, and the mountains of garbage 

9 that leak toxins and heavy metals into our environment, 

10 our ground water, our food streams, and plant and 

11 animal life all over our planet. 

12 If we continue along our current path without 

13 development of the things I've just mentioned, we are 

14 leaving an intolerable future as our legacy for our 

15 children, grandchildren, and future generations to 

16 come. There will be no future at all for them as we 

17 will have poisoned their world to a point where it will 

18 be unlivable. We are poisoning the future of our 

19 progeny. 

20 The time to act is now. We no longer have 

21 the luxury of continued discussion and debate. We must 

22 stop the continued development of fossil fuels and 
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1 encourage development of clean, renewable energy 

2 solutions now. 

3 Thank you for your time and attention. 

4 MR. GRUNDLER: Thank you, Mr. Cogan. 

5 Mr. Barrett? 

6 MR. BARRETT: Thank you for your time. These 

7 are my two boys up here, Joaquin and Wilhelm. And as 

8 nervous as I am talking, this is for them. I wanted to 

9 be here as a voice for them. 

10 I drove here today, followed behind a school 

11 bus, then followed behind 75,000 other vehicles to get 

12 here. On such a nice day with my windows down, how 

13 many pollutants did I breathe alone? 

14 My two boys are three and eight years old. 

15 Right now they're in school. The school that they 

16 attend is very close to a leather company that emits 

17 ammonia into the air every year. They're also close to 

18 a specialty steel company that as far as pollution 

19 goes, emits little as far as for a steel company, but 

20 still emits and taints just the smell in the air. 

21 On a warm day, my boys at their school will 

22 come out and be hit in the face with the smell of a 
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1 mixture of the steel, a mixture of the tannery with the 

2 raw carcasses being tanned in the air, and then also 

3 the cars that idle around to pick up their kids from 

4 school. So when you have a mixture like that, it's 

5 tough to not understand why they ask questions, such 

6 as, what's that smell? And I wish I could really tell 

7 them what that smell is, but I don't know everything 

8 about it. I tell them it's pollution, but even for an 

9 eight-year-old, he knows there's something more than 

10 just that. 

11 I sometimes drive the kids in the car -- as a 

12 stay-at-home dad, I'll drive the kids in the car, and 

13 we'll get stopped behind a bus. And if everybody has 

14 ever been on 290 or 94 in the summer in traffic, and 

15 the kids want to have the wind and the breeze in their 

16 hair knows that you can't do that because of a bus in 

17 front of us, or, you know, some of these CDL trucks in 

18 front of us emitting all these fumes. 

19 And so I decide, well, I'll roll up the 

20 windows and I'll turn on the air. But the smell is 

21 still there. And I don't know what they're breathing 

22 in, and we are gasping because my eight-year-old has an 
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1 activity asthma. He has to have an inhaler sometimes, 

2 especially in the summer time is when it really flares 

3 up. 

4 It's rather tough for me because he reads at 

5 a ninth grade level, and he's only in third grade, and 

6 I want to see him go to college. And he's gifted at 

7 skateboarding, and he's gifted at riding his bike and 

8 everything else. But he wants to be outside, and my 

9 boys light up when they're outside, more than playing a 

10 video game, even though they'd rather do that 

11 sometimes. 

12 But they love to go to North Park Nature 

13 Center and see the deer, and sometimes we'll go to the 

14 Lake Front where I used to train for the marathon of 

15 2010, and where they'll be able to see the dog park and 

16 all the dogs running around, and they feel the breeze. 

17 And for the kids, they don't want to have to think 

18 about this, and as a parent, we have to. 

19 And so, you know, I want to wrap it up by 

20 saying I'm sure that my children will ask me one day, 

21 because being inquisitive Montessori educated kids, 

22 they'll ask me, Daddy, what did people do in 2013 to 
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1 improve our air? And I really hope I can answer them, 

2 "everything we could." Thank you. 

3 MR. GRUNDLER: Thank you very much for those 

4 comments. 

5 Any clarifying questions for this panel? 

6 [No response.] 

7 MR. GRUNDLER: Thank you again. 

8 In order to provide a little bit more elbow 

9 room, we're going to do the next panel in two parts. 

10 First, I'll invite several presenters up. I'll read 

11 your names, and then after they're excused, if there 

12 are no questions, I'll invite several local members of 

13 the Sierra Club to the table. 

14 So would Julie Becker, Dean Schraufnagel, 

15 Mike Leister, Mike Kolleng, Barbara Klipp, William 

16 Woebkenberg, and Christopher Miller please come up to 

17 the table? 

18 After these folks have testified, Lisa 

19 Stracks, Erik Malone, and Carol Schneider are welcome 

20 to come up and provide their testimony. 

21 Ms. Becker, why don't you begin? 

22 MS. BECKER: Good morning. My name is Julie 
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1 Becker. I'm Vice President for Environment at the 

2 Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers, an association 

3 representing 12 vehicle manufacturers that make 

4 approximately 75 percent of the new cars sold in the 

5 United States. 

6 I want to thank EPA for holding this hearing 

7 and for the many hours it spent meeting with autos and 

8 other stakeholders so that we could all better 

9 understand this very complex rulemaking. 

10 We appreciate the fact that EPA is working 

11 here to achieve One National Program so that a vehicle 

12 can be tested once, certified once, and sold 

13 everywhere. EPA's proposal would ensure needed fuel 

14 quality to enable both near-zero emissions for new 

15 vehicles, and reduce emissions from all vehicles 

16 already on the road today. 

17 These rules are challenging. They require 

18 large investment. According to EPA, auto makers will 

19 spend about $15 billion in just 10 years to meet the 

20 requirements of the proposed rule, effectively removing 

21 tailpipe emissions from the environmental equation. 

22 According to EPA, also this rule, combined 
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1 with the fuel economy and greenhouse gas program would 

2 bring the auto industry's investment on vehicle 

3 emission reduction programs through 2025 to more than 

4 $216 billion. That's 100 times the investment that the 

5 oil industry is being asked to make today to help 

6 reduce vehicle emissions. 

7 So why do auto makers support this proposal? 

8 Well, Tier 3 brings us a harmonized approach. It 

9 builds upon the successes we've had in the national 

10 greenhouse gas and fuel economy programs, and it stays 

11 true to the simple principle of providing the cleanest 

12 vehicles to everyone nationally. It provides the fuels 

13 needed to meet these standards. 

14 EPA acknowledges that reducing the sulfur 

15 content of gasoline to a 10 part per million average is 

16 a hugely important component of this proposed rule, and 

17 we agree. We know that sulfur inhibits the catalytic 

18 converter's ability to reduce vehicle emissions, and 

19 lower sulfur fuels at the pump means fewer exhaust 

20 emissions in the air. But further, sulfur reductions 

21 in market fuels produce day one benefits. 

22 So while it will take a couple of decades for 
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1 the current fleet to be replaced by vehicles with 

2 tighter emission controls, reducing sulfur at the pump 

3 will immediately reduce emissions from every gasoline 

4 powered vehicle on the road today, no matter how old. 

5 On the CAFE and greenhouse gas front, EPA has 

6 repeatedly said that it expects that the majority of 

7 greenhouse gas reductions and corresponding fuel 

8 economy increases will come from advancements in the 

9 gasoline internal combustion engines, and that cleaner 

10 fuels are needed to facilitate lean burn technology, 

11 which is a pathway toward more fuel efficient gasoline 

12 internal combustion engines. To meet the challenging 

13 CAFE and greenhouse gas standards, auto makers will 

14 need to have every tool in the toolbox available, 

15 including lean burn. 

16 One final point on sulfur, something several 

17 people have pointed out today, is that we have fallen 

18 behind other countries. The proposed rule would help 

19 Americans to get the gasoline with sulfur limits 

20 approaching a 10 part per million cap on retail fuel 

21 sulfur that's already in place in Europe and Asia. 

22 For years, the auto industry has worked hard 
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1 to provide consumers with cleaner vehicles and with 

2 terrific results. We know that already we've reduced 

3 smog-forming emissions from light duty vehicles by 99 

4 percent, and that EPA's proposed rule would seek to cut 

5 the remaining emissions by about 70 percent. But as 

6 EPA explains, this ambitious goal requires both 

7 advanced catalytic converters and ultra-low sulfur 

8 fuels. 

9 While much progress has been made, even more 

10 could be done to harmonize with California on vehicle 

11 emission requirements to harmonize, the certification 

12 fuels, and to improve vehicle -- improve fuel quality. 

13 The Alliance intends to respond to this long and 

14 complex proposal with detailed written comments that we 

15 hope you will find very constructive and specific. 

16 But our key message today is this: EPA 

17 should continue treating vehicles and their fuels as a 

18 system so that our clean vehicles can have the clean 

19 fuels they need. Thank you very much. 

20 MR. GRUNDLER: Thank you. 

21 Mr. Schraufnagel, welcome. 

22 DR. SCHRAUFNAGEL: Hello. I'm Dr. Dean 
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1 Schraufnagel. I'm a pulmonary and critical care 

2 physician at the University of Illinois, and I'm 

3 speaking on behalf of the American Thoracic Society, 

4 professional medical organization of over 15,000 

5 physicians, researchers, and allied health 

6 professionals dedicated to the prevention, detection, 

7 treatment, and cure of respiratory, sleep, and critical 

8 illnesses through research, education, and advocacy. 

9 There is abundant research demonstrating that 

10 air pollution is bad for your health. Numerous studies 

11 -- chamber studies have convincingly shown that 

12 exposure to air pollution reduce pulmonary function and 

13 promote airway inflammation. Epidemiologic studies 

14 have linked air pollution to a whole host of adverse 

15 health consequences, including cardiac deaths, 

16 respiratory deaths, heart attacks, vascular remodeling, 

17 COPD exacerbations, asthma exacerbations, and low birth 

18 weights. 

19 What is most impressive about the scientific 

20 literature regarding air pollution is that it is 

21 comprehensive, with literally hundreds of studies 

22 documenting that air pollution in its various forms is 
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1 bad for health. The research is consistent. Over 

2 decades, researchers have been able to apply improved 

3 research technologies to document the health effects of 

4 air pollution at consistently smaller doses. 

5 Coal and oil-fired power plants are a 

6 significant source of air pollution in the United 

7 States, and U.S. coal-fired power plants emit a complex 

8 mixture of air pollutants, including acid gases, heavy 

9 metals, and particulate matter. Additionally the 

10 pollutants emitted from their smoke stack are 

11 precursors for additional pollutants such as ozone and 

12 PM2.5. Pollution from power plants has an immediate 

13 health impact on the nearby community as well as 

14 sending pollution to downwind communities. 

15 The American Thoracic Society supports EPA's 

16 proposed rule to reduce air toxic emissions from coal17 fired and oil-fired power plants. The proposed rule, 

18 if and when implemented, will have a significant 

19 positive impact on our Nation's health. The rule will 

20 require all coal and oil-fired power plants to install 

21 pollution control equipment to reduce air pollution 

22 emissions. 
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1 It is encouraging that over half of the coal2 fired power plants has already taken responsible -- 

3 have already taken responsible action and installed 

4 equipment that meets the standard of the proposed rule. 

5 It is our hope that with urging of the EPA rule, the 

6 remaining power plants will follow the action of their 

7 industry partners and install readily available 

8 pollution control technology. 

9 Reducing air pollution has significant 

10 benefits -- health benefits for the United States. 

11 When implemented, the air toxic rule would prevent 

12 17,000 premature deaths and 11,000 heart attacks. The 

13 rule will also protect the Americans -- the health of 

14 America's children by avoiding 120,000 cases of asthma 

15 symptoms, 11,000 cases of acute bronchitis, and 12,000 

16 emergency room and hospital visits each year. 

17 In conclusion, the dangers that exposure to 

18 air pollution is real. The science documenting the 

19 adverse health effects of air pollution is conclusive. 

20 The technology required to reduce air pollution is 

21 readily available and in use today. And the benefits 

22 of the rule are meaningful and significant. For all 
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1 these reasons, the American Thoracic Society strongly 

2 supports the proposed air toxic rule. 

3 Thank you. 

4 MR. GRUNDLER: Thank you. 

5 Mr. Woebkenberg? 

6 MR. WOEBKENBERG: Good morning. My name is 

7 Bill Woebkenberg, and I'm responsible for Fuels, 

8 Technical, and Regulatory Affairs in the U.S. for 

9 Mercedes-Benz Research and Development, North America, 

10 which is an indirect, wholly-owned subsidiary of 

11 Daimler AG, the global manufacturer of Mercedes-Benz 

12 vehicles, and the leader in clean, efficient vehicle 

13 technology in the U.S. and the world. 

14 Our product portfolio includes a full range 

15 of vehicles equipped with BlueEFFICIENCY gasoline and 

16 gasoline hybrid power trains, BlueTEC clean diesels, 

17 and an F-CELL hydrogen powered fuel cell vehicle in 

18 California. 

19 Mercedes-Benz thanks the EPA, and especially 

20 Chris Grundler and his staff, for the time and 

21 dedication in the creation of this rulemaking. 

22 Additionally, Mercedes-Benz wishes to acknowledge the 
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1 effort required for the EPA to include automobile 

2 manufacturers as stakeholders in the formation of this 

3 proposal. Treating the fuel as a part of the system in 

4 the total criteria emissions, greenhouse gas reduction 

5 is an important acknowledgement by the EPA that 

6 improvements proposed by Tier 3 rulemaking are possible 

7 when all contributing factors are examined and 

8 optimized. 

9 Sulfur reduction is one such factor in which 

10 Mercedes-Benz supports the EPA's incorporation of a 10 

11 ppm annual average for gasoline in the Tier 3 proposal. 

12 This advancement in fuel quality will immediately 

13 benefit the existing vehicles on the road by improving 

14 the function of catalytic converters and decreasing the 

15 formation of smog-producing pollutants. 

16 In 2006, Mercedes-Benz first capitalized on 

17 the value of low sulfur gasoline and the reduction to 

18 fuel consumption that enables what they introduced in 

19 the EU, the CLS 350 CGI, which is equipped with 

20 stratified lean burn combustion. Depending on the 

21 driving mode, engine speed, and load, gains in fuel 

22 efficiency can range between five to 15 percent as 
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1 compared to conventional stoichiometric combustion. 

2 Incorporation of this technology in the EU is enabled 

3 by a 10 ppm refinery limit in comparison to the 10 ppm 

4 annual average in the U.S. as proposed in the Tier 3 

5 rulemaking. Lean burn combustion, among those 

6 technologies necessary to accomplish a nearly 50 

7 percent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions, requires 

8 low sulfur gasoline for peak efficiency. 

9 Fuel efficiency gains and CO2 reductions of 

10 this magnitude required by the greenhouse gas mandate 

11 and enabled by lean burn combustion illustrate the 

12 importance of this technology and the universal 

13 availability of low sulfur gasoline in the U.S. to the 

14 Daimler Greenhouse Gas Compliance Plan. 

15 But sulfur reduction is not a lean burn 

16 discussion. Even existing power trained architectures, 

17 including downsized turbo charged gasoline direct 

18 injected engines, would also benefit from reduced 

19 sulfur in fuel since no longer would a portion of the 

20 fuel savings realized need to be expended by 

21 periodically burning off accumulated sulfur deposits to 

22 maintain the optimum effectiveness of exhaust after 
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1 treatment systems. 

2 Additionally, prior Tier 3 public hearing 

3 testimony highlights the fact that power train 

4 technologies, which increase fuel efficiency, result in 

5 cooler exhaust gas temperatures, which facilitate 

6 sulfur deposition and inhibit as burn off. The effect 

7 of low sulfur fuel on the current fleet is immediate 

8 and enduring. No other single step can provide both 

9 retroactive and future benefits in criteria and 

10 emissions in greenhouse gas reduction. 

11 Looking forward, there are other significant 

12 elements regarding the future fuels and ultimately 

13 engine design, which can have a large impact on 

14 greenhouse gas compliance. The unprecedented increase 

15 in CAFE standards and the associated greenhouse gas 

16 requirements are driving a dramatic reduction or 

17 downsizing in engine size and the number of cylinders. 

18 One aspect not being reduced is the customer 

19 expectation of performance, even in the wake of 

20 regulations mandating improved fuel economy. Thus, 

21 another key enabler in reducing the greenhouse gas 

22 contributions while maintaining performance is 
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1 increased octane and gasoline. 

2 Octane is the single most property of 

3 gasoline when determining engine design. Higher octane 

4 fuels permit higher compression ratios, which directly 

5 improve efficiency. Downsizing engines also results in 

6 greater fuel efficiency. The optimized combination of 

7 these two actions with gasoline direct injection 

8 provides remarkable gain in fuel economy, but requires 

9 high octane market fuel, higher octane than is 

10 available today. 

11 Additionally, higher octane traditionally 

12 provided through selective petroleum refining and 

13 blending can also be further increased through the 

14 addition of ethanol in blends greater than 20 percent 

15 by volume. This powerful fuel enjoys both reduced 

16 carbon intensity as well as the renewable aspects of 

17 ethanol. 

18 A vehicle equipped with a power train which 

19 is optimized for a high octane, mid-blend ethanol fuel 

20 can simultaneously fulfill what the customer desires, 

21 performance and economy, while reducing the 

22 environmental impact. In fact, Mercedes-Benz vehicle 
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1 offerings include those with E-25 capability in various 

2 global markets, and could introduce them to the U.S. 

3 market if regulatory and commercial conditions warrant. 

4 To summarize, the synergy of mid-blend 

5 ethanol and higher octane based fuel in the proposed 

6 rulemaking opens the door to far greater possibilities 

7 in greenhouse gas and criteria emission reduction. 

8 Mercedes-Benz fully supports these proposed changes in 

9 both certification and market fuel, and will provide 

10 detailed written comments containing specific 

11 recommendations to help advance this effort. 

12 Mercedes-Benz with its industry-leading fuel 

13 injection and engine technology will take full 

14 advantage of fuel economy and greenhouse gas reduction 

15 possibilities enabled by this opportunity. Thank you. 

16 MR. GRUNDLER: Thank you. 

17 Mr. Leister, welcome. 

18 MR. LEISTER: Thank you. Good morning. Can 

19 everybody hear me? My name is Mike Leister. I thank 

20 you for the opportunity to be heard today. I'm a 

21 Senior Fuels Policy Advisor for Marathon Petroleum 

22 Company. We're not a nationally known name, but we 
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1 have a very large refining capacity that accounts for 

2 about 10 percent of the Nation's gasoline and diesel. 

3 So we have a primary impact in this. 

4 My comments today aren't really on the rule 

5 -- the proposal itself, but the process that EPA is 

6 using in this rulemaking, and the fact that they've 

7 created a very unusual and unacceptably shortened 

8 comment period, which won't allow adequate public 

9 comment on the rule. And it's a rule that has 

10 significant impact on both my industry and the 

11 consumer. 

12 It's taken EPA at least two years to get to 

13 this point, and the administrative record right now 

14 reflects a very complex set of documents consisting of 

15 thousands of pages of text. EPA has chosen to hold 

16 only two field hearings on this proposal, one today and 

17 one last week, and unless they actually printed the 

18 proposal in the Federal Register today, we haven't got 

19 an official copy of the proposal yet. 

20 The two field hearings are occurring way too 

21 early, and simply stated, EPA has provided the 

22 stakeholders with insufficient time to analyze the 
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1 overwhelming quantity of data and documents offered in 

2 support of the Agency's proposed action. We are still 

3 searching the docket trying to find several key 

4 documents that EPA references in the draft regulatory 

5 impact analysis, and we have no assurance that the 

6 proposal we're working from is going to be the final 

7 proposal since each page has got a memo attached to it 

8 that says this is not an official version. 

9 The public and the regulated community should 

10 be allowed at least the typical 90 days to review and 

11 comment on any proposal, especially this proposal. And 

12 the EPA shouldn't shorten the process that it has 

13 historically used in developing the proposed rules. 

14 Affected parties deserve and should be 

15 granted adequate time to review the hundreds of 

16 documents that the Agency has placed in the docket in 

17 the last two weeks, and those that EPA is still placing 

18 in the docket. According to EPA -- or according to us, 

19 we recommend that EPA schedule a third hearing that's a 

20 minimum of 30 days after the publication of the 

21 Proposed Notice of Rulemaking in the Federal Register, 

22 and after all the documents are put in the docket. 
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1 This would allow all the interested parties to have 

2 time to review the entire proposal and documentation 

3 before combining their comments. 

4 Additionally, the comment period should not 

5 close sooner than 90 days after the rule is published 

6 in the Federal Register and all the documents are put 

7 in the docket. This is a significant rule, and it 

8 warrants and complete and thoughtful input from all the 

9 affected parties. 

10 We in our industry have gone to great lengths 

11 to try to understand the implications for our industry 

12 and for consumers in lowering sulfur levels to 10 ppm. 

13 As of last week, despite requests over the last two14 year period, the Agency still hasn't given us 

15 sufficient justification for lowering sulfur levels. 

16 We're now facing a forced march to comment based on a 

17 pre-publication announcement that simply references 

18 sources of justification that have just started to be 

19 placed in the docket. 

20 This absence of information and a truncated 

21 comment period basically fly in the face of the 

22 Administration's promise to have regulatory 
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1 transparency. Proceeding in this fashion may even be 

2 unlawful under the Administrative Procedures Act and 

3 the Clean Air Act. 

4 In summary, it's not reasonable, fair, or 

5 lawful for EPA to expect us to come up with an 

6 intelligible set of comments in such a short period of 

7 time to the complicated and incomplete regulatory 

8 package that EPA has provided. We ask that EPA proceed 

9 fairly, lawfully, and issue the entire proposal, all 

10 the background documents, publish the proposal in the 

11 Federal Register, and put all the other documents in 

12 the docket, and all stakeholders 30 days to prepare for 

13 a public hearing, and 90 days to enter all their 

14 comments. 

15 Thank you. 

16 MR. GRUNDLER: Thank you, Mr. Leister. 

17 Mr. Miller, welcome. 

18 MR. MILLER: Good morning. My name is Chris 

19 Miller. I am the Executive Director of the Advanced 

20 Engine Systems Institute. AESI is pleased to provide 

21 comments today in support of EPA's proposed Tier 3 

22 vehicle emissions and fuel standards. AESI represents 
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1 several emissions control manufacturers in an industry 

2 employing more than 65,000 people in the United States. 

