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4 USEPA PUBLIC HEARING

5 ON PROPOSED REVISIONS TO THE NATIONAL AMBIENT AIR

6 QUALITY STANDARDS FOR OZONE

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8 Thursday, January 29, 2015

9 Environmental Protection Agency

10 1201 Constitution Avenue, N.W., Room 1153

11 Washington, D.C.

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19 ATKINSON-BAKER, INC. COURT REPORTERS

20 (800) 288-3376 www.depo.com

21 REPORTED BY: JENNIFER M. O'CONNOR

22 FILE NO. A900B7B
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1 EPA MODERATORS:

2 JAMES DEMOCKER

3 ROBIN LANGDON

4 TOM POWERS

5 MELINA WILLIAMS

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

2 (9:00 a.m.)

3 MR. POWERS: Good morning everybody. I

4 think we'll get started since we have a lot of

5 people who would like to testify today. My name is

6 Tom Powers. I'm the chair of this session -- this

7 morning's session of today's public hearing. Thank

8 you very much for coming today.

9 Joining me on the panel to my right is

10 Melina Williams. We are here today to listen to

11 your comments on proposed revisions to the National

12 Ambient Air Quality Standards for Ozone. EPA

13 announced this proposed rule on November 25, 2014,

14 published it in the "Federal Register" December 17,

15 2014.

16 EPA's proposal is based on extensive

17 scientific evidence about ozone's effects on public

18 health and welfare. The proposed updates are

19 intended to improve public health protection,

20 particularly for children, the elderly, and people

21 of all ages who have lung diseases such as asthma,

22 as well as improved public welfare protection,
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1 particularly related to ozone-sensitive trees and

2 other plants in protected forests and ecosystems

3 such as national wilderness areas.

4 We have proposed to strengthen both the

5 primary ozone standard to protect public health and

6 the secondary ozone standard to protect public

7 welfare. We're proposing to set the levels of the

8 primary and the secondary standards in a range

9 between 65 and 70 parts per billion. These

10 standards would be met when the three or average of

11 the annual fourth highest daily maximum eight-hour

12 average ozone concentration is at or below the new

13 level.

14 The proposal would also extend the ozone

15 monitoring season for many states and update the Air

16 Quality Index to ensure people are better informed

17 about their air quality. These proposed standards

18 do not establish a mission control requirement for

19 any particular industry. Each state, as needed,

20 will determine how to best meet the standards in a

21 way that makes the most sense for that area. States

22 will have time to develop and implement plans to
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1 meet the revised standards, and existing and

2 proposed federal rules will help the vast majority

3 of the areas meet the proposed standards by 2025.

4 I'd like to tank -- thank you for taking

5 time out of your day to join us in share -- sharing

6 your comments. We will accept comments on all

7 aspects of the proposal, including the option of

8 retaining the existing standards.

9 Before we get started, a few housekeeping

10 items and ground rules to make today's hearing run

11 smoothly. This is not in my script, but it occurs

12 to me people may wonder where the restrooms are.

13 They are out the door and to the right, down and to

14 the left in that hall.

15 Please be sure you've checked in at the

16 registration desk even if you're not planning to

17 speak today. And if you did sign up to speak online

18 or by phone but haven't told us that you're here,

19 please step out to the registration desk and let the

20 EPA staff there know that you've arrived so we're

21 sure we get you on as quickly as possible.

22 All right, here's how today's hearing will
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1 work. I will call speakers in pairs. They will sit

2 at the table right in front of -- front of us here.

3 When your name is called, please come to the table

4 at the front of the room. Remain at the table until

5 both speakers have completed their comments.

6 When I call you to speak, please spell

7 your name for the -- state your name and spell it

8 for the court reporter. Your comments will be

9 transcribed and included in the official record of

10 comments or docket on the proposed rule. Each

11 speaker will have five minutes to give comments. We

12 have a light to help you know how much time you have

13 left to speak. Lina is in charge of the light. It

14 will turn from green to yellow, and that means you

15 have one minute remaining. When it turns red,

16 that's the signal to wrap up your test -- your

17 testimony. It will flash red and beat when you have

18 spoken for five minutes, and that means it's time to

19 stop because somebody else is waiting to speak next.

20 When you finish speaking, please remain at

21 the table if you're the first of the pair until the

22 person next to you has completed his or her
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1 testimony. We are here to listen today, but a panel

2 member may ask questions to clarify your comments.

3 I'll then call the next pair of speakers up and so

4 forth.

5 If you have a written copy of your

6 testimony, please give it to the staff at the

7 registration desk before you leave today. We will

8 put any written comments today -- submitted today in

9 the official docket for the proposed rule. And

10 also, if you have additional comments after the

11 hearing today you'd like -- that you'd like to make,

12 you'll have until March 17th to submit them in

13 writing. You can think of it as celebrating St.

14 Patrick's Day by filing your comments at the

15 deadline. Instructions for submitting additional

16 written comments are available at the materials

17 table near the registration desk with the address

18 and other relevant information.

19 The hearing today is going to continue

20 until 7:30 tonight. We'll take a lunch break from 1

21 to 2:30, and then continue straight until 7:30.