3 I would like to extend our thanks and 

4 appreciation to EPA, and particularly to the OTAQ 

5 staff, and the Administration for their work in 

6 preparing and proposing this rule and to express our 

7 strong hope that the rule will be promulgated in final 

8 form by the end of this calendar year. 

9 The proposed Tier 3 integrated vehicle and 

10 fuel standards are essential for the Nation to continue 

11 making cost-effective progress in reducing the number 

12 of people in the U.S. living with poor air quality. 

13 The proposed standards will also help accelerate the 

14 nationwide adoption of efficiency technologies that 

15 will save consumers money on their fuel bills and 

16 improve our energy and environmental security. 

17 As MECA has pointed out, compliance with the 

18 proposed standards is both technically feasible and 

19 cost-effective. However, as automakers deploy new and 

20 increasingly more efficient engines that produce less 

21 waste heat, the catalysts and other emissions control 

22 devices that now depend on using that excess heat to 
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1 burn off damaging deposits will be significantly more 

2 vulnerable to sulfur poisoning and degradation, unless 

3 the amount of sulfur in fuel is simultaneously reduced 

4 to 10 parts per million or lower, as has been proposed. 

5 Unfortunately, as occurred during the debate 

6 on EPA's Tier 2 regulations, the petroleum industry is 

7 again opposing new requirements to reduce sulfur in 

8 transportation fuels. This is happening despite the 

9 significant pollution reduction benefits that would be 

10 achieved immediately from the use of lower sulfur fuel 

11 by the existing Tier 2 fleet, and those benefits that 

12 would result from phasing in Tier 3 starting in model 

13 year 2017. 

14 During the Tier 2 rulemaking process, 

15 petroleum industry executives predicted dire outcomes 

16 if that rule were to go into effect, including refinery 

17 closures, price spikes, and fuel shortages. Some 

18 stated it melodramatically, "For some refiners, EPA's 

19 proposed regulation will be the straw that broke the 

20 camel's back. Facilities will close and jobs will be 

21 lost." 

22 Since then, refining activity has remained 
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1 fairly constant, while shortages and price spikes 

2 driven by de-sulfurization requirements failed to 

3 materialize. In fact, an analysis done in late 2007 by 

4 experts from the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas found 

5 no discernible effect on gasoline prices of the fully 

6 phased in Tier 2 sulfur requirements. And studies show 

7 that Tier 2 benefits in ozone reduction alone far 

8 outweighed oil industry costs of implementation. 

9 For the proposed Tier 3 rule, the oil 

10 industry is again claiming that their costs of making 

11 sulfur reductions do not justify the benefits to the 

12 public's health and the economy. Yet the oil 

13 industry's most recent study for the Tier 3 proposal 

14 shows that no refineries will be closed or become 

15 uneconomic to operate, and it fails to accurately model 

16 the actual rule as proposed. 

17 Emissions control manufacturers have been 

18 working with auto makers, EPA, and the States for 

19 decades to continually improve the performance of 

20 catalysts and other devices to reduce mobile source's 

21 contribution to nonattainment. These reductions have 

22 permitted a substantial increase in vehicle miles 
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1 travelled over the same period, which has enhanced 

2 individuals' mobility options, sustained regional and 

3 national economic activity, and improved overall 

4 prospects for growth. 

5 My testimony for the record includes a 

6 graphic representing the dramatic reductions in vehicle 

7 emissions that has occurred as VMT has risen, and what 

8 could happen if Tier 3 does not move forward quickly. 

9 Despite this success, over 130 million 

10 Americans are still living in areas with unhealthy 

11 levels of ozone or particulate pollution. Poor air 

12 quality damages public health, the environment and our 

13 economy. Without further reducing vehicles' pollution 

14 footprint, many more areas in the Nation will face non15 attainment, or other sectors in those areas will have 

16 to make larger and much less cost-effective reductions. 

17 The proposed Tier 3 rule will continue 

18 progress in a sensible way that integrates fuels and 

19 vehicles, and takes advantage of the economies of scale 

20 in R& D and manufacturing by harmonizing the timing of 

21 implementation of vehicle and fuel requirements across 

22 the country. And the proposal will also deliver more 
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1 cost-effective pollution reductions, particularly of 

2 NOx, than can be obtained in most other sectors. 

3 If Tier 3 is further delayed and not 

4 completed by the end of this year, the national program 

5 will be out of sync with California and other States' 

6 programs and model year 2017, and perhaps even model 

7 year 2018. If the rule is not finalized soon, then 

8 other sectors will have to take urgent steps to make 

9 the necessary and less cost-effective reductions so 

10 States and areas can achieve their air quality goals, 

11 and mobile sources can continue to play their critical 

12 role in driving our economy forward and improving our 

13 quality of life. 

14 Thank you for the opportunity to talk. 

15 MR. GRUNDLER: Thank you. 

16 Mr. Kolleng, welcome. 

17 MR. KOLLENG: Good morning, and I'd just like 

18 to thank the panel for their work at the hearing today. 

19 I am Mike Kolleng, and I serve as the Manager 

20 of the Healthy Air Campaign for the American Lung 

21 Association in Illinois. I'm here today to speak on 

22 behalf of the nearly one and a half million in Illinois 
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1 who suffer from chronic lung disease, and the tens of 

2 millions more who fight for clean air and to protect 

3 the health. 

4 The American Lung Association has been 

5 fighting for lung health since 1904. And since the 

6 Clean Air Act was signed into law in 1963, the Lung 

7 Association has been fighting for the right for people 

8 to clean -- to breathe clean air. 

9 We thank the Environmental Protection Agency 

10 for its proposal of these long-awaited and much needed 

11 Tier 3 motor vehicle emissions and fuel standards, and 

12 we most strongly insist on the ground of public health 

13 and the people this will protect that the EPA finalize 

14 and adopt these standards before New Year's Day 2014. 

15 According to the American Lung Association's 

16 "State of the Air 2013 Report," released last week in 

17 Illinois, over six and a half million people, a little 

18 over 50 percent of the population, live in a county or 

19 metropolitan area, earning at least one F, or failing 

20 grade, for ozone, or daily, or annual fine particle 

21 pollution. Five and a half million of these live in 

22 one of two metro areas listed among the worst 25 in the 
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1 country for one or more of these pollutant measures. 

2 It's no coincidence that two of these areas in Cook 

3 County and Madison Counties are located at the 

4 convergence of multiple roadways and expressways. 

5 More than half of these populations also fall 

6 into at least one of the sensitive groups that 

7 researchers clearly recognize to be at risk from air 

8 pollution: infants, children, teens, and seniors, as 

9 well as people with chronic lung and cardiovascular 

10 disease, people with diabetes, and those living in 

11 poverty. These are people that are at special risk in 

12 our region. It is plain that they're among those most 

13 seriously at risk in the entire country. 

14 Anyone who lives in the metropolitan Chicago 

15 area and travels on one of its major roadways, whether 

16 it is the Dan Ryan, the Edens, the Eisenhower, or the 

17 Kennedy, can see the potential for negative impacts to 

18 public health caused by high volumes of vehicular 

19 travel and increased instances of congestion and 

20 traffic. 

21 The air pollution we're talking about 

22 controlling is not inconsiderable. In the national 
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1 inventory, about 20 percent of volatile organic 

2 compounds, a third of nitrogen oxides, and over half of 

3 carbon monoxide are emitted by single sector of highway 

4 vehicles. Yet we can make a serious dent in these 

5 large chunks. Adoption of the Tier 3 standards would 

6 be equivalent to taking nearly 33 million cars off of 

7 our roads nationally. 

8 Based upon the analysis of this month's other 

9 report issued by the American Lung Association, "A 

10 Penny for Prevention: The Case for Cleaner Gasoline 

11 and Vehicle Standards," that by the year 2030, 

12 implementation of Tier 3 standards would seriously 

13 prevent instances of premature deaths, respiratory 

14 related ER visits and hospitalizations, acute 

15 respiratory symptom days, including asthma attacks, and 

16 missed days of work or school, and would also save 

17 costs of perhaps over billions in health care annually. 

18 The American Lung Association has also been 

19 fighting to protect other standards, such as the ozone 

20 and particulate pollution standards. Recently the 

21 National Association of Clean Air Agencies also pointed 

22 out that the ability of States and localities to attain 
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1 these standards under 2008 ozone standard in the most 

2 other standards is tied directly to the timely 

3 promulgation and implementation of Tier 3. 

4 I would just like to ask the EPA to remember 

5 those millions of people already at risk, already 

6 living within pollution -- already living within large 

7 pollution areas protected only by standards that might 

8 not be adequate to the task. These people are real 

9 parents, real children, real neighbors, real friends, 

10 our co-workers, and our families, and these people 

11 deserve relief from pollution's burden of disease and 

12 death. 

13 A strong Tier 3 standard is clearly part of 

14 that solution, and it is urgent that you adopt this 

15 rule, implement it, and bring some much-needed relief. 

16 Thank you. 

17 MR. GRUNDLER: Thank you. 

18 Ms. Klipp, proceed. 

19 MS. KLIPP: Good morning. I am one of the 

20 people to which you refer who not only has respiratory 

21 health issues, but also lives in a county that recently 

22 received an F on the American Lung Association's 
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1 "Report Card." 

2 Thank you for the opportunity to allow me to 

3 testify today. My name is Barbara Klipp, and I'm 

4 speaking on behalf of incinerator free Lake County and 

5 our newly-formed non-profit Midwest Sustainability 

6 Group. We are a grass roots organization working on 

7 environmental health, quality of life issues, and 

8 issues of greater sustainability for current and future 

9 generations. We are testifying in support of the Tier 

10 3 vehicle and fuel standards, and echo the statements 

11 today from the Respiratory Health Association, American 

12 Lung Association, Sierra Club, and Environmental Law 

13 and Policy Center. 

14 We are based in Lake County, Illinois, which 

15 recently received an F, as I mentioned, on our "Air 

16 Quality Report Card" from the American Lung 

17 Association. We've also been in noncompliance for 

18 PM2.5 for a number of years, which is a direct result 

19 of sulfur, as you know. 

20 I'm also speaking today as Federal Lobby 

21 Chair for the Sierra Club for the State of Illinois. 

22 They say you find your life's calling by your 
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1 passions from your childhood, and I have a vivid 

2 recollection as a small child in the car with my mother 

3 of seeing the black exhaust coming out of cars and 

4 trucks and thinking how disgusting that was. So it's 

5 with a lifelong passion that I'm here today. 

6 I'm a professional flute player by trade. I 

7 studied with the Chicago Symphony Youth Orchestra. I 

8 studied in London with a world-renowned flute teacher, 

9 debuted as a flutist in a Kennedy Center recital in 

10 1997, a life-long non-smoker. And shortly after my 

11 debut, I developed respiratory issues and adult onset 

12 asthma. As you can imagine, this has severely impacted 

13 my career, and while I recognize that most people's 

14 careers do not depend on supreme respiratory function, 

15 there are many of us who do, including musicians and 

16 professional athletes. 

17 I'm also the mother of a child with childhood 

18 asthma, and I've watched her struggle to breath. As 

19 millions of Americans, I've had to miss work because of 

20 my own respiratory issues as well as those of my child. 

21 The impacts and consequences of air pollution are very 

22 real to me as they are to many people speaking today 
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1 and many people in our country. 

2 I'd also like to address the cost issues. 

3 When we're speaking to citizens and elected officials 

4 about the cost issues, we find that the externalities 

5 are very little understood. And we'd like to say that 

6 we're already paying these costs. We're paying these 

7 costs in terms of increased health care costs, 

8 increased health insurance and life insurance costs. 

9 So we feel we'd rather have clean and healthy air as a 

10 result of our costs. 

11 And lastly, in my role as the Federal Lobby 

12 Chair for the State of Illinois for Sierra Club, I'd 

13 like to say that I'm disheartened and discouraged to 

14 see that professional environmental advocates at the 

15 national level are completely discouraged and have 

16 taken a position of educating freshmen rather than 

17 enacting and supporting proactive legislation to help 

18 the environmental health. And while we recognize that 

19 the Senate is our firewall from legislation that would 

20 degrade our quality of life and our health, we 

21 recognize, and it's become increasingly clear to me, 

22 that we are depending on the Environmental Protection 
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1 Agency to enact proactive legislation to protect our 

2 health. 

3 So we'd like to thank you for all that you 

4 have done and continue to do, and urge you to enact 

5 these standards. Thank you. 

6 MR. GRUNDLER: Thank you so much. 

7 Any questions from the panel? 

8 MR. MACHIELE: A question for Mike Leister. 

9 Just what are the documents that you've been able to 

10 find in the docket, and if you're having -- I mean, 

11 we'd be happy to help point you to them or find them 

12 for you if you're -- 

13 MR. LEISTER: I'll send you an email with the 

14 ones that I'm having a hard time finding. 

15 MR. MACHIELE: Okay. I mean, to our 

16 knowledge, the docket is pretty much -- is complete. 

17 There might be one document that isn't in there, so -- 

18 MR. LEISTER: Well, you know, I don't want to 

19 say it's not in there. I said I couldn't find it in 

20 there. 

21 MR. MACHIELE: Okay. We'd be happy to help. 

22 MR. LEISTER: You have put in 600, 700 
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1 documents, you know. It is difficult. We don't know 

2 the exact name of it to find it. 

3 MR. MACHIELE: The offer is -- we've had 

4 other people looking for things, and we send it. So 

5 the offer goes out to you as well. 

6 Thank you. 

7 MR. GRUNDLER: Thank you all very much. 

8 Now I'd like to invite up Lisa Stracks, Erik 

9 Malone, Carol Schneider, Nick Morris, and Dr. Mary 

10 Nevin. 

11 Ms. Schneider? 

12 MS. SCHNEIDER: Yes? 

13 MR. GRUNDLER: Please proceed. 

14 MS. SCHNEIDER: My name is Carol Schneider. 

15 I am a Sierra Club member, and I welcome this 

16 opportunity to testify. 

17 In 1971, my family moved back to Chicago. We 

18 lived in an apartment facing a lovely park, Lake 

19 Michigan, and Lakeshore Drive. But I was very worried 

20 about the pollution from the busy highway on our three 

21 young children. This included the lead from the 

22 gasoline, the fine particles from the tires as they 
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1 burned, and, in addition, there was also the pollution 

2 that came from the Indiana Industrial Complex on the 

3 warm south wind. 

4 Today we no longer have leaded gasoline, but 

5 we still have other toxic pollutants from gasoline. It 

6 took many years, starting in around 1973 and ending in 

7 1986 before leaded gasoline was finally banned in the 

8 United States. The delay was due in large part to the 

9 misleading objections of the oil and chemical 

10 industries. After the ban was enacted, the level of 

11 lead in the blood of children dramatically declined 

12 within a few years. Unfortunately, many young lives 

13 were already severely damaged from the lead that they 

14 had absorbed. 

15 Each step in a long struggle to remove 

16 poisons from our air and also water and soil was and is 

17 opposed with the same words of deception and 

18 obstruction from the polluting industries. This time 

19 from the oil companies, who are opposing new standards 

20 for the tailpipe emissions. Again, people will 

21 continue to suffer serious health problems. 

22 But there is no argument about the damage 
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1 created from the present tailpipe vehicle emissions, 

2 nor the benefits if we change the way gasoline and cars 

3 are constructed. There is no good reason for delaying 

4 these standards. They are doable. 

5 We can learn from the past, from the deadly 

6 deadly results of waiting so long to enact a ban on 

7 leaded gasoline. We should not wait so long this time. 

8 We should move to quickly enact the new, cleaner Tier 

9 3 standards. Thank you. 

10 MR. GRUNDLER: Thank you. 

11 Mr. Malone? 

12 MR. MALONE: Thank you for the opportunity to 

13 testify. My name is Erik Malone, and I'm a private 

14 citizen and member of the Sierra Club. I think it's 

15 important to combat air pollution because it's both 

16 good for the planet, and it would help save lives. The 

17 EPA predicts that Tier 3 cleaner tailpipe standards 

18 will prevent 820 and 2,400 premature deaths. One of 

19 the ways the standards would save lives is by reducing 

20 the number of asthma attacks, and unfortunately, asthma 

21 has adversely affected my life. 

22 When I was a kid, I vividly remember the many 
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1 times my parents would get my brother, sister, and 

2 myself into the car so that we can speed to the 

3 emergency room because my little brother, Derek, was 

4 having problems because he was having an asthma attack. 

5 I also remember being at my grandmother's house when 

6 the ambulance was called for my little cousin, 

7 Shalonda, who was gasping for air because she was 

8 having an asthma attack. And as an adult, both my 

9 older cousin, Andy, and my grade school classmate, 

10 Marian, passed away from having asthma attacks. 

11 I urge the EPA to issue the strongest Tier 3 

12 standards possible without delay because it's both good 

13 for the planet, and it will help save lives. 

14 Thank you. 

15 MR. GRUNDLER: Thank you. 

16 Mr. Norris? 

17 MR. NORRIS: First of all, I want to thank 

18 you very much for giving all of us an opportunity to 

19 testify. 

20 I like the Tier 3 standards. I think my only 

21 criticism might be I'd like to see it enacted more 

22 sooner because there are a lot of us around, including 
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1 unfortunately myself -- I have COPD -- who, you know, 

2 this could shorten our lives. 

3 I was a healthy person as far as I knew up 

4 until fairly recently. Then I was told I had COPD, and 

5 I'm subject to just walking along the street and 

6 suddenly being out of breath. It's sort of like 

7 climbing the stairs and stopping. And, I mean, I'll 

8 stop and I'll get my breath back, but I didn't used to 

9 have that problem. Since I haven't smoked since 1972, 

10 it's very, very obvious to me that the COPD is caused 

11 by the pollution I breathe every day. 

12 I do not own a car, and I'm exposed probably 

13 to the pollution when I wait for a CTA bus. And the 

14 only way to escape it is just not to go out outdoors, 

15 and that to me is just not possible. 

16 Please, please, please enact the rule as soon 

17 as possible. And, again, I very much appreciate you 

18 giving me the opportunity to speak. Nick Norris. I'm 

19 a member of the Sierra Club. 

20 Done. 

21 MR. GRUNDLER: Thank you for coming. 

22 MR. NORRIS: Yes, sir. 
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1 MR. GRUNDLER: Ms. Stracks? 

2 MS. STRACKS: Good afternoon. Is this on? 

3 Okay. 

4 My name is Lisa Stracks, and I'm here as a 

5 private citizen to testify about the effects of 

6 tailpipe emissions on young children. And, I'm sorry, 

7 I can never get through this without crying, so I'm 

8 okay. I'd like to encourage the EPA to move forward 

9 without delay on the proposed Tier 3 standards. 

10 There are lots of statistics about the 

11 stories, the rates of childhood asthma. But I'm here 

12 today to put a face on one of those stories. I would 

13 like to tell you the story of my son, Harrison, to tell 

14 you how quickly and terribly he was affected by 

15 pollution, specifically -- excuse me -- the auto 

16 emissions of nearby highways, and also how quickly and 

17 dramatically he recovered once we moved away from the 

18 highways. 

19 When we moved back to Chicago from Michigan 

20 in the summer of 2009, Harrison was an ordinary healthy 

21 boy. He turned two a few days after we moved here. We 

22 were very excited because my husband had just finished 
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1 his medical fellowship and was offered a really good 

2 job at the clinic at Northwestern. 

3 We moved to University Village, which is a 

4 neighborhood just south of downtown, for its proximity 

5 to many things, including the highways that would take 

6 us to see friends in the western suburbs, my husband's 

7 family in the northern suburbs, and my family in 

8 Michigan. In fact, we were in the intersection of 

9 three major highways. 

10 But within a couple of months, Harrison had 

11 his first ever asthma attack. Our pediatrician 

12 prescribed short-term high-dose steroids, and 

13 Harrison's breathing calmed down. We thought it was a 

14 little odd and went on with our lives. But Harrison 

15 developed -- but the asthma attacks started occurring 

16 with increasing frequency and severity. Harrison 

17 developed the constant cough that is the hallmark of 

18 asthmatics. His tonsils, which are one of the body's 

19 defense against airborne toxins, swelled and stayed 

20 swollen, and he snored like crazy. 

21 Every cold turned into an asthma attacks with 

22 sleepless nights, more steroids, and a little boy who 
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1 couldn't breathe. One of my most terrifying moments as 

2 a mother was the time Harrison had an acute asthma 

3 attack while we were stuck in stop and go traffic on 

4 the Dan Ryan, less than a mile from our home. Our 

5 nebulizer became our constant companion. We even took 

6 it on camping trips. 

7 We changed our travel patterns to avoid the 

8 highways. We used air filters. We tried homeopathics 

9 and Chinese medicine, and changed our diet to eliminate 

10 gluten, dairy, and soy. But none of it was enough. 

11 After his worst attack in December of 2010, we put him 

12 on daily steroids despite their side effects. We also 

13 realized that we had to move. 

14 In May 2011, we moved to the Lakefront in the 

15 very, very northeastern corner of Chicago. Within four 

16 days there was a noticeable change in his breathing. 

17 Within two weeks his asthma cough had disappeared for 

18 good. As his lungs improved, his colds became just 

19 colds. His snoring stopped. His pulmonologist, who is 

20 actually sitting next to me by surprise insisted we 

21 keep him on steroids through the first 'flu season, but 

22 in April of 2012, we took him off the steroids. 
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1 It's now been two years since we moved to the 

2 Lakefront, and you'd never know that Harrison was ever 

3 so constantly sick. He plays basketball every chance 

4 he gets. The people downstairs from us thinks he's 

5 training for the track team. The inhaler in my bag is 

6 a formality. 

7 Harrison is doing so well, in fact, that I 

8 haven't quite scheduled his follow-up appointment from 

9 October. But I still go into his room every single 

10 night to listen to his breathing before I go to sleep. 

11 Many people don't quite get that simply 

12 moving away from the highways was enough to cure 

13 Harrison's asthma, and yet among themselves I've heard 

14 many pediatricians call the stretch along the Dan Ryan 

15 Expressway Chicago's asthma corridor. In fact, a 

16 former neighbor from University Village called us 

17 shortly after we moved to say that her asthma had 

18 returned after 17 years in remission, and that her 

19 son's was getting worse. 

20 We were fortunate that we were able to move, 

21 to get Harrison away from the highways and the exhaust. 

22 But there are thousands of children in Chicago and 
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1 across the country who live near highways and major 

2 thoroughfares and can't move, thousands of children 

3 like Harrison who struggle to breathe, thousands of 

4 mothers who stay up all night with their children who 

5 can't breathe. 

6 I, therefore, urge you to approve the 

7 stronger tailpipe emission standards. Please do it for 

8 our children. 

9 Thank you. 

10 MR. GRUNDLER: Thank you so much for sharing 

11 that. 

12 Dr. Nevin? 

13 DR. NEVIN: Well, I certainly can't top that, 

14 but we do work well by surprise in conjunction. 

15 My name is Mary Nevin, and I am a pediatric 

16 pulmonologist at the Ann and Robert H. Lurie Children's 

17 Hospital, Chicago, just down the street. Much of my 

18 clinical career centers around the care of complex 

19 asthmatics in the pediatric age group, children age 

20 anywhere one year of age to 21 year of age. And 

21 because of that, I see the daily adverse effects of air 

22 pollution on the health of my patients on a regular 
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1 basis. Because of those experiences, I welcome the 

2 opportunity to come and speak to you today about these 

3 important clean air standards, and I thank you for the 

4 opportunity. 

5 In Chicago, the rate of hospitalization for 

6 asthma is nearly twice that of the national average, 

7 and more than half -- 58 percent, in fact -- of our 

8 Chicagoland children with asthma have experienced a 

9 severe asthma attack in the past year. Over 25 percent 

10 of those same families affected considered that asthma 

11 attack to be life-threatening in nature. 

12 Missed school days for these patients, missed 

13 work days for their parents, primary care visits, and 

14 emergency department visits remain high. And as you 

15 know, this all translates into a high cost for our 

16 society. However, this being said, the personal and 

17 familial cost, as you can hear for yourself, is much 

18 greater, and asthma-related morbidity and mortality 

19 remain at ridiculously unacceptably high levels. 

20 Cars and light trucks and SUVs are still a 

21 major source of air pollution. Ground level ozone is 

22 going to be a particular concern for us as we enter the 
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1 summer months in Chicago, even today, as tailpipe 

2 emissions from cars and trucks react with the oxygen 

3 and the sunlight to form ground level ozone. 

4 Nitrogen oxide, which is also emitted from 

5 tailpipes, similarly contributes to this ground level 

6 ozone and as well as to smog. These pollutants and 

7 others are well recognized for their impact on asthma 

8 severity and exacerbations. 

9 We know that 150 million Americans live in 

10 areas that fail to meet the current clean air 

11 standards, but what you might not know is that very 

12 detail out of Europe looked at 10 European cities, and 

13 they found that as much as 14 percent of childhood 

14 asthma may be caused by living by these busy roads. 

15 What's remarkable here is not just that 

16 result, but what they defined a busy road as was a car 

17 -- a road that carried more than 10,000 cars per day. 

18 The Dan Ryan, by as many estimates, carries 

19 approximately 390,000 vehicles per day. You know, the 

20 -- it's no wonder then that these communities that 

21 surround these roads and expressways have a high 

22 incidence and also a high severity of asthma that 
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1 affects their residents. 

2 I really just want to impress upon you my 

3 perceived importance of these proposed emission and 

4 fuel standards. If a busy intersection without a light 

5 affected this many children, I think we would all get 

6 together and suggest that a light be placed at that 

7 intersection or that a crossing guard or both. And 

8 certainly let our approach to the air we breathe be 

9 just as important, if not more important. 

10 Thank you for your time. 

11 MR. GRUNDLER: Thank you. 

12 We're really grateful for you taking time out 

13 of your day to come down and share your stories, 

14 particularly you, Ms. Stracks. I'm glad it had a happy 

15 ending. Thank you very much for your time. 

16 DR. NEVIN: Thank you. 

17 MR. GRUNDLER: We'll break for lunch and 

18 reconvene at 1:20. 

19 [Whereupon, at 12:29 p.m., the meeting was 

20 recessed for lunch, to reconvene at 1:25 p.m.] 

21 MR. GRUNDLER: We'd like to invite the next 

22 panel up consisting of Barbara Harrison, Cynthia 
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1 Williams, Graham McCahan, Frank Krich, Anita Green. 

2 And once this panel has completed their testimony, I 

3 will once again be inviting up local community members. 

4 Mr. Krich, you may begin when you're ready. 

5 MR. KRICH: Good afternoon. I'm Frank Krich, 

6 Senior Planning Engineer at Chrysler Group, LLC, and 

7 I'm here today to express our support for the 

8 Environmental Protection Agency's complete Tier 3 

9 package. Chrysler supports the 10 ppm average sulfur 

10 gasoline and single harmonized national criteria 

11 pollutant performance standards that treat all 

12 technologies equally -- excuse me -- and contributes to 

13 meeting EPA's air quality and greenhouse gas 

14 objectives. 

15 As in previous rulemakings, Tier 3 continues 

16 to treat vehicles and fuels as a system, recognizing 

17 that fuels are critically important to achieve the full 

18 potential of advanced emission control technologies, 

19 especially during these historic times when regulations 

20 are driving near-zero emissions and doubling fuel 

21 economy. 

22 Sulfur is the single most important gasoline 
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1 parameter to enable vehicle technologies to meet these 

2 new requirements. The cause and effects are well 

3 known. Sulfur inhibits exhaust after treatment 

4 conversion efficiency, so lower sulfur means lower 

5 emissions. 

6 California recognizes the environmental 

7 benefits of low sulfur gasoline, and includes 10 ppm 

8 sulfur in its LEV III regulation as an enabler to meet 

9 the Air Resources Board's super ultra-low vehicle fleet 

10 average requirements. The same gasoline is, therefore, 

11 needed to harmonize Tier 3 and LEV III to reali8ze the 

12 emission benefits and to maximize vehicle development 

13 and manufacturing efficiency. 

14 Low sulfur gasoline not only enables advanced 

15 technologies to achieve intended emission benefits, it 

16 has an immediate and significant effect on the 250 

17 million vehicles on the road today, lowering emissions 

18 and helping States achieve attainment of ozone National 

19 Ambient Air Quality Standards. Lowering sulfur is also 

20 directionally correct for reducing particulate matter 

21 and air and toxic contaminants, as well as nitrous 

22 oxide and methane to potent greenhouse gases. 
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1 In addition, EPA's creation of new fuel 

2 economy and greenhouse gas standards anticipated 

3 nationwide availability of low sulfur gasoline. 

4 Consistent with that basis, Chrysler supported the 

5 concept of One National Program to improve fuel economy 

6 and reduce gas emissions with the understanding that 

7 low sulfur gasoline would be called for in the next 

8 round of establishing tailpipe emission standards, and 

9 which would ensure availability to enable advanced lean 

10 burn gasoline direct injection technologies. 

11 Advanced lean burn GDI systems are an 

12 enabling technology to meet EPA and the National 

13 Highway Traffic Safety Administration's 2025 model year 

14 greenhouse gas and fuel economy requirements. Ten ppm 

15 sulfur or less is a prerequisite for achieving intended 

16 greenhouse gas and fuel economy benefits from lean burn 

17 GDI systems. Without low sulfur gasoline, lean burn 

18 GDI systems incur a significant fuel economy and 

19 corresponding greenhouse penalty due to more frequent 

20 sulfur regeneration events. 

21 The auto industry has invested hundreds of 

22 millions of dollars to design, develop, tool, and, in 
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1 some cases, manufacture, and produce lean burn GDI 

2 systems. Without absolute assurance of low sulfur 

3 gasoline in the marketplace, the greatly reduced 

4 performance of lean burn GDI will reduce use of this 

5 technology. 

6 We will continue to work with EPA to bring 

7 California LEV III and Tier 3 as close as possible with 

8 the goal of a completely harmonized California and 

9 Federal one national criteria pollution program -- 

10 pollutant program. Low sulfur gasoline is vitally 

11 important and a critical element in achieving this 

12 goal. 

13 Thank you for your time and consideration. 

14 MR. GRUNDLER: Thank you, Mr. Krich. 

15 Ms. Williams, welcome. 

16 MS. WILLIAMS: Good afternoon. My name is 

17 Cynthia Williams. I'm the Manager of the Environmental 

18 and Regulatory Planning Department at Ford Motor 

19 Company. It is my pleasure to be here today to provide 

20 Ford's perspective on this important rulemaking. I 

21 want to thank EPA and the California Air Resources 

22 Board for their efforts to harmonize regulations to 
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1 improve air quality. Ford supports this effort, and 

2 will continue working to improve air quality while 

3 harmonizing standards. 

4 Tier 3, working in concert with LEV III, 

5 helps provide clean vehicles to all 50 States. It 

6 allows auto makers to design and build a single model 

7 rather than two versions meaning different 

8 requirements, test and certify a national vehicle one 

9 time. And importantly, it provides a step towards the 

10 fuels needed to meet these standards. 

11 We strongly support EPA's effort to treat 

12 vehicles and fuels as a system. We agree with the need 

13 to reduce sulfur levels in market fuel. Treating fuels 

14 in vehicles as a system is vitally important as fuel 

15 quality improvements are needed to enable the advanced 

16 technology required to reduce emissions. 

17 Sulfur, which occurs naturally in oil, 

18 contaminates exhaust emission catalysts, reducing their 

19 functionality of emission systems. Research has shown 

20 sulfur levels in gasoline have been linked to immediate 

21 improvements in emissions levels, which have a positive 

22 effect across the entire existing fleet of vehicles on 
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1 the road today. Thus, there has been a significant 

2 effort worldwide to lower sulfur levels. 

3 As mentioned earlier today, other markets 

4 with advanced emissions requirements, such as those 

5 found in Asia and Europe, are particularly concerned 

6 with high quality market fuels containing ultra-low 

7 sulfur fuels of 10 ppm to ensure catalysts maintain 

8 their high efficiencies throughout the expected useful 

9 life of the vehicle. Improved fuel economy and reduced 

10 CO2 emissions are made possible in vehicles through 

11 engine operations at lean air fuel rations, as Frank 

12 just mentioned. 

13 In order to meet the increased CAFE 

14 requirements, manufacturers are developing lean burn 

15 engines that will reduce fuel consumption. These 

16 engines require advanced sulfur sensitive NOx control 

17 technologies and 10 ppm sulfur levels in fuels. In 

18 addition to worldwide efforts in mobile source emission 

19 reductions, ambient air quality continues to be a 

20 global issue of interest. Air quality improvement 

21 efforts are often made possible through maintaining 

22 ozone and smog levels at acceptable ranges for quality 
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1 living conditions. Smog consists of fine particle 

2 matter, such as sulfate and nitrate aerosols. Fuel 

3 sulfur also has a significant impact on NOx emissions 

4 that contribute to the formation of such aerosols, 

5 which furthers the importance of lowering fuel sulfur 

6 levels. 

7 Ford supports the average fuel sulfur level 

8 at 10 ppm in order to meet the strict emission 

9 standards and maintain the integrity of the engine and 

10 emission systems throughout the vehicle's useful life. 

11 Additionally, the proposed rule enables 

12 Americans to enjoy immediate air quality benefits 

13 throughout operating on gasoline with sulfur limits 

14 approaching the 10 ppm cap similar to those already in 

15 place around the world. 

16 We appreciate the significant efforts made by 

17 EPA, both EPA and CARB, to harmonize Tier 3 and LEV III 

18 rules, and we encourage the Agency to continue to work 

19 with industry to minimize remaining differences in the 

20 two programs. Where alignment cannot be achieved, it 

21 is important that mechanisms be provided to mitigate 

22 any unnecessary complexity and testing burden. For 
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1 example, we agree with the proposed reciprocity 

2 provisions that will be crucial in helping 

3 manufacturers to manage the complexity in multiple 

4 certification testing and test procedures. 

5 EPA is also proposing new test procedures as 

6 part of the Tier 3 rulemaking. Together EPA, CARB, and 

7 industry have made much progress towards the goal of 

8 ensuring that these test procedures improve measurement 

9 accuracy and test repeatability in a cost-effective 

10 manner. We look forward to continued progress towards 

11 this goal and support further opportunities to 

12 harmonize test procedures between the two agencies. 

13 We also encourage the agencies to evaluate 

14 the effects on new test fuel and new procedures on fuel 

15 economy and greenhouse gas emissions. This evaluation 

16 should consider both near-term impacts associated with 

17 the phase-in period of the new fuel and procedures, and 

18 the long-term implications of 2017 through 2025, One 

19 National Program. 

20 Once again, I appreciate the opportunity to 

21 provide testimony today here. Ford will continue 

22 working to improve air quality while harmonizing 
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1 standards in order to meet these challenging emissions 

2 control requirements. Treating fuels and vehicles as a 

3 system continues to be essential to achieving our 

4 collective air improvement goals. We continue -- we 

5 will continue to review all aspects of the proposal, 

6 and we'll work through the Alliance to provide detailed 

7 comments on the proposed rulemaking. 

8 Thanks again. 

9 MR. GRUNDLER: Thank you. 

10 Mr. McCahan? 

11 MR. MCCAHAN: Good afternoon. My name is 

12 Graham McCahan, and I'm an attorney with the 

13 Environmental Defense Fund. On behalf of the 

14 Environmental Defense Fund, our more than 750,000 

15 members nationwide, and our members here in Chicago, I 

16 sincerely thank you for the opportunity to testify 

17 today in support of these vital standards to reduce 

18 soot, smog, and toxic air pollution from our Nation's 

19 fleet of passenger cars and trucks. These standards 

20 will prevent thousands of deaths each year and provide 

21 billions of dollars in public health benefits, all for 

22 about a penny a gallon of cleaner gasoline. 
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1 More than 131 million people, about 42 

2 percent of our Nation, still suffer from air pollution 

3 levels that are often too dangerous to breathe. And 

4 nearly four in 10 U.S. residents live in areas with 

5 unhealthy levels of ozone pollution. Much of that 

6 pollution comes from our cars. 

7 Americans depend heavily on our passenger 

8 vehicles. There are more than seven million passenger 

9 cars and light trucks registered in Illinois alone. 

10 Almost 90 percent of us use personal vehicles every day 

11 for travel. Luckily today's cars are far cleaner and 

12 more efficient than vehicles of decades past thanks to 

13 the Environmental Protection Agency's clean air 

14 leadership. 

15 But our passenger cars and trucks still 

16 remain the second largest emitters of nitrogen oxides 

17 and volatile organic compounds in the U.S., the the 

18 primary pollutants that form ozone, or smog. Ozone 

19 pollution reduces lung function, aggravates asthma and 

20 other chronic lung diseases, causes heart attacks, and 

21 can lead to premature death. 

22 Our passenger vehicles also contribute 
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1 significantly to particulate matter emissions. 

2 Particulate pollution, or soot, is associated with 

3 serious adverse human health impacts, including 

4 premature death, respiratory disease, and 

5 cardiovascular disease such as heart attacks, strokes, 

6 and heart disease. 

7 More than nine million people in the Chicago 

8 area are exposed to ozone and particulate 

9 concentrations that exceed national health-based 

10 standards, and Chicago ranks in the top 20 most 

11 polluted cities in the Nation for particulates, 

12 according to the ALA's 2013 "State of the Air Report." 

13 More than 50 million people in the United 

14 States live, work, and go to school in close proximity 

15 to high-traffic roadways, with gasoline vehicles 

16 accounting for more than 50 percent of near-road 

17 concentrations of some criteria and toxic pollutants. 

18 In Illinois, more than 32,000 children attend schools 

19 that are within 200 meters of a major road. 

20 Minorities and low income Americans often bear an 

21 especially heavy burden from the high pollution 

22 concentrations near major roadways. Indeed, many 
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1 neighborhoods here in Chicago are close to a major 

2 expressway. Think of South Chicago, Englewood, Little 

3 Village, Pilsen, Garfield Park, Austin, and Logan 

4 Square, just to name a few. 

5 The vital importance of cleaner air for those 

6 communities and others across the Nation is why I'm 

7 here today to support the Tier 3 proposal. And it's why 

8 EPA should finalize this very important rule without 

9 delay. 

10 The proposed standards would reduce sulfur 

11 levels in gasoline, allowing catalysts in new and 

12 existing vehicles to perform better. As a result of 

13 these cleaner fuel standards, our Nation and 

14 communities here in Chicago and across Illinois, will 

15 see immediate and significant reductions in smog16 forming nitrogen oxide emissions because all of our 

17 vehicles, not just new ones, will be burning cleaner 

18 fuel. And EPA estimates those reductions could be 

19 significant enough to bring ozone concentrations in 

20 some hard hit communities from levels above the health21 based standard today to levels below the health 

22 standard in 2017, the first year of the Tier 3 program. 
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1 Additionally, the proposed tailpipe 

2 standards, which will require new engines to burn 

3 cleaner, are projected to reduce smog-fanning 

4 pollutants by 80 percent and particulate pollution by 

5 70 percent as compared to today's fleet of vehicles. 

6 According to EPA analysis, the particulate reductions 

7 from our passenger vehicles will result in declines in 

8 particulate air concentrations in cities across the 

9 Nation, again helping some reach levels below the 

10 health-based standard as early as 2017. 

11 The human health benefits of this proposal 

12 are profound. The emissions reductions will result in 

13 up to 2,400 fewer lives lost and will prevent 3,200 

14 hospital visits and 22,000 asthma attacks, not in 

15 total, but every year. EPA estimates these health care 

16 savings could total up to $23 billion annually. And 

17 the cost to achieve these vital health protections is 

18 only a penny a gallon for the cleaner gasoline. 

19 As you've heard today, the Tier 3 system 

20 approach of establishing protective and complementary 

21 standards for cleaner cars and fuels is supported by 

22 doctors, mothers and father, the Nation's clean air 
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1 officials, auto workers, health groups, consumers, and 

2 the public because of the significant health benefits. 

3 And the economic benefits have garnered support by the 

4 auto industry and emissions control industries. 

5 In addition to providing cleaner air, the 

6 Tier 3 program could complement the historic fuel 

7 economy and greenhouse standards for passenger vehicles 

8 in providing long-term regulatory certainly for the 

9 U.S. auto industry. Timely finalization of the Tier 3 

10 program will drive investment and development of 

11 emissions control technology and allow manufacturers to 

12 efficiently align technology upgrades. These cost13 effective standards have broad support and should not 

14 be delayed. 

15 In conclusion, the Environmental Defense Fund 

16 is proud to join the millions of Americans who all 

17 agree that cleaner passenger cars and trucks are an 

18 important step forward for a healthier and stronger 

19 America. Thank you. 

20 MR. GRUNDLER: Thank you. 

21 Ms. Green, welcome. 

22 MS. GREEN: Good afternoon. My name is Anita 
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1 Green, and I represent Wespath Investment Management, 

2 located in Glenview, Illinois. Our organization was 

3 founded 105 years ago and manages pension assets for 

4 more than 91,000 United Methodist clergy and lay 

5 employees around the world, and also the investment 

6 assets of many United Methodist affiliated 

7 institutions. With $19 billion under management, we 

8 represent the single largest pool of denominational 

9 investment assets in the U.S. In addition, we also 

10 administer a health benefits program for United 

11 Methodist clergy and lay employees. Thank you for 

12 opportunity to present our perspective as an 

13 institutional investor. 

14 Wespath's investment philosophy acknowledges 

15 that management of environment, social, and corporate 

16 governance factors are important to the long-term 

17 success of the companies in which we invest. As a 

18 fiduciary, we support policies that promote long-term 

19 appreciation rather than short-term gain. As a church 

20 investor, we have never believed it was necessary to 

21 compromise our values to achieve our investment goals. 

22 Today I am also speaking on behalf of Ceres, 
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1 which mobiles a network of investors, companies, and 

2 public interest groups to accelerate and expand the 

3 adoption of sustainable business practices and 

4 solutions to build a healthy global economy. 

5 Wespath and Ceres are strong supporters of 

6 EPA's proposed Tier 3 standards. Wespath has reviewed 

7 positions on both sides of Tier 3 and has considered 

8 the potential long-term financial implications to our 

9 investments, which is material to fulfill our promises 

10 to our stakeholders. In our view, Tier 3 standards 

11 will be beneficial to several sectors where we hold 

12 investments, including the auto manufacturers, auto 

13 parts manufacturers, trucking companies, health care 

14 providers, and health insurance companies. 

15 We also invest in many oil refining 

16 companies, which have expressed concern over the impact 

17 of Tier 3 on their operations. Overall, we believe the 

18 potential for negative impact in the oil sector is 

19 limited and outweighed by the collective benefit to 

20 other sectors. 

21 We appreciate that EPA is addressing vehicles 

22 and fuels as an integrated system, which we believe is 
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1 the most cost-effective to realize meaningful 

2 reductions in pollutants, such as ozone, particulate 

3 matter, and toxins, all of which have significant and 

4 costly public health impacts. We believe that adopting 

5 the proposed Tier 3 standards will have the following 

6 positive results with very little downside risk: one, 

7 job creation, two, health benefits that produce net 

8 economic gains, three, sustain the United States' 

9 leadership position in vehicle and emission control 

10 technology. 

11 Point one, job creation. The fact that a 

12 wide range of stakeholders have spoken in favor of the 

13 proposed standards speaks to the broad economic 

14 benefits. The standards are supported by many trade 

15 associations. Public companies who shares we hold that 

16 have also made supportive statements include General 

17 Motors, Honda, Toyota, my friends here at the table 

18 from Daimler Chrysler and Ford, Donaldson Company, 

19 Tenneco, Ford-Warner, and Corning. These companies 

20 believe that the standards are in their long-term best 

21 interest and will promote their future growth, and we 

22 agree. 
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1 In terms of job creation, refinery upgrades 

2 are expected to generate over 24,000 installation jobs 

3 during the first three years of the program, and 5,300 

4 permanent jobs. It is also anticipated that the 

5 development and production of Tier 3 technology will 

6 result in additional jobs in the auto and emission 

7 control industries. 

8 Two, health benefits that produce net 

9 economic gains. We must bear in mind that the impact 

10 of auto emissions is also felt outside of the oil and 

11 auto sectors. There are significant health care 

12 impacts associated with air pollution related 

13 illnesses, which serves to increase costs to health 

14 care organizations and health insurance companies, many 

15 of which are publicly traded and held by investors like 

16 Wespath. According to the EPA, on a net basis, the 

17 economic benefits of the standards are estimated to be 

18 between two and seven times in excess of the costs. 

19 And three, sustain the United States' 

20 leadership position in vehicle and emission control 

21 technology. Many companies have told us that without 

22 clear policy signals from Washington, innovation stalls 
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1 and capital sits on the sidelines. Setting strong 

2 standards will be the signal companies are looking for 

3 to begin production that incorporates new technologies. 

4 This will ripple throughout the supply chain, allowing 

5 manufacturers to bring new and more efficient products 

6 to market. 

7 Further, many in the industry have said that 

8 Tier 3 standard are necessary to enable auto companies 

9 to meet the new fuel economy and greenhouse standards, 

10 again, spurring innovation and growth. 

11 In conclusion, let me say that for many years 

12 we have encouraged companies to realize what we believe 

13 are the competitive benefits of better fuel economy. 

14 Wespath supports Tier 3 because we believe the 

15 standards will help create and/or retain shareholder 

16 value of our investments, while also offering 

17 environmental and social benefits, a powerful 

18 combination. Ceres agrees that the standards will be a 

19 positive driver for American industry and the economy. 

20 Thank you for this opportunity to share the 

21 viewpoint of Series and Wespath Investment Management. 

22 MR. GRUNDLER: Thank you. Thank you very 
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1 much. 

2 I'd like to now call up Tracy McFadden, 

3 Sylvia Glauster, Jason Duba, Marne Glaser. 

4 Mr. McFadden, please begin. 

5 CAPTAIN MCFADDEN: Good afternoon. My name 

6 is Tracy McFadden. I'm testifying as a private 

7 citizen. I live about 45 miles west of Chicago in a 

8 small town called Elburn. I'm currently employed as an 

9 airline captain with American Airlines, and I also 

10 served in the U.S. Air Force, flying aircraft in the 

11 First Gulf War. 

12 I'd first like to thank the EPA for holding 

13 these public hearings on the Tier 3 vehicle emission 

14 and fuel standards program. I fervently believe that 

15 the EPA needs to enact stricter regulations on 

16 emissions and fuel standards for several reasons. The 

17 first and most important is health. I have a chronic 

18 cough, which I feel is at least partially due to poor 

19 air quality. But more importantly, I have two 

20 beautiful daughters, and I hope to somebody have 

21 grandchildren. And I want these future generations to 

22 have the opportunity to live in a world where the air 
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1 is clean and not hazardous to our health. 

2 One in three Americans now lives where the 

3 air is sometimes dangerous and even deadly to breathe. 

4 Passenger cars and trucks are the second largest 

5 source of smog-forming pollution, and contributes 

6 significantly to deadly particle matter emissions. I 

7 feel I'm in good company with my health concerns as a 

8 recent survey by the American Lung Association found 

9 that by a margin of two to one, the majority of 

10 Americans support these cleaner tailpipe standards. 

11 The second reason I feel enacting Tier 3 

12 standards are so important is that we need to continue 

13 to do all we can to reduce the effects of global 

14 warming. By reducing vehicle emissions and increasing 

15 fuel mileage requirements, we help slow down the 

16 harmful effects of climate change. 

17 I feel we can't just kick the can down the 

18 road and give this problem to our grandchildren. I 

19 often think, can I imagine our children saying, you 

20 knew about this all this time and you didn't try to do 

21 anything about it? I would feel quite ashamed if that 

22 were the case. 
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1 And speaking of children, I've always told my 

2 children that it's very important that when you hear 

3 someone speak, you should consider the underlying 

4 message and the intent of the message sender. Why is 

5 this person telling me this? Today my message is 

6 pretty obvious. I'm here because I want to improve the 

7 health of my children and future generations. 

8 But sometimes when I listen to the message 

9 from the oil companies and their hired consultants, I 

10 clearly hear we need to make more profit. And I 

11 honestly can't say that I believe there is any major 

12 oil company today that is suffering from a lack of 

13 profit. Their motive appears to run counter to the 

14 need to improve the health, I believe, of all 

15 Americans. 

16 As I mentioned, I'm a senior Captain at 

17 American Airlines. I've been flying jets since 1980. 

18 One axiom we use when we fly that keeps ourselves and 

19 our passengers safe is we err on the side of safety 

20 when we're making our decisions. I can cite many 

21 examples. I'll just give one that occurred last week. 

22 Before takeoff, I do a calculation to 
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1 determine that the plane will, in fact, take off in the 

2 amount of runway that I have, the length. And last 

3 week I was taking off on 22-left at O'Hare, and the co4 pilot and I determined that it was legal and possible 

5 to take off. However, I knew we were close to the 

6 weight limit. If an engine failed on takeoff, while 

7 the plane could handle that and we prepare for that on 

8 every takeoff, it would be very dicey at best, and 

9 possible catastrophic at worst, if everything else was 

10 not perfect. I chose not to attempt the takeoff on 

11 that runway, and instead taxied to a longer runway 

12 which would give me a greater margin of safety. 

13 Now, some would critique me and say, hey, 

14 that was a waste of time. You wasted 10 minutes. You 

15 taxied around there, and you were perfectly legal to go 

16 on 22-left. But I chose to err on the side of safety. 

17 Why do I bring up this err on the side of 

18 safety? I do so because I know there are those who 

19 might say that the current rules on emissions and fuel 

20 consumption are adequate. They say it would be an 

21 error to make the standards more stringent, that the 

22 costs would be too high. To this I say, let's err on 
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1 the side of safety. Let's err on the side of better 

2 health. Shouldn't we err on the burning less fuel to 

3 improve the lives of all Americans as well as all other 

4 people on earth by reducing the impact of global 

5 warming? 

6 If the new Tier 3 standards are in error, 

7 which I don't believe they are, then the result is 

8 we'll have air that's too clean and we'll have taken 

9 too much action to fight global warming. So once 

10 again, I urge the EPA to enact the Tier 3 vehicle 

11 emission and fuel standards program. Please err on the 

12 side of safety. 

13 Thank you for the opportunity to testify. 

14 MR. GRUNDLER: Thank you, Captain, and thank 

15 you for your service. 

16 Ms. Glauster? 

17 MS. GLAUSTER: Thank you for the opportunity 

18 to testify. My name is Sylvia Glauster, and I am a 

19 middle school teacher here in Chicago. As a teacher, 

20 it's very hard for me to get out of school and leave 

21 the classroom to come to testify to things like this 

22 during the day. I also want to speak on behalf of 
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1 other teachers who are not able to be here and everyone 

2 who is working right now with children or otherwise. 

3 I'm here of course to support the Tier 3 

4 cleaner tailpipe standards. For too long our 

5 refinement and driving practices have not reflected the 

6 true cost of burning gasoline, instead passing the cost 

7 onto the public in the form of toxic smoke in our 

8 lungs. The Tier 1 and 2 standards, along with other 

9 regulations, were excellent steps in the right 

10 direction, and we need to keep pressing forward 

11 aggressively with strong standards and shorter 

12 implementation timelines to remove toxins before they 

13 enter the environment and our bodies. 

14 I teach fifth and sixth grade students. In 

15 addition to the pencils and books and the homework that 

16 we're always keeping track of, we also have to help 

17 many of them keep track of their asthma inhalers. We 

18 went back from a field trip actually two weeks ago 

19 because a student had forgotten her inhaler, which she 

20 needed to use while we were there, just walking on city 

21 streets. 

22 Our school is located just a block from one 
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1 of Chicago's main highways. And so in addition to the 

2 pollution in our immediate streets, we all breathe the 

3 exhaust streaming from the throughway over our campus 

4 and nearby parks. One of my students is chronically 

5 sleepy during class because his difficulty breathing 

6 keeps him awake at night. Another misses weeks of 

7 class at a time because his asthma puts him in the 

8 hospital, and meanwhile his brother is in my class 

9 worried every single germ will send his brother out of 

10 school and into the hospital. Many other students are 

11 unable to run and play during recess without first 

12 checking the pollen and ozone indices. 

13 And the kids at my school are relatively 

14 lucky. Many others live and learn in areas with even 

15 greater exposure to car exhaust, in locations where the 

16 smog tends to stay rather than blow away as it does in 

17 windy Chicago here to go pollute new locations. The 

18 Tier 3 standards will help prevent more children from 

19 developing asthma, while also improving life for those 

20 already living with this limiting and life-threatening 

21 condition. 

22 But air pollution does not only cause lung 
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1 damage. It has also been linked to heart disease, and 

2 some contaminants have even been linked to neurological 

3 damage. Before I was born, lead and gasoline polluted 

4 our city air, our soil, and the brains of many 

5 children. Regulations from the EPA put a stop to that 

6 and helped me grow up healthier than I might have 

7 otherwise. Now we have the technology to go even 

8 further. Regulations similar to Tier 3's are already 

9 reducing sulfur, nitrous oxide, carbon monoxide, and 

10 volatile organic compound emissions in Japan, Europe, 

11 and California. 

12 These regulations would be worthwhile at a 

13 high monetary cost, but, in fact, they promise to 

14 create new jobs in refining and automotive design while 

15 adding only one cent, which, as a math teacher, I can 

16 tell you is less than a third of a percent of the 

17 current cost of a gallon of gasoline. How can we ask 

18 anyone to continue breathing preventable toxins and 

19 wait for progress? How can we value the profits of the 

20 oil industry over people? 

21 Let's get my students back into the classroom 

22 in school and get their parents back to work. Let's 
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1 effect the Tier 3 standards and continue pressing 

2 forward to protect our air and our health. Thank you. 

3 MR. GRUNDLER: Thank you. 

4 Mr. Duba, you're up. 

5 MR. DUBA: Dear United States Environmental 

6 Protection Agency, thank you for this opportunity to 

7 testify. My name is Jason Duba, and I support your 

8 implementation of strong, cleaner tailpipe standards 

9 known as Tier 3. This is a very tangible, relatively 

10 easy way for President Obama to make one of his first 

11 steps toward a clean energy legacy that protects our 

12 public health. 

13 I live here in Chicago, volunteer with the 

14 Sierra Club, and I'm a student earning a master's 

15 degree in urban transportation planning at the 

16 University of Illinois at Chicago. In addition to my 

17 classes, I also work as a research assistant at my 

18 school's urban transportation center and as an intern 

19 at the Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning, the 

20 region's federally designated metropolitan planning 

21 organization, and the entity responsible for regional 

22 planning and investment of Federal transportation 
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1 dollars here, though my opinions here today are my own. 

2 As such, I have a relatively well-informed 

3 knowledge of transportation systems and pollution 

4 related to those transportation systems. At the 

5 moment, I'm enrolled in a course through UIC's Civil 

6 and Materials Engineering Department entitled 

7 "Sustainable Transportation System." In this class, 

8 we've learned how to use mobile source emissions 

9 modeling software. You, the EPA, developed some of the 

10 software products we work with, such as MOBILE and 

11 MOVES. 

12 These software tools are very advanced and 

13 require a great deal of data just to be able to get a 

14 rough estimate of pollution levels. Among these data 

15 inputs, which include factors like traffic flow, 

16 average age of vehicle fleet, roadway geometry, 

17 topographic variation, which is minimal here in 

18 Chicago, seasonal weather differences, and time of day, 

19 is fuel type. When we perform these simulations to 

20 model transportation pollution, in other words, fuel 

21 type is a significant factor in the calculation and 

22 eventual determination of pollution output. 
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1 While doing this work can be tricky and time 

2 consuming, it is rather abstract. What is not 

3 abstract, however, is the negative health effects of 

4 transportation pollution on ourselves and our fellow 

5 humans. 

6 There's a program here in Chicago based in 

7 the Little Village neighborhood whose mission is to 

8 provide free and comprehensive asthma care and 

9 education to children and families in Chicago's 

10 underserved communities by via mobile medical units. 

11 Passage of these standards would be a significant boon 

12 to efforts to reduce asthma and its effects on citizens 

13 across the country, and particularly here in Chicago 

14 for the children that this program works with. 

15 Cook County, Chicago's home county, is 

16 currently in non-attainment for three of the six Clean 

17 Air Act criteria pollutants. These National Ambient 

18 Air Quality Standards basically tell us the quality of 

19 our air, and what they tell us here in Chicago is that 

20 our air fails to meet the standard for half of the 

21 pollutants under consideration. 

22 So as I prepare for a career in 
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1 transportation planning, I hope that I will be able to 

2 use your software tools with a new cleaner fuel type 

3 designation. This cleaner fuel will help reduce asthma 

4 for kids in Little Village and elsewhere, move Chicago 

5 closer to attainment of the National Ambient Air 

6 Quality Standards, and lead to a brighter future for 

7 all. 

8 Thank you. 

9 MR. GRUNDLER: Thank you. 

10 Ms. Glaser? 

11 MS. GLASER: First of all, I would like to 

12 welcome all of you who have come from out of town to 

13 Chicago, and thank you for this opportunity to testify. 

14 My name is Marne Glaser and I am a private 

15 citizen, a school psychologist, a member of the Sierra 

16 Club, and a long-time, active advocate for 

17 environmental health. 

18 Just a brief story. Five years ago, my 

19 friend introduced me to the lovely and little-known 

20 Lassen Volcanic National Park in northern California. 

21 We spent a few nights tenting in the northern 

22 campground, and I was struck by one thing: how very 
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1 easy it was to breathe. The air was gentle and light 

2 with the very subtle pineapple/vanilla scent of Jeffrey 

3 pines. I learned it was some of the cleanest air in 

4 the country. I had never experienced breathing in that 

5 way. It was then that I realized how thick the medium 

6 of air is around us and how much harder we work to take 

7 in oxygen in our daily lives, some of us much more than 

8 others. 

9 Several young members of my family struggle 

10 with asthma, and, sadly, I have known school children 

11 who have been in school one day, then gone the next, 

12 having died from severe asthma attacks overnight. If 

13 we care about such children and about the general 

14 health of the population in our country, as governments 

15 in many other countries have already demonstrated, then 

16 we need to adopt the Tier 3 cleaner tailpipe standards 

17 the EPA has issued, and allow it to use its authority 

18 under the Clean Air Act. 

19 Truthfully, I have become very dismayed with 

20 corporate indifference while working on another kind of 

21 air pollution, the ever-increasing levels of radio 

22 frequency radiation in our air. I have observed for 13 
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1 years the ability of powerful industries to trump the 

2 best efforts of the EPA, and tilt the news so as to 

3 trivialize the concerns of researchers, senior 

4 scientists at the EPA, and those at other agencies. 

5 So, it is not surprising to me that we are in this 

6 hearing today defending public health against the 

7 interests of another well-heeled industry. It is time 

8 for the EPA, representing the public good, to prevail. 

9 Those of you representing the oil industry 

10 who are esteemed and appreciated by their colleagues 

11 and who are loyal in supporting their companies need to 

12 remove the organizational blinders and note that you, 

13 too, are citizens of this physical world, part of this 

14 environment, and the fathers and mothers of generations 

15 of children to come, who will all need to breathe the 

16 air that we are preparing for them now. 

17 Thank you. 

18 MR. GRUNDLER: Thank you so much. 

19 Ms. Glauster, I hope your absence will be 

20 excused by the principal. 

21 I'd now like to welcome panel five up to the 

22 podium: Ms. Walbridge, Liane Casten -- Liane Casten -- 
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1 Liliy Shmuylouskaya -- sorry about that -- Mimi Harris, 

2 Andy Stevens, Lyndsay Moseley, Diane Niesman, Bob 

3 George, and Tom Sistler. 

4 Ms. Walbridge, whenever you're ready. 

5 MS. WALBRIDGE: Greetings, members of the 

6 Environmental Protection Agency of the United States of 

7 America. I hope you have had an opportunity to enjoy 

8 clean air on this wonderful spring day. 

9 I'm Jenny Walbridge, Sierra Club member and 

10 Chicagoan. I'm thrilled to have an opportunity to 

11 share my concern with you, the EPA, about the proposed 

12 Tier 3 cleaner tailpipe standards. I think these 

13 standards should already be under effect. 

14 Let me substantiate my concern. My sister's 

15 partner is a singer, artist, and best-selling author. 

16 He recently got a lung disease, however, and is now 

17 incapacitated. His doctor says his breathing intensity 

18 is equivalent to that of a marathon runner 24 hours a 

19 day. This man is confined indoors, but if he has to go 

20 outside -- oh -- if he has to go outside like to the 

21 doctor or a hospital and breathes some polluted air, it 

22 is difficult for him. He is 52 years old, in the prime 
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1 of life. 

2 I want this man and others with asthma or 

3 lung vulnerabilities to live, not die, because of dirty 

4 gas, currently a transportation requirement. I require 

5 that our number one requirement of life -- breathing 

6 clean air -- is protected. Sick people like my 

7 sister's boyfriend and youthful folks, too, need clean 

8 air to use to build and sustain life. All creatures 

9 need this type of air. 

10 Breathing is my number one priority, not 

11 saving money by spending a little less on gas. In 

12 fact, one of the reasons I don't drive a car anymore is 

13 that they pollute. Air is one thing we all -- all 

14 earthlings -- share. Air pollution doesn't just go up 

15 and away because the planet is round. If we mess up 

16 our air, it will return to haunt us, making us sick or 

17 killing us, or at least ruining our quality of life, 

18 including athletic pursuits. 

19 Why would we want to continue despoiling our 

20 home when these tailpipe emission standards give us a 

21 chance to do things differently? Clean air has always 

22 been a priority for me. I hate smoking and 
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1 encountering smokers. It devastates me to see cars and 

2 trucks spewing out tailpipe emissions. 

3 I have talked to the Chicago police about 

4 arresting vehicle drivers whose cars are obviously 

5 flaunting emission standards, but it seems they cannot 

6 arrest these drivers unless they have another reason to 

7 pull them over. This is wrong. And trucks and buses 

8 are as guilty as automobiles, if not more so, of 

9 poisoning our precious resource of breathable air. 

10 Diesel vehicles often produce a lot of emissions, but 

11 they should not have this opportunity just because they 

12 are used for work. 

13 When we as a planet stop cutting down rain 

14 forests and burning fuels for power, reducing the 

15 amount we ruin our air, we will have participated in a 

16 healthy new maturity of the human race. But today it 

17 seems that some of us are babies who continue to want 

18 to use dirty air in our cars and trucks, even while 

19 knowing we are endangering our offspring's' futures, 

20 their very bodies, with polluted air. I say it would 

21 be better if we limited American tailpipe emission 

22 pollution for good today. Hopefully other nations will 
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1 follow our example. 

2 Thank you for hearing my concerns about these 

3 standards, which we should not have to think twice 

4 about passing as it is obvious they are the right thing 

5 to do. 

6 MR. GRUNDLER: Thank you very much. 

7 Ms. Shmuylouskaya? 

8 MS. SHMUYLOUSKAYA: Hi. Thank you for having 

9 us. I support the EPA's standards to clean our air. 

10 When I was getting my master's degree from the 

11 University of Chicago, I lived in a high traffic area. 

12 Since then, I've developed a bunch of food 

13 sensitivities from all the chemicals in our 

14 environment. Since then I began eating organic and 

15 non-processed foods, and with my clean diet, my sense 

16 has improved, which is also great, but also sucks 

17 because I smell the tailpipe fumes all the time. 

18 When I'm in a place where there is clean air, 

19 I feel alive. I'm realistic, so I do not expect 

20 Chicago air to be like the air in the mountains of 

21 Switzerland, but we can still make it better. Let's 

22 work together to get these chemicals out of our air, 
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1 please. And thank you. 

2 MR. GRUNDLER: Thank you. 

3 Ms. Casten? Could you speak into the 

4 microphone, please? 

5 MS. CASTEN: Thank you. I usually do. Thank 

6 you for the hearing. My name is Liane Casten. I live 

7 in Evanston, and I have lived there for 39 years, but 

8 I'm here to tell you I should not be here. Why should 

9 I spend my valuable time and transportation money to 

10 get here? Partly it's because citizens must speak up. 

11 No one wants to breathe toxic air. No one 

12 wants to drink water contaminated by the emissions of 

13 fumes and toxic particulate that falls into the water, 

14 and which are then difficult to purify. Our sanitation 

15 facilities do not have the technology to make certain 

16 all the water we now drink is certifiably clean and 

17 pure. No one wants to get sick. 

18 My own heart condition, dependent upon a 

19 pacemaker, makes it very dicey for me to breathe 

20 dangerous air particles. Our lungs are being assaulted 

21 by toxic fumes and substances no human should breathe, 

22 but I assume you know all this. 
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1 Basically this is a political and ethical 

2 issue. We should simply know that the EPA is doing 

3 what it's mandated to do: protect the public and the 

4 environment from toxic assaults. What is really 

5 happening is an assault to our health, the health of 

6 our families and the health of our planet from a number 

7 of diverse forces. We are witnessing this assault 

8 because of the power, the pressure, and the money of 

9 polluting industries that put profit ahead of anything 

10 else. That's the new religion, profits. 

11 But, in fact, cleaner vehicles are a no12 brainer. They are already in the pipeline, and people 

13 are buying them. But EPA officials are under pressure 

14 to cave into this old scenario by your bosses and the 

15 toxic money that is being thrown around in order to 

16 allow our regulatory agencies to look the other way, 

17 modify or ignore. 

18 I urge you just do your job. Honor your 

19 mandates and help this planet and those who live on it 

20 to breathe healthy and vibrant lives. 

21 MR. GRUNDLER: Thank you very much. 

22 Mr. Stevens? 
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1 MR. STEVENS: My name is Andrew Stevens, and 

2 I'm a private citizen, also a supporter of the Sierra 

3 Club. I'm testifying today because I'm concerned about 

4 air quality and the cost that automobile and truck 

5 exhaust exact upon the environment and people. 

6 Many serious life-threatening health 

7 problems, including heart disease, cancer, asthma, and 

8 neurological problems, are caused by air pollution. 

9 Everyone knows that air pollution increases the number 

10 of emergency room visits and hospital admissions for 

11 respiratory problems. It can also lead to irreversible 

12 lung damage. All our communities are paying for the 

13 cost of toxic air pollution. One in three Americans 

14 live where he air is sometimes dangerous to breathe. 

15 I support the EPA issuing the Tier 3 cleaner 

16 tailpipe standards to clean the air and prevent serious 

17 respiratory problems I mentioned before. These 

18 standards will create cleaner, healthier air. They 

19 will improve the air -- the quality of life, and reduce 

20 health care by more than the cost of implementation, 

21 resulting in a net economic benefit. 

22 The EPA predicts that the Tier 3 cleaner 
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1 tailpipe standards will potentially prevent thousands 

2 of premature deaths and two million lost work and 

3 school days due to illness each year by 2030. The EPA 

4 also estimates that the net annual economic benefit of 

5 Tier 3 will be between $4.6 and $19.6 billion, the net 

6 effect, accounting for the cost of implementation and 

7 the savings in health care costs. 

8 Tier 3 is critical to reducing health impacts 

9 of poor air quality, including asthma, respiratory 

10 problems, and premature death. It will improve health 

11 and decrease medical costs by more than it costs to 

12 implement the changes. 

13 When I was preparing my statement, I didn't 

14 really consider the element of climate change and how 

15 reducing the sulfur content of fuel will enable engine 

16 manufacturers and automobile manufacturers to make 

17 cleaner burning automobiles that will be able to -- 

18 that'll improve their fuel efficiency. So I think 

19 that's an important element of this as well. 

20 I was heartened by the overwhelming support 

21 that I've seen so far and most of the people speaking 

22 in support of Tier 3. I was moved by the testimony of 
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1 Lisa Strack and the story of her son, Eric, and that of 

2 Chris Barrett and his fears for his children. 

3 I urge the EPA to issue the strongest 

4 possible Tier 3 standards. Thank you. 

5 MR. GRUNDLER: Thank you. 

6 Ms. Harris, welcome. 

7 MS. HARRIS: Thank you. Thanks for this 

8 opportunity. So I'm Mimi Harris. I'm a private 

9 citizen, but the Sierra Club got me down here, told me 

10 about this. 

11 I want to applaud you at the EPA for making 

12 this rule. In these times it is refreshing and means a 

13 lot when a government agency like yours actually moves 

14 to protect and promote the public interest and the 

15 well-being of citizens. 

16 I live in this city near the lake shore. The 

17 lakefront park system begins where we live as does the 

18 freeway bordering the lake called the Outer Drive. 

19 Thousands of cars come to this freeway daily. When I 

20 walk to the bus stop, I'm always trying to not breathe 

21 or only take tiny breaths hoping to avoid taking in the 

22 particulate matter and other pollution. Of course I'm 
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1 unsuccessful. What I probably need is a gas mask. 

2 I've now been diagnosed with some COPD, and I 

3 don't think I would have a different diagnosis if the 

4 volume of cars was less. I think this diagnosis is now 

5 rampant all over all our cities. What a strain on our 

6 health care system and on all of us affected. 

7 And it's not just the elders either. In this 

8 case, as the park begins there's a playground with 

9 infant swings and playground equipment. All the cars 

10 swing around it getting onto the Outer Drive. Imagine 

11 what is happening to the still developing systems of 

12 our kids, including the littlest ones. 

13 Finally, in the backyard of our family 

14 building I have an organic vegetable garden for my 

15 kids, grandkids, and neighbors. Sadly, I know these 

16 efforts are compromised by what is coming out of the 

17 tailpipes of all these cars passing through my 

18 neighborhood, helping to create future cases of COPD, I 

19 suppose. 

20 So again I commend the EPA for taking a stand 

21 despite intense pressure I'm sure, and acting in the 

22 best interests of all of us and our Country. I am 
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1 grateful to you and encourage you to stick to the rule 

2 and the schedule you have set. Thank you. 

3 MR. GRUNDLER: Thank you. 

4 Ms. Moseley? 

5 MS. MOSELEY: Good afternoon. Is it on? 

6 UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: No. 

7 MR. GRUNDLER: Yes. We can hear you either 

8 way. 

9 MS. MOSELEY: Okay. Yeah, I have a 

10 projecting voice. 

11 So good afternoon, and thank you for this 

12 opportunity to speak in support of cleaner gasoline and 

13 vehicle standards. My name is Lyndsay Moseley, and I 

14 serve as the Deputy Director of the American Lung 

15 Association's Healthy Air Campaign. And I'm here to 

16 voice strong support for EPA's proposed cleaner 

17 gasoline and vehicle standards for the simple reason 

18 that they will save thousands of lives each year and 

19 prevent tens of thousands of asthma attacks and related 

20 hospitalizations. 

21 The American Lung Association's recent report 

22 called, "A Penny for Prevention: The Case for Cleaner 
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1 Gasoline and Vehicle Standards," found that more than 

2 2,500 premature deaths can be avoided each year by 

3 2030, and that was just for the eastern half of the 

4 U.S. These health benefits can be achieved at the very 

5 low cost of about a cent per gallon of gasoline. 

6 Considering the benefits and the very low cost, it 

7 makes no sense to delay these standards any further. 

8 Cleaning up pollution from gasoline and 

9 vehicles standards will help protect the lungs and 

10 hearts of Americans across the country, and here's why. 

11 We here in America love our cars and our trucks, but 

12 we don't often think about the pollution pouring out of 

13 the tailpipes as we cruise along to work or to school 

14 or running our errands, but it's true. As we drive, we 

15 leave behind a toxic trail of pollution, including the 

16 two most widespread pollutants, ozone and particulate 

17 matter, which are linked to increased asthma attacks, 

18 heart attacks, and even premature death. Ozone, is the 

19 primary ingredient of smog, and it's created by gases 

20 that come out of tailpipes. You guys know this. 

21 Particulate matter is the very tiny mix of solid and 

22 liquid particles in the air and also comes directly 
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1 from our tailpipes. 

2 Reducing these dangerous pollutants and 

3 others, as you have proposed, is feasible. Just look at 

4 what's happening in California, which already has cars 

5 that pollute less due to better technology and cleaner 

6 gasoline standards that help these cars run cleaner and 

7 burn cleaner for longer. We also know that other 

8 countries have already adopted similar common sense 

9 standards or are are moving in that direction. 

10 In working at the American Lung Association, 

11 I have had the opportunity to meet many brave 

12 individuals who struggle with chronic lung disease or 

13 have lost a loved one to a sudden asthma attack or lung 

14 cancer, people like Lydia Rojas, a mother who sent her 

15 15-year-old daughter off to school one day, only to 

16 rush to the hospital later that day to receive the 

17 heartbreaking news that a sudden asthma attack had 

18 claimed her daughter's life. And I have experienced 

19 loss myself, when my vibrant, fun-loving friend and 

20 running partner, Wendy, was diagnosed with lung cancer 

21 and shockingly succumbed to its grip only a few months 

22 later. 
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1 Our Nation's most vulnerable -- children, the 

2 elderly, those with existing conditions such as 

3 emphysema and heart disease -- shouldn't have to wait 

4 any longer than absolutely necessary for these 

5 protections, so I urge you to finalize these proposed 

6 standards before the end of this year. 

7 Thousands of people have already taken action 

8 in support of these standards to cut life-threatening 

9 pollution from tailpipes. And I urge you to listen to 

10 these people and to others who are taking the time to 

11 stand up for healthy air here today. 

12 The American Lung Association applauds your 

13 efforts to protect public health by setting these much 

14 needed standards, and we urge you to keep the standards 

15 strong, to resist undue pressure to delay these life16 saving standards, and to finalize them by end of this 

17 year. 

18 Thank you. 

19 MR. GRUNDLER: Thank you very much. 

20 Sir, I can't see your name tag. Can you 

21 introduce yourself? 

22 MR. SISTLER: Yes. I am Tom Sistler. Well, 
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1 I'm nothing but a gardener, but I think I have a couple 

2 of tips that can reduce some of this smog or whatever, 

3 such as -- 

4 Okay. When it comes to mowing lawns now, one 

5 would think that -- well, I've heard some EPA rules, 

6 such as, well, on real hot summer days, you're asked 

7 not to use those gasoline-powered machines if you could 

8 help it. However, try mowing a lawn in the early 

9 morning hours to avoid that, and you end up burning 

10 five times as much gas because it's that much harder to 

11 cut the grass when it's moistened with morning dew. 

12 And here's another tip: avoid over 

13 fertilizing. Do not rely on Chemlawn lawn care, people 

14 like that. Just use something like Scott's brand 

15 fertilizers with steps one, two, three, one for weed 

16 control, another for insect control, and all that, 

17 spacing them at least two or three months apart 

18 according to the label, and using a graduated type of 

19 spreader when applying it so you don't give them an 

20 overdose, which will burn out those -- burn out your 

21 lawn. And you'd have to water it to smithereens, which 

22 is going to jack up your water bill, and then -- 
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1 MR. GRUNDLER: Sir, I'm sorry to interrupt, 

2 but do you have any comments on the proposal that we're 

3 having this hearing on for clean vehicles and clean 

4 gasoline? 

5 MR. SISTLER: Right. Clean gasoline, I'm 

6 talking about a reduction of use of gasoline. If you 

7 avoid using too much fertilizer, you won't have to cut 

8 your lawn so much, and you won't burn so much fuel. 

9 MR. GRUNDLER: Thank you very much. 

10 MR. SISTLER: Thank you. 

11 MR. GRUNDLER: Next I'd like to invite Ms. 

12 Niesman to present testimony. We won't forget you, Mr. 

13 George. 

14 MS. NIESMAN: Thank you. Is it working? 

15 Okay. 

16 Good afternoon. My name is Diane Niesman. I 

17 am the Issue Specialist for Climate Change, Air 

18 Quality, and Energy for the League of Women voters of 

19 Illinois. I am testifying on behalf of the 40 local 

20 League chapters throughout Illinois. 

21 The League of Women voters, a nonpartisan 

22 political organization in existence for over 90 years, 
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1 has studied a whole host of issues, too many to list 

2 today, but including representative government, 

3 education, social services, health care, and natural 

4 resources. The League studies these issues by in-depth 

5 research and reaches its positions solely through 

6 member consensus. We understand the interrelatedness 

7 of these issues, and no better example of such an 

8 intrinsic relationship is that of human health and the 

9 health of our environment. Our established positions 

10 allow us to advocate in support of or opposition to 

11 policies at every level of government. 

12 Since a national study by the League on air 

13 pollution in the early 1970s, we have been able to 

14 actively support the Clean Air Act of 1963 and the 

15 EPA's increasingly stronger emission standards. In 

16 fact, Laura Kratz, sitting right there, of the Illinois 

17 League testified before the EPA in Chicago two years 

18 ago in support of the air toxics rule. I am here today 

19 in support of the Tier 3 vehicle and fuel regulations. 

20 In the past few years, the EPA has created a 

21 strong foundation of clean car standards that nearly 

22 double fuel efficiency and cut dangerous tailpipe 
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1 pollution in half by the year 2025. It is appropriate 

2 to build on this foundation with the Tier 3 

3 regulations. 

4 The League of Women Voters believes 

5 implementation of these regulations will provide 

6 cleaner cars, cleaner fuel, and cleaner air. Cleaner 

7 cars because most auto makers support a single emission 

8 standard for all U.S. vehicles to provide market 

9 certainty and allow for more streamlined production. 

10 Cleaner fuel because strong health and safety 

11 regulations do not damage our economy. They markedly 

12 improve the economy through increased innovations that 

13 result in new opportunities. Cleaner air because the 

14 most important economic savings we can realize, both 

15 public and private, are in health care costs. The 

16 better our air quality, the fewer people suffering from 

17 respiratory illnesses. 

18 The saying "an ounce of prevention is worth a 

19 pound of cure," is the most appropriate to this issue. 

20 We believe that decreasing air pollutants saves lives, 

21 a bottom line that is good for our State and our 

22 Nation. We feel the health of our planet is also on 
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1 the line here. Until we can end our dependence on 

2 fossil fuel, we need to continue to minimize the damage 

3 of fossil fuel to our environment. 

4 In summary, the Tier 3 vehicle and fuel 

5 regulations will provide cleaner cars, cleaner fuel, 

6 and cleaner air. And the League of Women Voters of 

7 Illinois strongly supports these regulations. Thank 

8 you. 

9 MR. GRUNDLER: Thank you very much. 

10 Mr. George? 

11 MR. GEORGE: Thank you. 

12 I'm here representing myself as a private 

13 citizen and also the Consumers Union. And I want to 

14 thank Paul, Kathryn, Christopher, and Bill for being 

15 here. And I would like to speak to you on that level 

16 of human being to human being rather than on statistics 

17 and those kinds of things. 

18 I'm here because I live in a world that 

19 increasingly doesn't make sense to me, and that world 

20 is one where we value property and money and other 

21 things over human lives. What we're talking about here 

22 isn't complex. We burn fuels that hurt us. Tier 3 is 
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1 going to help that, and at that level I think it's very 

2 important. 

3 I had the opportunity, that I don't know is 

4 necessarily an opportunity, but I lived in southern 

5 California for 22 years. And unfortunately I lived 

6 near the 405 and the 91 freeways, and you breathe a lot 

7 of that air. And my wife, Barbara, finally asked and 

8 basically pleaded with me to move out of California, 

9 and we moved here to Chicago. But six months after we 

10 moved here, she passed, partially because of the 

11 pollution that she suffered, and her breathing and her 

12 welfare was bad, severely affected. 

13 I recently found out from my cardiologist 

14 because I took a cardiopulmonary test, that my lungs 

15 are only 71 percent able to process oxygen. I think 

16 that's in part due to the many, many, many years that I 

17 spent breathing a lot of pollution. 

18 I think your charge as the Environmental 

19 Protection Agency, as part of this organization, is to 

20 protect human health and the environment. And while I 

21 totally and fully endorse Tier 3, I think it's really 

22 important to accelerate what we're doing because this 
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1 planet is dying because of what we're doing to it. 

2 I am active right now with many, many 

3 children in the City of Chicago as an activist with the 

4 Chicago Teachers Union and with the ability of the 

5 schools, particularly in poor neighborhoods, to be a 

6 place that is safe. And I have to tell you that I now 

7 do not drive. Most of the time I take transportation 

8 and I walk in the neighborhoods. 

9 And we as people who have some privilege in 

10 this country need to think about those who do not, and 

11 the poor are not able to protect themselves as easily 

12 as we are, and the air that we breathe is part of that. 

13 And they do not have the same protections. 

14 So I want to encourage you to do everything 

15 you can every day in this important protection of human 

16 health. Thank you. 

17 MR. GRUNDLER: Thank you, Mr. George for 

18 that, and thank all of you once again for taking time 

19 out of your day to come and express your views. 

20 They're very meaningful. 

21 We're going to take a short break and 

22 reconvene at 2:45. Thank you. 
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1 [Whereupon, the meeting was recessed briefly 

2 at 2:33 p.m., to reconvene at 3:01 p.m.] 

3 MR. GRUNDLER: Now, we're looking for Susan 

4 Olson, Laura Sabransky, Jeff Markus, Alexandra Sipiora, 

5 Reverend Gallagher, Eileen Soderstrom, and Kevin 

6 Morrison. We'll proceed from left to right. 

7 Ms. Soderstrom, when you're ready, we're 

8 delighted to hear from you. 

9 MS. SODERSTROM: Okay. Good afternoon. My 

10 name is Eileen Soderstrom, and I'm here just 

11 representing myself. 

12 MR. GRUNDLER: Could you move the mic a 

13 little bit closer, please? 

14 MS. SODERSTROM: I'm here just representing 

15 myself and my family. I am the mother of two and the 

16 grandmother of two with two more on the way. I am an 

17 aunt to nine nieces and five nephews, one great niece, 

18 and another one on the way. And I'm looking to make 

19 sure that we do the right thing for their future and 

20 the future of the ones that will follow them. 

21 One of my nieces has asthma and I have a 

22 heart condition, so things about the air affect our 
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1 families specifically. I just retired last year, and 

2 I'm spending my time working on things that I think are 

3 important for our country. When I hear that 46 other 

4 countries already have these standards, I'm appalled 

5 that we don't have them. We're supposed to be the 

6 leader of the free world, and I'd like to see us do 

7 that. 

8 We have the EPA, the Environmental Protection 

9 Agency, to work for us to do things that we as a 

10 country need done for us that we can't do for 

11 ourselves. That's what we expect government to do for 

12 us. And we're very grateful that they are doing the 

13 work to see the kinds of things that are necessary to 

14 make our country a better, safer place. 

15 We know that health care is one of the most 

16 rising things affecting our economy, and anything that 

17 we could do to reduce the cost of health care is a good 

18 thing to do. When you hear what the expected cost of 

19 this is, a penny a gallon is the estimate we give, when 

20 you see what the oil companies are saying the estimate 

21 is, they're making it higher, maybe six cents a gallon. 

22 Well, we see the price of gasoline go up and down all 
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1 the time, and I would not like to think that the death 

2 of a child or the illness of many children is worth six 

3 cents a gallon of gasoline. 

4 From what I read, many of the auto 

5 manufacturers are pushing for us to go forward with 

6 this. They want the plans that they can build towards. 

7 They need to make their plans for what's going 

8 forward. Things that aren't resolved make them hang in 

9 limbo for a while. It's very hard for companies to 

10 make plans that they don't know what they have to plan 

11 for. 

12 Even for the oil companies themselves, they 

13 already have to make gasoline with lower sulfur because 

14 of the requirements in some countries they export to 

15 and the requirements for California. All these things 

16 are just common sense. 

17 So I'd like to say that I'd like for us to 

18 move forward with these common sense changes that will 

19 make life better for us. Thank you. 

20 MR. GRUNDLER: Thank you very much. 

21 Mr. Markus? 

22 MR. MARKUS: What's the old line, "Mr. Markus 
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1 was my father?" 

2 [Laughter.] 

3 MR. MARKUS: We must use all avenues offered 

4 to us to proclaim and present our concerns and 

5 steadfast backing for the protection and improvement of 

6 this country's air quality. A forum like this, which 

7 can be used to support the regulatory means of gaining 

8 a cleaner atmosphere for this and future people, must 

9 be utilized to its strongest advantage. So I've come 

10 to add my voice to list my name and petition applying 

11 the noise to the battle for our country's health and 

12 improving the quality of life. 

13 My name is Jeff Markus, and I have seen the 

14 battle for clean air, clean water, and good food be 

15 fought for the past half century, entangled in the 

16 debate of business versus health. I have watched as 

17 good intentions were trampled by moneyed interests that 

18 reached for the instant gratification of wealth while 

19 ignoring the dire consequences of environmental 

20 degradation that clouds our skies with smog and 

21 pollutes our water with acids and particulates washed 

22 from the sky. 
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1 Recent advances by a myriad of environmental 

2 groups continue to make strides toward a cleaner 

3 future, but the war for our health faces the upward 

4 fight against the forces of economic self-interests 

5 without concern for the well-being of all people. 

6 The Tier 3 standards discussed here are the 

7 latest steps along a journey we must steadfastly 

8 undertake so the future can realize its dreams. I have 

9 seen the skies obscured by smog over major cities and 

10 the clouds of effluent that threaten even the clear 

11 views of national parks far distant from the automotive 

12 and industrial pollution sources. I have read the 

13 tales and seen the withered forests in the citified 

14 lakes that have been sullied by the rain-fed toxic 

15 slurry that rinses from our storm clouds. 

16 From plant life chased back from the 

17 highway's edge to headstones melted by etching rain, 

18 our country is being remade by the effects of our 

19 transportation and industrial excess. Yet we have 

20 always had and are now realizing the power to use 

21 forethought and rational planning to stop the damage we 

22 have wrought. By constructive regulation and 
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1 intelligent approaches, we can salvage much of our 

2 past, our today, and our future. 

3 By seeing the current Tier 3 regulations as 

4 footfalls on the continuing trail to a brighter future, 

5 we can gain the tomorrow that we deserve and need to 

6 offer our children and grandchildren. Every attempt to 

7 reign in the business and industrial powers have met 

8 with the protestations of doom from economic burdens 

9 too great to shoulder, to technological hurdles too 

10 high to clear. Yet each of the past regulatory 

11 structures imposed to salvage our tomorrows have not 

12 collapsed our society or doomed our industry, but have 

13 shown what we are capable of when the resources of our 

14 intellect are allowed and driven to protect our 

15 heritage. 

16 The past, reputedly strewn with destruction, 

17 has actually yielded roads paved in gold of our 

18 intellectual efforts. The economic engines that drive 

19 our physical future must continually be stoked with the 

20 fuels of true advancement, not the false economy of 

21 short-term gain to the detriment of future generations. 

22 We have heard the thesis of the Native 
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1 American tribes that each day should be faced for the 

2 next seven generations, and now we must live for that 

3 future and impose the structures, even if only one step 

4 at a time, to make the next generations see us as 

5 builders instead of destroyers of the planet, 

6 destroyers of the planet we need to live on, from, and 

7 amidst. 

8 The Sierra Club and many other groups that we 

9 join with to derive the power of numbers make efforts 

10 like this possible so we can be seen among the giants 

11 of business and industry who at times refuse to see the 

12 needs of the future. We must not stop the fight for 

13 the right rules, the right laws, and the right people 

14 to move forward to a cleaner, safer, and healthier 

15 future. 

16 Thank you for this time and forum to express 

17 my opinions. 

18 MR. GRUNDLER: Thanks, Jeff. 

19 Ms. Olson? 

20 MS. OLSON: Hi. My name is Susan Olson. I'm 

21 a private citizen. I'm also employed as a crew member 

22 for American Airlines. I thank you for the opportunity 
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1 to speak today and for the work that the EPA does. 

2 I live in southeast Wisconsin now, but I 

3 lived in southern California in the early 80s when the 

4 air quality and the smog was very bad. In fact, I 

5 lived there several months before one day I was 

6 thrilled to see snow-capped mountains to the east, just 

7 30 miles away, that I never knew were there. 

8 As if by magic, the easterly Santa Ana winds 

9 blew all the smog out west over the ocean for a few 

10 days and cleared the air for a while until the 

11 prevailing westerly winds returned and blew all the 

12 smog back in. I've also traveled to China where there 

13 are no EPA standards and where the air quality this 

14 past summer was so bad that aircraft could not land due 

15 to poor visibility, and the air really stunk. 

16 I feel sorry for the children there who want 

17 to play outside and have to breathe in that terrible 

18 air. I feel sorry for the many people that I see 

19 wearing masks over their faces in a failed attempt to 

20 breathe in cleaner air. So this Tier 3 standard is 

21 very important for us and essentially for the whole 

22 world. 
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1 I have been here since, you know, the 

2 beginning of today listening to the testimony from some 

3 40 private people and companies, and I was especially 

4 impressed with all of the car manufacturing companies 

5 that were here to support these efforts. Honda, 

6 General Motors, Hyundai-Kia, Mercedes-Benz, Chrysler, 

7 Ford, all here, and they believe that the Tier 3 

8 standards are doable, and they're willing to make it 

9 happen. 

10 As a mother and hopefully somebody a 

11 grandmother, I hope cleaner air standards will prevail 

12 for my children and for future children of the world. 

13 Thank you. 

14 MR. GRUNDLER: Thank you. 

15 Reverend, please. 

16 REVEREND DOCTOR GALLAGHER: Good afternoon. 

17 I want to begin by expressing my appreciation that 

18 you've come out here and are opening this hearing to 

19 hear from everyone. That's great. 

20 For the record, I'm the Reverend Terrence 

21 Gregory Gallagher, and I present these comments arising 

22 out of the responsibilities as a public theologian. 
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1 And I'm speaking as a private citizen. I reside in 

2 Aurora, Illinois. 

3 As a person of faith who's concerned about 

4 public health and clean air, I strongly support the 

5 Tier 3 standards for tailpipe emissions and low-sulfur 

6 fuel, and I urge -- I urge -- the EPA to finalize these 

7 standards by the end of 2013. We've made some progress 

8 along the way cleaning up the exhaust of our cars and 

9 trucks, but they still remain a leading source of air 

10 pollution, and more than one in three Americans still 

11 live in areas where air pollution levels exceed at 

12 least one Federal health standard. 

13 I have kind of a strange background. Before 

14 I entered the ministry, I spent 30 years in the 

15 chemical manufacturing industry first as an engineer, 

16 and then ultimately as a Plant Manager. So 20 to 30 

17 years ago, I might well have been one of the industry 

18 experts testifying before you bemoaning that your 

19 latest standard was going to drive us out of business, 

20 bemoaning that we couldn't possibly implement what you 

21 were asking. Twenty or 30 years ago was the heyday for 

22 regulations coming out from the EPA, OSHA, and many 
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1 other things. 

2 In retrospect, they made us better. In all 

3 honesty, they made us better not only for our employees 

4 and our neighbors, but they made us better for our 

5 bottom line because they helped force us to become more 

6 efficient and more effective at what we do. They made 

7 us look much deeper into what we do so that we 

8 understood what we were releasing and how we might 

9 capture that. 

10 So what I want to talk about a little bit 

11 today are the two broad categories in health risks that 

12 are commonly recognized: acute and chronic. Acute are 

13 those risks, of course, that hurt you bad or kill you 

14 dead right now, and chronic are those that 20 to 30 

15 years to accomplish the same thing. And I can tell you 

16 as a dad and a grandpa, generally we pay attention to 

17 acute risks, except for teenagers. You know, we kind 

18 of hope and pray they'll make it through those years. 

19 But adults, mature adults, tend to pay attention to 

20 acute risks. 

21 But I can also tell you as a former chemical 

22 plant manager and as a pastor, that we don't pay the 
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1 same amount of attention to chronic risks, particularly 

2 if to pay attention to and take action to reduce 

3 chronic risks would require us to change lifestyles or 

4 behaviors, or experience increased costs. And the 

5 opposition to doing something about chronic risks rises 

6 exponentially when we see perceived effects in costs 

7 immediately. 

8 But we know, though, that all too often 

9 chronic health risks after do ultimately result in 

10 acute health damage. Lungs struggle to breathe, hearts 

11 fail, and cancer cells grow and multiply. As a Pastor, 

12 I have heard the laments, "if only I had lived 

13 differently." That's a lament not just of individuals, 

14 but collectively of us as a society. In our better 

15 moments as a society, we take the time and we make the 

16 effort to examine those chronic health risks, and on a 

17 scientific basis we put into place laws and regulations 

18 that seek to reduce the exposures to levels which 

19 prevent the chronic from becoming the acute. 

20 In our better moments as a society, we take 

21 actions to create agencies to do this on our behalf. 

22 That's your responsibility. That's where you, the 
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1 Environmental Protection Agency, have a critical role 

2 in the future well-being of our society. Lately you've 

3 been taking a lot of ill-conceived heat for this role, 

4 powerful voices of ignorance and of greed have been 

5 raised against you. And I fear that you're becoming 

6 timid as a result. And I'm here today to encourage you 

7 to be bold in your efforts to protect the least of us, 

8 all of us. 

9 I've found it fascinating over the years to 

10 realize that every single major world religion has some 

11 form of the Golden Rule, that rule that says "Do unto 

12 others as you would have them do unto you." And 

13 perhaps that's no better understood than in terms of 

14 our atmosphere, for what we do to others and what we 

15 put into the atmosphere, we actually doing to 

16 ourselves. Exhaust and our allowing poison to go in 

17 the air. 

18 Christian teachings call on us to protect 

19 God's earth and see justice for our neighbors, 

20 particularly the most vulnerable among us. So I really 

21 strongly encourage you to implement this rule as soon 

22 as possible. You've heard the experts say the benefits 
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1 that are going to come about. Thousands of lives 

2 depend on it. 

3 But I would remiss as a public theologian if 

4 I failed out to point out that there is much more work 

5 for you to do, much more work for you to do in 

6 regulating the pollution gases that come out of exhaust 

7 pipes and wreak havoc on God's good creation. Someday 

8 we have to get to the point where we simply do not 

9 allow exhaust pipes. Someday our children are going to 

10 ask us why we didn't when you knew how to do it, when 

11 you had the technology, when you had the means, when 

12 you had the understanding, why did you fail to act? I 

13 would hate to face my grandkids and say, it's simply 

14 because we lack the will to act. 

15 So I would encourage you. In fact, enforce 

16 this legislation and let's get on. There are millions 

17 of lives at stake as long as we keep having exhaust 

18 affecting our atmosphere. Thank you. 

19 MR. GRUNDLER: Thank you, Reverend, very 

20 much. 

21 Ms. Sipiora, you're up. 

22 MS. SIPIORA: Good afternoon. Can you hear 
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1 me okay? 

2 MR. GRUNDLER: We can. 

3 MS. SIPIORA: My name is Alexandria Sipiora, 

4 and I'm testifying as a private citizen and a volunteer 

5 with the Sierra Club. I appreciate this opportunity to 

6 testify. I'm here because the new Tier 3 standards for 

7 cleaner burning gasoline will result in 1.8 million 

8 fewer missed days of work or school annually by 2030. 

9 I have multiple chemical sensitivities, which 

10 is why I wear a charcoal mask. Most days I have to 

11 wear two masks. I am allergic to acid aldehyde, which 

12 is one of the chemicals in car exhaust. Because of 

13 this mask, I don't have any days of work to miss 

14 because I'm unemployable. Most employers will not hire 

15 someone who is wearing a mask. Even though such 

16 discrimination may be illegal under the Americans with 

17 Disabilities Act, the Equal Opportunity Commission is 

18 much less likely to rule in favor of people with 

19 multiple chemical sensitivities than they are for most 

20 disabilities. So even though I will be earning a 

21 master's degree in December and will be highly 

22 qualified, I probably will have no legal recourse if 
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1 employers refuse to hire me. 

2 Thank you. 

3 MR. GRUNDLER: Thank you very much. 

4 Mr. Morrison, welcome. 

5 MR. MORRISON: Thank you for the opportunity 

6 to testify today. My name is Kevin Morrison and I'm 

7 here on my own behalf as a private citizen and as a 

8 member of the Sierra Club. 

9 I'm here today because I am concerned with 

10 the status of our environment. As a political science 

11 and environmental science major at DePaul University, I 

12 am well aware of the lack of uniformity our government 

13 places on decisions concerning our environment. As 

14 American citizens, it is extremely important that we 

15 elect leaders who are there to fight to to preserve the 

16 right to life in this Nation. 

17 Toxic air pollution does not only affect our 

18 ecosystems, but it affects human health. As a child, 

19 I, like many Americans, enjoyed many days playing 

20 outdoors. Our parents allowed us this freedom, knowing 

21 that we were safe and that we would try to keep out of 

22 trouble. Our parents did not worry about the health 
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1 effects of being outdoors. To them, that would be an 

2 absurd thought. 

3 At Jefferson Park, I was a child playing next 

4 to a busy intersection, and less than one block away 

5 from the Kennedy Expressway. The potential risk of 

6 inhaling particulate matter released from automobile 

7 exhaust could not have been higher. I myself have 

8 acute asthma. My sister has severe asthma, and my 

9 father, my grandmother, and my great grandmother all 

10 developed emphysema. 

11 For many Americans, air pollution causes a 

12 whole host of health problems. A New York Times study 

13 released that 30 to 45 percent of Americans live in 

14 areas in which automobile exhaust poses serious risks 

15 to one's health, these potential health risks being 

16 higher cases of asthma, heart disease, nerve damage, 

17 and cancer. Once someone has been afflicted with one 

18 of these ailments, the damage is then irreversible. 

19 By EPA's own prediction, Tier 3 cleaner 

20 tailpipe standards would prevent between 820 and 2,400 

21 premature deaths, and 1.8 million lost work or school 

22 days due to illness annually by 2030. The EPA 
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1 estimates that the monetized annual health benefits by 

2 2030 would be between $8 and $23 billion. 

3 I recognize that the EPA has done great work 

4 in improving air quality in the United States, and that 

5 these proposed exhaust standards would definitely 

6 continue this record. It is our leaders who must come 

7 forth to protect the American people. There are many 

8 improvements our country must place on industry and 

9 energy production that would even further benefit the 

10 health of this Nation. No price is too high when the 

11 future benefits outweigh their costs. 

12 These standards are critical to improving our 

13 Nation's air quality. These improvements would lead to 

14 a reduction in asthma attacks, respiratory problems, 

15 and premature death. Outdoor activities would no 

16 longer run the risk of inhaling hazardous particulate 

17 matter. 

18 Once again, I urge the EPA to issue the 

19 strongest Tier 3 standards possible. Thank you for the 

20 opportunity. 

21 MR. GRUNDLER: Thank you. 

22 Ms. Sabransky? 
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1 MS. SABRANSKY: Thank you for holding public 

2 hearings on the Tier 3 vehicle emission and fuel 

3 standards program. My name is Laura Sabransky, I live 

4 in the City of Chicago, and I have asthma. 

5 I urge the EPA to enact the long-overdue 

6 standards that will clean up gasoline and reduce smog7 forming pollution from cars and light trucks. I am a 

8 volunteer today with the Sierra Club, and have never 

9 been paid for my decades of advocacy work. 

10 I grew up in Oak Grove Village, Illinois, 

11 adjacent to O'Hare Airport, surrounded by major 

12 highways and expressways, and home to the largest 

13 industrial park in the United States. While planes 

14 flew directly overhead five minutes apart, plumes of 

15 black smoke hovered over my backyard. Not 

16 surprisingly, when my eighth grade science teacher 

17 asked us to design a futuristic community, I created a 

18 suburban downtown featuring interconnected above-ground 

19 pedestrian walkways that took the place of sidewalks, 

20 because the air in my vision of the future would be too 

21 polluted to breathe safely. 

22 In 1993, I was diagnosed with asthma. Since 
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1 then, I've spent conservatively $15,000 of my own money 

2 on prescription medications, devices, and medical 

3 procedure and visit co-pays to manage this chronic 

4 respiratory condition. The amount would be much higher 

5 if I was uninsured. 

6 Last summer during record hot temperatures, I 

7 traveled to Milwaukee to volunteer for Tom Barrett's 

8 campaign. I hesitated to make the trip because I had 

9 recently been out of breath from routine outdoor 

10 activities. In Milwaukee, I felt great while walking 

11 up hilly streets and stairs of 80 homes for six hours, 

12 marveling at the clear blue sky. Upon emerging, 

13 however, from Chicago's Amtrak station, I noticed that 

14 the sky was brownish-grayish. After walking a half 

15 block, my lungs felt tight. The next day I had the 

16 same exact experience. I then realized for the first 

17 time the problem was not me. It was the polluted 

18 Chicago air I'm breathing. 

19 During the ensuring record number of air 

20 quality action days with high ozone, I experienced 

21 sharp pains in my lungs, even while I stayed inside all 

22 day. Two medical specialists had no answers on how to 
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1 address this. And I am not alone: 132 million people 

2 in the U.S. still live in counties that have unhealthy 

3 levels of either ozone or particle pollution, which 

4 equates to more than four in 10 people. According to 

5 the most recent asthma data for Chicago, the asthma 

6 hospitalization rate is nearly double the national 

7 average. Up to 40 percent of asthmatics limit daily 

8 activities, and death rates from asthma are four to six 

9 times higher for African-Americans and Hispanics than 

10 for Caucasians. 

11 Particularly relevant to today's hearing is 

12 that new medical research concludes that poor air 

13 quality associated with busy roads can cause asthma. 

14 Neighborhoods with the highest rate of asthma are near 

15 Chicago's congested highways. On this map, which is 

16 included in the testimony I submitted, on this map the 

17 red areas indicating the highest asthma rates are 

18 clustered right around highways. In 2011, Chicago had 

19 the most traffic congestion in the Nation. 

20 So if one was putting together a formula to 

21 ensure that more people suffer and die from asthma and 

22 other respiratory conditions, really it would be 
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1 difficult to top the one that's one been perfected in 

2 Chicago. 

3 The future I envisioned in eighth grade as 

4 mostly science fiction is upon us. Still, there are 

5 organizations, like the American Petroleum Institute, 

6 trying to change the discussion from health and 

7 survival by warning of disputable negative consequences 

8 if the EPA's regulations are enacted. What many people 

9 don't realize is that for decades companies that profit 

10 from poisoning the air we breathe, water we drink, and 

11 food we eat have been writing laws that make it easier 

12 for them to commit toxic trespass upon us. 

13 And, in fact, these laws are being sponsored 

14 by many of our lawmakers, who see their role less as 

15 problem solvers than profiteers. Laws restricting 

16 States from low carbon fuel standards programs, 

17 preventing EPA regulation of dirty coal products, and 

18 protecting companies that commit lead poisoning, to 

19 name a few of the hundreds, possibly thousands, of 

20 anti-public health and environmental protection laws 

21 are written by corporations and organizations and 

22 sponsored by law makers who belong to secret groups, 
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1 like the American Legislative Exchange Council, also 

2 known as ALEC. 

3 I'm here to tell you that many of us believe 

4 we can no longer depend on our elected officials to 

5 protect us from the toxic trespasses that threaten our 

6 health and lives. To quote Elizabeth Edwards, "Those 

7 who need to champion cannot compromise in the face of 

8 forces that are powerful, persistent, and pernicious, 

9 and greedy." We citizens depend upon the EPA to 

10 protect us, and we're depending on the EPA to enact the 

11 Tier 3 Vehicle Emission and Fuel Standards Program. 

12 MR. GRUNDLER: Thank you very much, all of 

13 you. We really appreciate you taking your time to come 

14 and share your thoughts. 

15 I'd like to invite Andrew Clarke, Terry 

16 Grace, Kady McFadden, Judy Dufficy, and Karen Batty. 

17 Please come on up. Could I ask you ladies to fill out 

18 your name tags so I can call on you properly? 

19 If Kady McFadden is in the vicinity, you're 

20 welcome to testify. 

21 Mr. Clarke, please proceed. 

22 MR. CLARKE: My name is Andrew Clarke. I'm a 
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1 private citizen and a Sierra Club member. 

2 I am very concerned about our environment. 

3 While climate change is the single biggest 

4 environmental threat we face, there are many others. 

5 In particular, our communities are paying for the costs 

6 of toxic air pollution. One in three Americans lives 

7 where the air is sometimes dangerous, even deadly, to 

8 breathe. But the most vulnerable are young children, 

9 the elderly, the infirm, and the poor. 

10 I live in downtown Chicago, and I have an 

11 unobstructed view of Lake Michigan from my condo. On 

12 hot summer days, I often see a brown haze over the 

13 horizon. When it rains, the haze goes away, but it 

14 comes back within a few days after the rain ends, and 

15 then it builds and builds until the next rain comes 

16 along. My doctor told me to stay inside and run the 

17 air conditioner when the air quality gets bad. That 

18 may help me, but it is not a real solution. It is a 

19 just a band aid. It also doesn't help the tens of 

20 thousands of poor people who live in the City of 

21 Chicago who cannot afford air conditioning. 

22 During the day I work as a small business 
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1 consultant. A few years ago I did a market research 

2 project to explore the feasibility of a new technology 

3 for detecting asthma. While the results were favorable 

4 for my client, they were not good for the rest of us: 

5 one in 15 Americans now has asthma; asthma rates have 

6 been increasing across all age, sex, and racial groups 

7 since the 1980s; nearly five million asthma sufferers 

8 are under age 18; and asthma is the most common chronic 

9 childhood disease, affecting more than one child in 20. 

10 By the EPA's own prediction, the Tier 3 

11 standards would prevent as many as 2,400 premature 

12 deaths, and 1.8 million lost work or school days due to 

13 illness annually by 2030. According to the EPA 

14 website, the EPA's mission is to protect human health 

15 and the environment. I was unable to find anything in 

16 the mission statement about protecting oil industry 

17 profits. 

18 The website goes on to say the EPA will 

19 ensure the United States plays a leadership role in 

20 working with other nations to protect the global 

21 environment. Unfortunately, the EPA has not lived up 

22 to its mission in recent years. Our country has not 
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1 played a leadership role in working with other nations 

2 to protect the environment. Europe, Japan and the 

3 State of California have all tightened sulfur tailpipe 

4 standards from 30 parts per million to to 10 parts per 

5 million, while we have stood still. 

6 I urge you to issue the strongest Tier 3 

7 standards possible. Thank you for the opportunity to 

8 testify. 

9 MR. GRUNDLER: Thank you. 

10 Mr. Grace? 

11 MR. GRACE: I want to thank the EPA for this 

12 opportunity to testify on this incredibly important 

13 issue. My name is Terry Grace. I'm a retired school 

14 social worker and a member of the Sierra Club. I also 

15 want to thank the EPA for other rulings in the past few 

16 years that have improved our air quality. Those 

17 changes are greatly appreciated, but more remains to be 

18 done. 

19 I'm here because I'm concerned about the 

20 quality of our air and its effects on the health of our 

21 children, the health of our family and friends, and the 

22 health of future generations. On warm days, when I 
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1 look out from our condo, I, too, often see a haze in 

2 the distance. My initial thought is often, how is this 

3 air pollution affecting people with breathing 

4 difficulties? My life experiences have led me to this 

5 perspective. 

6 During my years as a school social worker, I 

7 saw a definite increase in the rate of asthma attacks 

8 among children at my schools. I can assure you, it is 

9 not a pleasant experience to see a child taken by 

10 ambulance to the emergency room due to a severe asthma 

11 attack. That is always followed by the anxious period 

12 of waiting and wondering about the child's welfare. 

13 Thankfully, even though many students have missed 

14 numerous days at school due to asthma attacks, all of 

15 those children that I knew survived. 

16 However, the first person that I knew well 

17 who was close to my age, that died, did not survive an 

18 asthma attack. She lay down to recover from what was 

19 thought to be a routine asthma attack, but she never 

20 got up again. I was a pallbearer at her funeral. I 

21 was in my 30s, and that traumatized all of us in our 

22 social group. We were all so upset and confused. Why 
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1 did this happen? Another friend just got out of the 

2 hospital this past week after her very recent bout with 

3 asthma. 

4 I'm not saying that every asthma event is 

5 directly caused by S02 pollutants, but I do think that 

6 particulate matter plays a major role in the 

7 development, frequency, and severity of asthma 

8 symptoms. I believe that medical data supports that 

9 contention. From my perspective, this is a no-brainer. 

10 The health and lives of family, friends, and our youth 

11 versus a few pennies per gallon of gas should be an 

12 easy choice. Most people would be happy to make that 

13 trade-off. Why would this ever be a major controversy? 

14 I honestly don't get it. Why would anyone object to 

15 taking these steps to improve our health, reduce 

16 medical problems and the subsequent costs, while 

17 improving the quality of life for everyone? 

18 Particulate matter, which is what we are 

19 referring to with these regulations, is particularly 

20 odious when it comes to health issues. Unfortunately, 

21 Chicago has some of the highest levels of particulate 

22 matter in the Nation, which is probably why we have one 
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1 of the highest asthma rates for school children in the 

2 Nation. The pollution from cars, trucks, and trains is 

3 a major source of that particulate matter in our great 

4 city. We know that air pollution causes serious life5 threatening health problems. Research indicates that 

6 air pollution has a strong impact on asthma, but also 

7 affects heart disease and cancer. 

8 The most important issue from air pollution 

9 is the impact on the quality of life for individuals 

10 with respiratory problems exacerbated or caused by 

11 these pollutants. However, the medical costs incurred 

12 from the toxic effects of these pollutants are enormous 

13 and problematic. The emergency room visits, the 

14 hospital admissions, and all the problems from 

15 irreversible lung damage are a huge cost on our society 

16 financially, in economic productivity, and in the 

17 quality of life. The lost worker productivity due to 

18 these issues impacted by air pollution is a massive 

19 concern. 

20 I'm curious about what is the advantage of 

21 maintaining the status quo? Yes, there will be an 

22 initial inconvenience for the oil refineries, but these 
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1 costs will be passed on to the consumer. Despite my 

2 preference, the oil companies won't lose any money from 

3 their bulging coffers. We all know that. I haven't 

4 encountered any people upset about paying just a little 

5 bit more for a much healthier environment. If most 

6 consumers are willing to take on those minimal costs, 

7 then what is the objection? This is like doing a cost8 benefit analysis where almost all the -- where it is 

9 almost all benefit at very little cost. We need your 

10 help and support in changing this situation. 

11 No one is totally immune from the impact of 

12 air pollution. We all have to breathe, and air 

13 pollution knows no boundaries. Please do the right 

14 thing and strengthen the regulations on these 

15 pollutants. Thank you very much. 

16 Thank you. 

17 Ms. Dufficy? 

18 MS. DUFFICY: Thank you very much for giving 

19 me this opportunity to testify before the U.S. EPA. I 

20 am testifying as both a private citizen and as a member 

21 of the Illinois Chapter of the Sierra Club. 

22 My name is Judy Dufficy, and I have lived in 
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1 the Chicago area my entire life. I was born on the 

2 city's North Side in 1954, and have seen the amazing 

3 positive impact that government related pollution 

4 control standards have brought to Chicago. I remember 

5 as a high school student during the 1960s that there 

6 were times at a time when a smog-related haze hung over 

7 the city, making it difficult for everybody to breathe. 

8 I can actually remember seeing and smelling the air as 

9 I stepped out of my house. 

10 Of course there's no question that I also 

11 remember a great deal more industry being present in 

12 Chicago during this time, including both heavy 

13 manufacturing plans and steel mill factories on 

14 Chicago's Far South Side. However, beginning around 

15 1970, I remember that the quality of the air in Chicago 

16 began to improve tremendously, if not drastically. 

17 This most noticeably coincided with the introduction of 

18 clean air and water regulations. In fact, when my 

19 husband and I described to our children, who range in 

20 age from their early to late 20s, the kind of pollution 

21 and smog we experienced growing up in Chicago, our kids 

22 find these stories and descriptions almost impossible 
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1 to believe, especially by today's standards. 

2 My point in mentioning this background is 

3 that when you fast forward time to the present to 

4 Chicago in 2013, it is crucial to acknowledge that one 

5 of the largest remaining sources of pollution today is 

6 vehicle emissions. Perhaps more than ever before, 

7 automobiles and our related consumer behavior are among 

8 the greatest contributors to air pollution in the 

9 United States. This is especially true as fewer public 

10 funds and tax dollars become allocated to improving our 

11 country's public transportation and mass transit 

12 systems. 

13 Because of these factors, it is imperative 

14 that the EPA once again use its Clean Air Act authority 

15 to implement a new round of standards that will reduce 

16 toxic emissions to help improve air quality and public 

17 health. I'm referring specifically to the Tier 3 

18 emission standards that will require auto makers to use 

19 advanced technology to reduce tailpipe pollution, as 

20 well as require oil refineries to produce cleaner 

21 burning gasoline by reducing the allowable sulfur 

22 content of gas from 30 parts per million to 10 parts 
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1 per million. 

2 Today passenger cars and trucks remain among 

3 the largest source of smog-forming pollution in the 

4 country. Just by driving, we emit more than half of 

5 all carbon monoxide pollution. Our driving also 

6 creates deadly particulate matter in additional forms 

7 of air pollution that result in asthma, other 

8 respiratory diseases, and even premature death. 

9 While the personal and monetary impact of 

10 this pollution on our health, education, economy, and 

11 overall welfare maybe staggering, it is something that 

12 the EPA has the power and authority to control and 

13 change. I urge the Obama Administration and the 

14 Environmental Protection Agency to issue the strongest 

15 Tier 3 standards possible immediately. 

16 Not surprisingly, it seems as if the oil 

17 industry is the only group opposed to these standards. 

18 These are the same oil companies that represent the 

19 most profitable industry in the history of all 

20 civilization. It will cost oil companies pennies per 

21 gallon to adjust to these regulations. As of the 

22 present, Japan, Europe, 40 other countries, and even 
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1 China beginning in 2017 all have adopted regulations 

2 limiting the amount of sulfur and gasoline to be below 

3 30 parts per million. The United States should be a 

4 leader in advancing science, as well as in promoting 

5 the world's health in global environment. It should 

6 not be the protector of oil companies, whose profit 

7 margins place them as the recipients of the top one 

8 percent of the top one percent of all global wealth. 

9 Please do not allow the oil industry, its 

10 myriads of lobbyists, and its multi-billion dollar a 

11 year profits to alter or delay the EPA from 

12 implementing the Tier 3 standards. 

13 Again, I thank you for providing me with this 

14 opportunity to testify before the EPA. I truly 

15 appreciate it. 

16 MR. GRUNDLER: Thank you. 

17 Ms. Batty? 

18 MS. BATTY: Thank you. I, too, want to thank 

19 you for the opportunity to speak in support of Tier 3 

20 motor vehicle emissions and fuel standards. My name is 

21 Karen Batty and I am a nurse practitioner that delivers 

22 comprehensive health services in a school-based clinic 
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1 on the South Side of Chicago. The school-based center 

2 is housed within Paul Laurence Dunbar Vocational Career 

3 Academy. This high school is one of Chicago's own 

4 public high schools. 

5 The school-based clinic is managed by Mercy 

6 Hospital and Medical Center, and the hospital is 

7 located right here in Chicago as well, and it's 

8 delivered services at the high school for over fifteen 

9 years. The Medical Director is Dr. Marla Kushner. The 

10 patients are age range 14-19 and are mostly all 

11 African-American. 

12 You know, as a health care practitioner, I am 

13 very aware of the research that shows particulate 

14 matter pollution is a real threat to the public health. 

15 It not only affects the respiratory system, but also 

16 the heart and many of the vessels in the body. And 

17 it's certainly been linked to cancer. 

18 Premature deaths occur every day, not only in 

19 adults, but also in children. Many times these deaths 

20 could've been averted if we had cleaner air. This is 

21 why I urge the EPA to adopt these new standards this 

22 year. 
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1 But research sometimes isn't very personal. 

2 That is why I am here today to tell you a little bit 

3 about some of my students with asthma. The high school 

4 at Dunbar has about 1,200 students. Of those 1,200, 

5 students there are at least 110 students that are 

6 documented asthma, not counting the ones that say I 

7 have frequent bronchitis or I'm just allergic, and 

8 that's why I'm short of breath. 

9 The students from Dunbar Vocational Career 

10 Academy come from all over the city. They travel from 

11 the north and south to come to Dunbar. It is not 

12 unusual for me to come in to the clinic the first block 

13 in the morning and see a student wheezing and short of 

14 breath sitting in the waiting room. What they tell me 

15 many times is that I've taken the bus, and I had to sit 

16 in the back of the bus, and every time I do that, I 

17 come in wheezing. It is not unusual. 

18 These kids take public transportation or they 

19 walk to school. Dunbar is in between the Dan Ryan, 

20 Lakeshore Drive, and South King Drive. Needless to 

21 say, there are many tailpipe emissions. Many times 

22 these students walk long distances to get to school. 
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1 Very often I have kids getting nebulizer treatments, 

2 even sent to the hospital by 9-1-1. When I see these 

3 young teenagers being negatively impacted by unhealthy 

4 air, I say let's change it. 

5 I strongly urge the EPA to make these changes 

6 for cleaner gasoline and vehicle standards now. But 

7 when I see these faces of these kids that are having 

8 really a hard time with asthma, I know that pollution 

9 isn't the only reason, but it's something we certainly 

10 can change. 

11 I thank you for this opportunity. 

12 MR. GRUNDLER: Thanks. Thanks again, all of 

13 you, for sharing your stories. It's very helpful. 

14 We're going to take a short five-minute break 

15 while we assemble the next panel of witnesses. 

16 [Whereupon, the meeting was recessed briefly 

17 at 3:47 p.m., to reconvene at 4:03 p.m.] 

18 MR. GRUNDLER: We're ready for the 4:00 

19 panel. I'd like to invite Jason Millet, Kady McFadden, 

20 Rachel Butler, Cathy Catrambone, and Jenna Obluck. 

21 Thank you. 

22 Dr. Catrambone, would you like to begin? 
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1 DR. CATRAMBONE: Sure. Thank you for the 

2 opportunity to testify here today, and thank you for 

3 being here in Chicago. We really appreciate this. 

4 My name is Cathy Catrambone, and I am a 

5 private citizen. I have been a respiratory health 

6 nurse and researcher for over 30 years here in Chicago, 

7 and currently I'm an Associate Professor at Rush 

8 University College of Nursing, on the board of 

9 directors at the Respiratory Health Association, and 

10 Chair of our Illinois Department of Public Health, 

11 Illinois Asthma Partners. 

12 I'm here today because I'm concerned about 

13 air quality and the current and future health of 

14 Americans. In particular, I'm concerned about the 

15 impact of air pollution on persons suffering with 

16 chronic lung conditions, including asthma and COPD. 

17 Currently, there are over 25 million persons with 

18 asthma and over 15 million with COPD in the United 

19 States. 

20 Passenger cars and trucks remain the second 

21 biggest source of smog-forming pollution in the United 

22 States. They emit carbon monoxide pollution and 
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1 contribute significantly to deadly particulate matter 

2 and other air pollutions. Air pollution causes a host 

3 of life-threatening health problems, including asthma, 

4 COPD, and other respiratory diseases. Air pollution 

5 increases emergency room visits and hospital admissions 

6 for persons with asthma and COPD and can be life 

7 threatening. 

8 I have worked with patients and families for 

9 over three decades and understand the extreme burden 

10 that poor air quality has on their health. Their 

11 immediate health problems include shortness of breath, 

12 wheezing, coughing, and exacerbations of these chronic 

13 conditions requiring medical treatment. 

14 I am reminded daily of the importance of 

15 clean air and that nothing else matters if you can't 

16 breathe. As a health professional, I work in 

17 partnership with patients to manage their chronic 

18 conditions so that they are able to breathe, be 

19 productive members of society, and have quality of 

20 life, all of which are dependent upon clean air. 

21 As a respiratory nurse and advocate for clean 

22 air, I strongly support EPA using its authority under 
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1 the Clean Air Act to issue Tier 3 cleaner tailpipe 

2 standards to clean up our air and protect our families. 

3 These standards will mean less smog-forming pollution 

4 from car tailpipes. These standards are critical to 

5 reducing the health impact of poor air quality, will 

6 provide Americans with cleaner air to breathe, and can 

7 potentially result in monetized health benefits of $8 

8 to $23 billion annually by 2030. 

9 Thank you again for the opportunity to 

10 testify. 

11 MR. GRUNDLER: Thank you. 

12 Ms. McFadden, please. 

13 MS. MCFADDEN: Great. Hi. My name is Kady 

14 McFadden. I'm a private citizen, but I also work for 

15 the Sierra Club here in Illinois. So thank you for 

16 this opportunity to testify. 

17 I first want to say thank you to the EPA for 

18 your time today -- I know it's been a long day -- to 

19 hear from citizens on the issue. These days are really 

20 important, and I truly appreciate your time. I work 

21 with the EPA regularly here in Chicago and I really 

22 appreciate the work you all do, especially on matters 
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1 of air quality and environmental justice. 

2 I'm here today because I'm concerned about 

3 air quality, I'm concerned about the future of our 

4 planet, and I'm concerned about climate change. I've 

5 have devoted my personal and professional life to 

6 organizing and advocating on issues of air quality and 

7 global warming. 

8 In my work with the Sierra Club, every day I 

9 meet and work with communities who are most affected by 

10 air quality and issues of air pollution. I hear 

11 stories like the ones you've heard all day today on a 

12 regular basis really professionally. I've canvassed 

13 streets in Peoria and Southeast Chicago, you know, 

14 where house after house I'm hearing stories of, you 

15 know, children with asthma. You know, five houses in a 

16 row where every single person is suffering from sort of 

17 disease, respiratory disease. I've heard parents 

18 asking me that they were worried what are they doing 

19 wrong that all of their kids have asthma. I've seen 

20 and heard stories of fugitive coal dust just on top of 

21 people's homes because these polluters are not being 

22 held accountable. I've seen boxes of asthma equipment 
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1 that parents have brought me to show just how much of 

2 an impact this is having on their everyday lives, and 

3 how much they're paying in medical bills for all of the 

4 equipment that they need. So air pollution affects 

5 them on a daily basis. It's very real to them. It's a 

6 very real part of their lives, and I'm sort of slapped 

7 in the face with it every day. 

8 But the best part of my job is that I get to, 

9 you know, see by working together and standing up for 

10 clean air, these communities feel something they don't 

11 feel very often, and that is hope. They feel hopeful 

12 that their community can be cleaner, that it can be 

13 healthier, and that they can be a part of making that 

14 solution possible. And I think that is a lot of what 

15 today has been about, too. 

16 But I've also witnessed firsthand the EPA 

17 giving these community members hope for better air 

18 quality, so I support the EPA continuing to make these 

19 communities healthier through using its authority with 

20 the Clean Air Act to issue Tier 3 cleaner tailpipe 

21 standards to clean up our air and protect our families. 

22 These standards will really mean less smog-forming 
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1 pollution from car tailpipes, meaning that communities 

2 that I work with will get to breathe cleaner air. 

3 So I urge the EPA to issue the strongest Tier 

4 3 standards possible. And thank you for the 

5 opportunity to testify and all the work that you guys 

6 do. 

7 MR. GRUNDLER: Thank you. 

8 Ms. Obluck? 

9 MS. OBLUCK: Hi. I'm Jenna Obluck, and I was 

10 invited to speak by the Respiratory Health Association 

11 of Metropolitan Chicago, and I'm a Sierra Club member. 

12 I'm 46 years old. I own a small business, 

13 Inner Glow, Inc., which manufactures Gilasi recycled 

14 surfaces in Chicago. I serve on the board of directors 

15 of Local First Chicago, and I vote. 

16 I live in Chicago Ravenswood neighborhood, 

17 and I ride my bicycle down to my corporate day job in 

18 the Willis Tower every day. In the morning I ride down 

19 Clark Street surrounded by cars, most of which blow 

20 pollution right in my face. During my ride I find 

21 myself looking for hybrid and electric cars. I feel 

22 like the air is somehow cleaner near them, and I know 
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1 that's delusional. A few clean cars are not going to 

2 magically clear the air in Chicago. 

3 When I take the Lakeshore bike path home, the 

4 air is different depending on which way the wind is 

5 blowing. When it's from the east, I smell breezes off 

6 Lake Michigan, and flowers from the Passide Gardens. 

7 When it blows from the west, I know I'm inhaling toxic 

8 tailpipe fumes fresh from the eight lanes of traffic 

9 streaming up and down Lakeshore Drive. 

10 I know that breathing polluted air while 

11 exercising cannot be good for me. There are even some 

12 days when I can't ride when I'm forced to take the 

13 train because the air is so unhealthy that Chicago has 

14 put out another air pollution action day alert. But 

15 you'll see me out there on most days. 

16 Why do I do it, my friends ask? I can drive 

17 a car. I ride my bike as much as possible because it's 

18 one of the purest ways I can think of to reduce my own 

19 fossil fuel use and my own pollution output. I do it 

20 because I believe that reducing my carbon footprint 

21 matters. I believe that our choices as citizens 

22 matter. 
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1 As a kid growing up in New England in the 

2 70s, I was haunted by the crying Indian ad. If anyone 

3 here is too young to remember it, the ad shows a Native 

4 American paddling his canoe from apparently pristine 

5 waters into smog-filled, litter-strewn cityscapes. 

6 After a woman hurls a bag of fast food garbage at his 

7 feet, a big tear rolls down his cheek. The sadness in 

8 that man's face made me ashamed of my own litterbug 

9 society. The ad ends with the line, "People start 

10 pollution. People can stop it." 

11 That ad struck home for most of us, and we 

12 pulled together, and we cleaned up our streets. 

13 Citizens working together can make a difference, but 

14 there are times when we need government policy to give 

15 a healthy nudge in the right direction. 

16 Right now, while we're facing significant 

17 human-induced climate change, right now is one of those 

18 times when we need the government to regulate big 

19 business to help us all reduce harmful emissions. Big 

20 businesses have proven that they will not do it on 

21 their own, not soon enough for our planet anyway. 

22 The EPA's current proposal to help reduce 
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1 tailpipe emissions is one step in a healthy direction. 

2 We the people need the EPA to support stronger 

3 standards that cut toxic tailpipe pollutants, and we 

4 need them to do it now. I know we're on a long, hard 

5 road to clean up our own only planet, and I'm in it for 

6 the long haul. On the way, I'll keep voting for 

7 legislators at every level who are brave enough to 

8 combat climate change with long-term solutions. I'll 

9 keep riding my bike, and I'll keep my eyes peeled for 

10 the cleanest cars on the road so I can ride near them 

11 and feel just a little bit better about where we're all 

12 headed together. 

13 Thank you for your time. 

14 MR. GRUNDLER: Thank you. 

15 Mr. Millet? 

16 MR. MILLET: I apologize for my voice. We 

17 finally got springtime weather in Chicago, and brought 

18 with it a cold for me. So hopefully I'll hold out -- 

19 MR. GRUNDLER: Could you drag the microphone 

20 closer and contaminate it for the next person? 

21 [Laughter.] 

22 MR. MILLET: Sorry. Well, as everyone else, 
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1 I thank you for the opportunity to testify. My name is 

2 Jason Millet. I'm a private citizen and the father of 

3 a one-year-old girl named Alma. I'm here because I'm 

4 concerned about the air quality and the future of our 

5 country's commonwealth, the commonwealth that stands as 

6 part of my daughter's and all of our children's 

7 inheritance. 

8 I'm here because I've seen too many good 

9 government regulations compromised in recent decades in 

10 order to aid and abet a corporatist agenda. We need a 

11 strong government that is willing to play the part of 

12 an impartial umpire, protecting that commonwealth, our 

13 waters, our lands, our food supply, our air waves, and, 

14 of course, our air. 

15 I ask the EPA to continue to move forward as 

16 planned with these regulations, and please, in fact, 

17 find more ways to side with we, the people, while 

18 preventing the oil industry from externalizing its 

19 costs and destroying our commons. 

20 The oil industry has pulled out the old 

21 bugaboos it seems of added expense, passed on cost to 

22 the consumer, and loss of jobs. We've seen this 
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1 playbook before. We've seen this before. It's 

2 straight from their playbook, and it's always a scare 

3 tactic. 

4 Too often unfortunately, that scare tactic 

5 has worked and government has chosen to kowtow to 

6 industry. In actuality, study after study has shown 

7 that well-maintained regulation, in addition to keeping 

8 us safer, also creates a net gain in jobs. And of 

9 course, the oil giants have the profit margins to 

10 easily eat the added costs that they will surely 

11 instead choose to pass onto the consumer. 

12 Now, having said that, I do understand that 

13 the oil industry may suffer a small percentage of loss 

14 in profits from implementing these new regulations. I 

15 can see how that might be irksome to them. However, 

16 the corporations are given the gift of life by our 

17 government, and the government in turn must manage them 

18 as a parent manages a child. We must give them firm 

19 boundaries and limits that guarantee they stand to not 

20 only turn a profit, but to benefit society as well. 

21 Thank you. 

22 MR. GRUNDLER: Thank you. 
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1 Ms. Butler? 

2 MS. BUTLER: So thank you for the opportunity 

3 to testify today on the proposed Tier 3 standards. My 

4 name is Rachel Butler, and I am the National Organizer 

5 for the Sierra Club's work on green transportation. In 

6 this capacity, I work with Sierra Club volunteers and 

7 chapters across the country on issues surround 

8 America's transportation system. And I'm here today 

9 representing Sierra Club's 2.1 million members and 

10 supporters in support of EPA's Tier 3 standards. 

11 The Sierra Club applauds EPA for proposing 

12 Tier 3 standards that will lower the sulfur content of 

13 gasoline and establish more stringent emissions levels 

14 for passenger, cars, and some medium and heavy duty 

15 trucks. These standards will help improve air quality 

16 and public health. Clean air is central to the Sierra 

17 Club's mission to explore, enjoy, and protect the 

18 planet. 

19 The new standards will not only reduce air 

20 pollution, they will create jobs as auto part suppliers 

21 manufacturer the technologies that reduce vehicle 

22 emissions. Auto makers apply advanced vehicle 
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1 technologies and refineries upgrade their equipment. 

2 This is a win-win for public health and the economy, 

3 and EPA should move forward to finalize these standards 

4 without delay. 

5 Today, one in three Americans lives where the 

6 air is sometimes dangerous and even deadly to breathe, 

7 as we've heard earlier today. Finalizing these new 

8 cleaner tailpipe standards is one of the strongest 

9 steps that President Obama can take in his second term 

10 to protect public health and secure his clean energy 

11 legacy. 

12 Our members have fought for clean air in 

13 their communities and across the country for decades. 

14 We see these new standards as an important next step in 

15 the ongoing fight for clean air for all Americans. 

16 Moving forward now with these standards is especially 

17 important for those individuals who bear a 

18 disproportionate burden of pollution from car and truck 

19 tailpipes, those who live near major roads and 

20 highways, and who are forced to breathe air polluted by 

21 tailpipe exhaust. 

22 We've heard from big oil companies that now 
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1 is not the right time to move forward with these common 

2 sense protections to protect public health, and we 

3 absolutely disagree. Public health is more important 

4 than big polluter profits. 

5 Sierra Club members across the country have 

6 already entered thousands of public comments into the 

7 docket in support of these new cleaner tailpipe 

8 standards, and our members are here in person today, as 

9 you've heard, to tell their own stories and show their 

10 support for EPA to move forward now without delay to 

11 finalize these standards. 

12 We've heard from our members who live near 

13 highways and busy roads about what these new standards 

14 will mean for them as individuals once they go into 

15 effect. Fewer visits to the emergency room, fewer 

16 terrifying asthma attacks for their kids, and greater 

17 ability to get outside and enjoy the outdoors. 

18 The Sierra Club is proud to join community 

19 groups, auto makers, auto workers, local and State 

20 public health agencies, public health advocates, 

21 environmental groups, and the general public in support 

22 of the Tier 3 cleaner tailpipe standards. We thank the 
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1 EPA for its work. We encourage EPA to finalize the 

2 Tier 3 standards without delay. And thank you so much 

3 for the opportunity to testify today. 

4 MR. GRUNDLER: Thanks all of you for taking 

5 the time to come down here and share your comments. 

6 We're very, very grateful. Thank you. 

7 Is there anyone else in the audience or 

8 within earshot of my voice who wishes to testify at 

9 this time? 

10 [No response.] 

11 MR. GRUNDLER: If not, we're going to take a 

12 break until 6:00. We'll once again resume for whoever 

13 wishes to provide testimony at that time. Thank you. 

14 [Whereupon, the meeting was recessed briefly 

15 at 4:20 p.m., to reconvene at 5:42 p.m.] 

16 MR. GRUNDLER: Okay. We're ready to get 

17 started again with our panel number seven, lucky seven. 

18 So would Rose Gomez, Marianne Flanagan, Ryan Baker, 

19 and Gary Jones please come to the table and write your 

20 name on the place card, and we'll get started, 

21 beginning with Ms. Gomez. 

22 MR. BAKER: Okay, thank you. My name is Ryan 
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1 Baker. I'm a volunteer with Sierra Club and the Air 

2 and Energy Committee Chair for Chicago. First of all, 

3 I wanted to thank you for listening today, and thank 

4 you for proposing these new rules. I support 

5 finalizing and enforcing these rules. These rules 

6 could save over 2,000 lives per year and thousands of 

7 lost work days. 

8 I know that formulating rules like this isn't 

9 easy. Developing a solid case, developing support, and 

10 overcoming opposition are even harder. There's always 

11 opposition. That's a natural part of the change and a 

12 constant effort of improvement. 

13 What's very telling about that opposition is 

14 how loud it is before enforcement and how weak it 

15 becomes after. Would anybody propose that we start 

16 using lead in gasoline again, reintroduce CFCs or lower 

17 fuel economy? I don't think so. In every one of those 

18 cases, the costs have been lower than anticipated, 

19 especially the industry estimates. 

20 And the benefits have been broader than 

21 expected. Even the most die-hard industrialist after 

22 traveling to a foreign country with less strict 
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1 pollution regulations wouldn't come back here and say, 

2 I think what we need to do is remove those regulations 

3 the EPA has put in place over the last 20, 30 years and 

4 go back. 

5 If anything, the question we have looking 

6 back in the past is, why didn't we do this sooner? 

7 What took so long? To not do it or delay means 

8 unnecessary death and suffering. I know it's not easy. 

9 You want to be the most effective and do it for the 

10 least cost. I think you've done a great job with these 

11 rules in that sense in putting together the system for 

12 trading and so forth, and making the market capable of 

13 dealing with these things. But it is clear that what 

14 you are asking for is reasonable, and we support you 

15 100 percent. Thank you. 

16 MR. GRUNDLER: Thank you so much. 

17 Ms. Gomez? 

18 MS. GOMEZ: Hello. My name is Rose Gomez, 

19 and I am a volunteer with the Sierra Club, and I have 

20 been for a while, since I was in school actually. And 

21 there's always different types of campaigns that are 

22 going on, and I feel that this is a worthy campaign, 
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1 and that's the reason why I'm here this evening because 

2 of the amount of pollution that we would be eliminating 

3 and cleaning up the air for everybody's sake. So I 

4 support this new standard regarding the Tier 3 by you 

5 guys. 

6 And I wanted to say that it's like Ryan has 

7 said, that the standard would benefit not only people 

8 in the city, but the whole country would benefit 

9 because it would provide -- well, actually the whole 

10 country would benefit because of the standard that 

11 would be put in place. And that's something that we 

12 need to do is move forward and make higher standards 

13 and not lower standards. 

14 And if we're going to make it and survive and 

15 reduce the amount of pollution, carbon dioxide, and so 

16 on, the only way we could it is by putting higher 

17 standards and invest in the future for cleaner energy. 

18 And this is the way to do it. 

19 I can't stress that more that this is the way 

20 to go, reduce. Less is more for everybody's sake. 

21 MR. GRUNDLER: Thank you so much. 

22 Ms. Flanagan? 
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1 MS. FLANAGAN: Hi. My name is Marianne 

2 Flanagan. I am here representing the Sierra Club, but 

3 I'm also testifying as a private citizen. I want to 

4 thank you for having this hearing. I see -- I'm a head 

5 start teacher, and I see so much of an increase of 

6 asthma in our children. That's one of the reasons I 

7 came down today. 

8 I'm going to start with a little background 

9 on my son. When he was two months old, he was 

10 diagnosed with croup and ended up in an oxygen tent in 

11 a hospital. And I was very familiar with the barky 

12 cough because I had always had that as a child, and 

13 assumed he just inherited my bad lungs. And he kept 

14 having this cough and these episodes. And one day we 

15 went to the immediate care center, and the doctor asked 

16 me how long he had asthma. I was like, I wasn't aware 

17 that my son had asthma. My doctor never said anything 

18 to me, but it's probably because my son always managed 

19 to get sick as soon as the doctor's office was closed 

20 or it was on a weekend, so we lived at the immediate 

21 care center. 

22 The next time we're in, the doctor wanted to 
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1 give him an injection of Epinephrine. He said if it's 

2 an asthma attack, it will relieve it immediately. If 

3 it isn't, it won't hurt him. It relieved the symptoms, 

4 and we finally had a diagnosis of bronchial spasms, 

5 which are severe asthma attacks that are allergic 

6 reactions to something foreign in the lungs. 

7 So for the next few years, they would get 

8 worse, and they were more frequent. He had rescue 

9 inhalers. The triggers could be tonsillitis, an upper 

10 respiratory infection. It could also be things like 

11 fireworks, any kind of sulfur. Two years in a row I 

12 put him to bed healthy and woke up and had to rush him 

13 to Lutheran General Hospital in the middle of the night 

14 because he wasn't breathing. And we finally realized 

15 it was the fireworks. Santa Fe Speedway demolition 

16 derbies, all the things he loved as a kid he couldn't 

17 -- we used to wear respiratory masks and take the 

18 inhalers so that he would be able to enjoy those 

19 things. And then as he got older, he was captain of 

20 the hockey team, and I finally had to take him out of 

21 hockey because they told me he was developing stress 

22 ADMA, and he needed a complete break to heal up. 
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1 Fortunately, he started getting better after 

2 that, and he now is 31 and he runs marathons. I'm now 

3 a head start teacher in Des Plaines, Illinois, and in 

4 my class alone I have 34 children between the morning 

5 and the afternoon. I have six children with rescue 

6 inhalers. One of them is only three years old, and his 

7 mother actually has to come into class to give him 

8 nebulizer treatments. 

9 The other classes in the school each have at 

10 least one child with an asthma inhaler, and one of the 

11 classes has a second child, who was now having what 

12 they call an asthma plan so that the teachers know what 

13 to do in case they do have an attack, what to do with 

14 the inhaler, what point we need to call the parent or 

15 paramedics for the children. 

16 It has never been that bad for us. The 

17 children that had the inhalers last year never had to 

18 use them, and I thought, why do they need inhalers? 

19 And I know that they're for asthma, but we never seem 

20 to have problems this year. These children have missed 

21 multiple days, these same children, and they're 

22 following the same pattern that my son did. As they're 
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1 older, the symptoms seem to get worse. They need the 

2 rescue inhalers more. 

3 Our Schaumberg Center, which is another one 

4 under CETA, has 102 students, and this information is 

5 not in my testimony because I just got it at 10 after 

6 three this afternoon. But out of those 102 students, 

7 eight of them do have rescue inhalers, and there are 

8 several more who are going through the process. 

9 A lot of these children are low income. They 

10 are head start, so they're below the poverty line. 

11 They live in trailer parks, and these trailer parks are 

12 all at really busy intersections, four, six lanes, 

13 heavy traffic all day and all night, very little 

14 insulation on their home. Most of them have plastic on 

15 the windows for insulation. 

16 One of the other things I did want to raise 

17 is that we're also -- I know this is about cars. But I 

18 live about two miles from O'Hare Airport, and there are 

19 hundreds of flights that take off from there on a daily 

20 basis that go right over the trailer parks, right over 

21 our homes. These kids don't have central air 

22 conditioning to take out any of the fumes or anything 
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1 like those of us who have air conditioning at home, we 

2 can just shut the windows in the summer and not breathe 

3 any of that in. 

4 And I know Cook County has one of the highest 

5 mortality rates in the country, and we also have one of 

6 the busiest airports in O'Hare. And on the south end 

7 of Cook County, we have Midway Airport, which is 

8 growing every year. And where I live three miles 

9 north, we also have Executive Airport which expanded a 

10 few years ago to include jet runways. 

11 And I know we're here for cars and for 

12 trucks, and that's a really important step, and I 

13 really applaud you for tightening it up, because if we 

14 didn't do that, the standards would never get higher, 

15 and we would never be able to curb the pollution. But 

16 it's endemic. There's over five million children 

17 diagnosed, and 1.3 million are under the age of five. 

18 And these children are missing school. They're missing 

19 activities. And they may not all be as fortunate as my 

20 son to outgrow it as they get older and their lungs get 

21 larger. 

22 So, but I hope that eventually they will also 
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1 start taking a look at the effect that some of the busy 

2 airports have on the people that are living right near 

3 them. So thank you for the opportunity to speak. 

4 MR. GRUNDLER: Thank you so much for sharing 

5 that. 

6 Mr. Jones, thank you for your patience. 

7 Please proceed. 

8 MR. JONES: Greetings, you all. Is this mic 

9 on? 

10 MR. GRUNDLER: Yes. 

11 MR. JONES: Greetings, you all. My name is 

12 Gary Jones, and at my feet is Cuddles. She's my guide 

13 and girlfriend. She helped bring me here, but she's 

14 really not the reason I came here. Although if you 

15 want clean air and you don't care about the humans, 

16 consider the dog who's a little closer to the ground, 

17 and the exhaust that's coming out of the pipes. 

18 But I grew up in Lockport, Illinois. I had a 

19 decent childhood, and the one thing that I remember is 

20 the supersonic hearing that I had. I mean, I could 

21 hear the grass grow. Hide and go seek games, hands 

22 down I won every time. And by the way, it had nothing 
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1 to do with my blindness because I could see back then. 

2 It's just my hearing was so much better. That is 

3 until I -- allergies came along, complete with hay 

4 fever, asthma, coughing, wheezing, shots in the arms, 

5 tubes in the ears, aspirators, the whole nine yards. 

6 Now, eventually I grew out of it. But, you 

7 know, in a word, it made growing up a bummer, you know. 

8 I just didn't -- you know, not only was my hearing not 

9 the same anymore, but any rigorous physical activities 

10 were just out of the question. I didn't even learn how 

11 to swim until I was in college, for crying out loud. 

12 Any physical activity would kill me. Turn on the 

13 vacuum cleaner, and I'd run for my life, you know. 

14 Now, what is to blame for that, you know? 

15 You could say it's genetic, and you may be right. But 

16 Lockport is a kind of a town surrounded by industry 

17 with, you know, steel mills, oil refineries, coal 

18 burning plants, and, of course, the exhaust pipes from 

19 cars and trucks. And I can't point to one specific 

20 cause, just like you can't point to a cigarette and say 

21 that particular cigarette caused lung cancer. But the 

22 one thing we do know is that toxic junk coming out of 
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1 exhaust pipes, all those letters and numbers, and you 

2 all know what they are, we know they cause allergies, 

3 and asthma, and other respiratory problems. That's 

4 just a matter of, you know, statistics. You put it out 

5 -- the more you put out, the more cases you're going to 

6 have, and especially the young. 

7 Now, just imagine for a moment you all are 

8 members of some city council board that determines 

9 licensing for a business, and I come to you for an 

10 awesome idea for a business. I mean, I cook this idea 

11 up in my dorm room surrounded by geniuses. I've got an 

12 IPO here where I've dotted all the I's, crossed all the 

13 T's, don't need to read it all now, and it's going to 

14 provide all sorts of jobs, tax revenues, and put your 

15 city on the map. Oh, did I mention that nor to work or 

16 require some human sacrifices? 

17 Oh, but don't worry, just one or two kids a 

18 year. They're totally random, so the odds would mean 

19 your kid is pretty slim. So what do you say? Okay. 

20 Some of the profits I'll pour back into the community 

21 services, into the neighborhood. I'll even build a 

22 large sports arena with my corporate logo on it for the 
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1 kids. So what do you say now? Okay, I can hear you 

2 now. I can hear you saying, yeah, but, Mr. Jones, you 

3 don't have a viable business model. And I say, what, 

4 is it that human sacrifice part that's making you 

5 squeamish? Sorry, I can't guarantee that your kids, 

6 although I would if I could get the permits for the 

7 business. But, no, I can't guarantee, you know. It's 

8 got to be kids now, and it's got to be -- and we all 

9 breathe the same air. 

10 Okay. You're still a little squeamish. I 

11 brought my checkbook. I understand your political 

12 campaign reelection is going to be a tight one. Sold, 

13 I knew I could I get you to approve this business. 

14 Okay. 

15 My message then for all you regulators out 

16 there, you know, give us some breathable air, and then 

17 for those looters and polluters, I doubt you're even 

18 listening to this. You don't have time for anything 

19 but what you want to hear. But if you do, all the 

20 filthy lucre in the world ain't going to save your 

21 soul. So find a viable business model. Thank you. 

22 MR. GRUNDLER: Thank you, Mr. Jones. Thanks 
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1 to Cuddles for bringing you down here. We're grateful 

2 for your testimony. And I want to thank the panel 

3 again for your time. 

4 At this point, we're waiting for a number of 

5 people who wish to testify. I don’t believe they've 

6 arrived yet. Is there anyone in the audience who is 

7 waiting to make some remarks? 

8 Thank you, panel. I appreciate it. 

9 [Whereupon, the meeting was recessed briefly 

10 at 5:59 p.m., to reconvene at 6:18 p.m.] 

11 MR. GRUNDLER: I'd like to invite panel nine 

12 to the podium: Mr. Ham and Mr. Gilroy, welcome. We're 

13 ready to hear your testimony. Mr. Fuller, feel free to 

14 come up to the table, fill out a place card. And we're 

15 going to get started with Mr. Ham while you're doing 

16 that. Welcome. Go ahead. 

17 MR. HAM: Hello. My name is David Ham, and 

18 I'm a private citizen and a member of the Sierra Club. 

19 I strongly support EPA using its authority under the 

20 Clean Air Act to issue Tier 3 cleaner tailpipe 

21 standards to clean up our air and protect our families. 

22 I've lived in the Chicago area for about 20 
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1 years, and in the summer Chicago can be one of the best 

2 places in America. Our baseball teams, music and art 

3 festivals, friendly neighborhoods, and our precious, 

4 beautiful lakefront, all contribute to a great life 

5 here during the summer. 

6 But Chicago is also one of the worst cities 

7 in America for traffic congestion. And all those cars 

8 creeping along the Edens and the Kennedy, the buses on 

9 North Avenue and Ashland, and the knot of cabs, 

10 delivery trucks, and commuters in the Loop, create a 

11 lot of exhaust. 

12 You can see it. In the dead of summer, the 

13 sky over Chicago, and even 50 miles out into the 

14 suburbs, is never blue, not quite. A light blue maybe 

15 after a rainstorm, but on sunny days, it's a blinding, 

16 white, mephitic haze. Driving east into the city you 

17 can see a cloud of it hanging there. It's always 

18 humid, and you never seem to sweat it away. It wraps 

19 you closely, and it smells like heat, rubber, and 

20 chemicals. 

21 You will have heard many times today by now 

22 how cars and trucks are the second-largest source of 
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1 smog-forming pollution, contributing to hundreds of 

2 deaths and nearly two million lost work and school days 

3 every year. These are statistics you would never 

4 notice. The news is too full of other horrors to be 

5 bothered with a few deaths about respiratory problems 

6 or a few more cases of asthma. 

7 But the pollution makes itself known in other 

8 ways. You notice when it's a seemingly harmless sunny 

9 day, but it's also an air quality alert day, and you're 

10 warned not to stay too long outside. It alarms you 

11 when it's warmer than usual on the day of the marathon 

12 or of early football training, and several athletes die 

13 of heat exhaustion. And it's in your mind always when 

14 you're in your car, with your air conditioner trying to 

15 keep up, and in the distance is the faint skyline, 

16 barely distinguishable through the stifling, humid 

17 whiteness. 

18 My wife has asthma that prevents her riding a 

19 bike when it's cold out. She can only ride in the 

20 spring and summer. I have two kids. Henry is five and 

21 Penny is eight. I want them to be able to simply enjoy 

22 being outside in the sun and being alive in Chicago in 
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1 the summer. 

2 Who doesn't want clean air to breathe? Who 

3 would oppose it? Of course, the oil and gas companies. 

4 They will fight any change like this out of reflex. 

5 But remember, as you hear from them two things. One, 

6 that they are paid and trained to be here, they're here 

7 for money, and we private citizens went to trouble and 

8 expense to be here. And, two, what kind of world would 

9 we have if big oil had gotten its way on the Clean Air 

10 Act or on clean diesel emissions? What color would 

11 Chicago's air be then? 

12 Tier 3 will start to improve air quality 

13 immediately. This standard would reduce sulfur content 

14 by two thirds and reduce nitrogen oxide emissions, even 

15 from existing cars, by 260,000 tons, the equivalent of 

16 taking 33 million cars off the road. We'll feel that 

17 here in Chicago. 

18 Once again, I urge the EPA to take the 

19 strongest Tier 3 standards possible. And thank you for 

20 the opportunity to testify. 

21 MR. GRUNDLER: Thank you so much. 

22 Mr. Gilroy? 
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1 MR. GILROY: Good evening. Thank you for 

2 this opportunity to express my views on this important 

3 matter. My name is Jack Gilroy, and I'm speaking here 

4 today as a private citizen and long-time volunteer with 

5 the Illinois chapter of the Sierra Club. 

6 For much of my professional life, I've 

7 researched health care utilization and expenses for 

8 large health insurance companies, and I'm still 

9 employed by one of those firms. As a result, I'm well 

10 aware that environmental pollutants contribute 

11 significantly to respiratory, cardiovascular, and other 

12 diseases among those we ensure. But as a private 

13 citizen and environmentalist, I'm even more concerned 

14 about the threat to our community from such sources of 

15 pollution as coal-fired power plants and, of course, 

16 vehicular tailpipe emissions. 

17 So I want to speak to you today to add my 

18 voice to the many you've already heard expressing 

19 strong support for the proposed new EPA standards 

20 regulating those emissions. Expert witnesses have no 

21 doubt testified today about the high rates of asthma 

22 and other respiratory conditions in the Chicago area, 
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1 and it's exciting to think that the proposed EPA 

2 standards could reduce those conditions here and 

3 nationwide by dramatically improving air quality all 

4 across the US. 

5 I know that at the EPA hearing in 

6 Philadelphia, oil industry representatives testified 

7 that the new regulations would cost too much money and 

8 too many jobs to be implemented as currently planned. 

9 But haven't we seen that sort of gloom and doom 

10 prediction from industry proven false many times? 

11 Haven't the successful and very beneficial Tier 1 and 

12 Tier 2 standards illustrated that dire predictions of 

13 that sort are just the routine, knee-jerk reaction of 

14 corporate America to any new regulation? I think it is 

15 clear both from the polls and from the high number of 

16 supporters at these hearings that the American people 

17 overwhelmingly favor the Tier 3 standards. 

18 It's also clear from reactions to the 

19 adoption of earlier standards. Have you ever met a 

20 single person who looked back wistfully at pre-standard 

21 times and reminisced about how good the old days were 

22 when the air in our cities was clogged with more 
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1 poisonous stench from tailpipe emissions? Have 

2 citizens ever complained to the EPA that Tier 1 and 

3 Tier 2 standards made the air too clean or prevented 

4 too many asthma and heart attacks among their family 

5 members 

6 There's irony in the fact that one of the 

7 headlines in this week's news has been the question of 

8 whether the people of another country were exposed to 

9 poisonous gas from a regime that crossed the red line. 

10 Well, there's no question in our country that the 

11 American people have been exposed to poisonous gas, not 

12 sarin gas, but others that can also be deadly in the 

13 emissions of cars and trucks thanks to the 

14 intransigence of corporate polluters. 

15 It is the noble task of the EPA to prevent 

16 those polluters from crossing the red line here at home 

17 and of redrawing that line from time to time in a way 

18 that's even more protective of our citizens' lives and 

19 health. However the Obama Administration should decide 

20 to deal with the reckless foreign regime, it's a no21 brainer that the Administration should take this 

22 opportunity to curtail reckless polluters by reducing 
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1 the threshold of allowable tailpipe emission 

2 pollutants. 

3 It seems entirely appropriate to require oil 

4 companies to incur minimal additional expenses to 

5 diminish significantly the harm that their products do 

6 to our citizens. The very fact that other nations and 

7 the State of California have already adopted something 

8 similar to the Tier 3 standards indicates that those 

9 standards are not wildly unrealistic or prohibitively 

10 expensive. As the EPA itself has noted, of 111 U.S. 

11 refineries, only 16 would need major investments to 

12 adhere to the new standards, while 66 would need only 

13 minor investment, and 29 would need none at all since 

14 they already sell cleaner fuel in California. 

15 I can only conclude that the scales of 

16 justice should tip in favor of the Tier 3 standards 

17 since that direction represents the interests of all 

18 Americans, including the oil industry executives 

19 insofar as they breathe like everyone else instead of 

20 in the opposite direction that favors nothing but 

21 perhaps the expansion of some already gaudy corporate 

22 profits. 
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1 Again, I give my thanks to you for 

2 considering our testimony today. 

3 MR. GRUNDLER: Thank you for coming down. 

4 Mr. Fuller, welcome. 

5 MR. FULLER: Thank you. Hi. My name is Tony 

6 Fuller. I'm a volunteer with the Sierra Club and a 

7 private citizen. And I'm here today to testify in 

8 support of the EPA taking strong as possible action on 

9 Tier 3 pollution standards. 

10 I've been working with the Sierra Club to -- 

11 or volunteering and talking to volunteers all across 

12 Chicago, who have been deeply impacted by air quality 

13 issues. And one of the first campaigns that I've 

14 worked on was the close coal-fired power plants in 

15 Chicago, and we're happy to have seen that 

16 accomplished. 

17 I know during that fight, many times the 

18 argument was made that, well, you know, coal-fired 

19 power plants are not the only main source of air 

20 pollution in this city. There are other sources of 

21 pollution, including, of course, cars. And I'm here 

22 basically to ask the EPA to right a wrong, to protect 
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1 the public. There is no reason why children need to 

2 suffer from asthma that people, you know, have to 

3 endure unhealthy air when we have the technology, we 

4 have the resources to have cleaner air, and we should 

5 have cleaner air. There's no reason to delay these 

6 regulations any further. 

7 So, I mean, just to basically keep it brief, 

8 I strongly support these -- the EPA to have the 

9 strongest possible Tier 3 measures to protect the 

10 public health. Thank you. 

11 MR. GRUNDLER: Thank you. I want to thank 

12 each of you for your very thoughtful testimony and 

13 taking the time to share it with us today. Thank you. 

14 [Whereupon, at 6:18 p.m., the meeting was 

15 concluded.] 

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