22 Occasion -- occasionally, we may take a short break
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1 throughout the day as needed and we'll keep you

2 posted on that. I should note that there will be a

3 different panel in the afternoon. Melina and I are

4 off to do something else in the afternoon, so do not

5 feel like you're in the wrong place if you see

6 different people here for the panel in the

7 afternoon. If you have any questions during the

8 day, please see staff at the registration desk and

9 someone will try to help you.

10 And finally, I want to ask each of you to

11 be respectful of everyone who speaks today. We have

12 people with a wide variety of views in the audience

13 and we do want to hear from all of you. So we can

14 do that and be fair to everyone, we ask that

15 everyone listen quietly. Even applause can slow

16 things down, and we want to hear from everyone who

17 has signed up to speak.

18 With that, thank you again for taking the

19 time to come today and share your comments with us,

20 and let's get started. The first two speakers are

21 Rebecca Geary and Ryan Knapick.

22 MS. GEARY: Good morning. My name is
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1 Rebecca Geary, and I'm honored to be back before you

2 to share my story and advocate for healthy air

3 protections.

4 I was a child in the sixties and grew up

5 in a home where both parents were chain smokers and

6 they smoked in the house. We as a nation were just

7 beginning to be informed that smoking may be

8 dangerous to one's health. My sisters and brothers

9 and I used to make a game out of diving under the

10 cloud of smoke that hung in the living room so we

11 could lie on the floor and watch TV.

12 Fast forward to 2007, I'm the mother of

13 four grown children and grandma of eight. All of my

14 adult years have been spent living -- sorry -- a

15 healthy lifestyle that included a clean diet,

16 exercise and the love of clean, smoke-free outdoors.

17 I've lived most of my life in the Pacific Northwest

18 where the air is crisp and clean, but I've always

19 avoided secondhand smoke, because not only do I have

20 asthma, but I find it offensive.

21 I was in college at the time in 2007, just

22 finishing up prerequisites to nursing school, when I
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1 was diagnosed with lung cancer. I underwent

2 extensive surgery to remove one of my lungs and

3 other suspect tissues, followed by weeks of

4 chemotherapy and months of nausea, weakness and hair

5 loss. Right after the surgery, I didn't have enough

6 breath to put two words together before I had to

7 take another breath.

8 For a person with diminished breathing

9 ability, walking up a flight of stairs can be a

10 chore. I know this from experience. For the first

11 few school terms after my surgery, I was so very

12 winded when I had to walk upstairs to get to

13 classes. More than once I got a lungful of

14 cigarette smoke on the way up and had to stop

15 because I couldn't breathe. That's when I started

16 telling my story to advocate for change.

17 I was in touch with the American Lung

18 Association, who obtained three minute's audience

19 for me with the Board of Directors at my college. I

20 was able to share my concerns and my story and as a

21 result, the school immediately implemented the plan

22 that made the campus tobacco free in January 2010.
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1 When I moved from the Pacific Northwest to

2 the south side region of Virginia, I began to

3 advocate for protections against outdoor air

4 pollution as well. We've made great progress in

5 cleaning up tobacco smoke there, but the air won't

6 be truly healthy until it's free of dangerous

7 pollution like ozone.

8 I have fought very hard to expand the

9 capacity of one -- my one lung up to near capacity

10 of two lungs. I've participated in 5K runs where I

11 walked most of the time because of my asthma, and I

12 make a concerted effort to always avoid places that

13 will cause me to breathe toxins because I become

14 very anxious if I'm in a place where I'm breathing

15 something that's potentially dangerous.

16 Unfortunately, both in my former home of

17 Ridgeway, Virginia, and my current home of Durham,

18 North Carolina, we breathe unhealthy levels of ozone

19 pollution or smog. We do have much less smog in our

20 air than we used to, but there are still days when

21 it's unhealthy for me to go outside. And there's a

22 deeper problem too. In order to know whether or not
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1 the pollution levels are safe to breathe on a given

2 day, we rely on you, the EPA. Your Air Quality

3 Index is crucial for people like me, because when

4 the smog level is over the limit, people with lung

5 disease know that they should stay inside that day.

6 But right now, that limit on ozone is out

7 of date. That means there may be days when it's

8 unhealthy to breathe outdoors, and we never even

9 hear about it. That's why I'm calling on you to set

10 a new limit on ozone pollution that truly protects

11 our health. The science shows that we need a more

12 protective limit on this pollutant and that a new

13 limit of 60 parts per billion is necessary to truly

14 protect our health with an adequate margin of

15 safety.

16 I'm truly passionate about helping people

17 be healthy. Despite the challenges I face with my

18 own health, I finished nursing school on time and

19 began working as a nurse. I finished my bachelor's

20 degree in 2012, and I'm currently working on

21 graduate school. I'm going to keep telling my story

22 to advocate for protections against pollution.
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1 And I wanted to tell you about one

2 particular patient that comes to mind. She was in

3 her twenties -- a young woman with asthma -- and

4 went to a park on a hot day where it was -- the air

5 was still. She wasn't doing anything strenuous but

6 she had a life threatening form of asthma called --

7 or an attack called status asthmaticus.

8 When I got her in the hospital in my unit,

9 she was on 100 percent non-re-breather. Her eyes

10 were wild with fear and all she could do was just

11 sit there and work on breathing. We couldn't do

12 anything for her except give her inhaled and

13 intervenous steroids and wait for the medication to

14 open her lungs up. The wheezing was so loud you

15 could hear it clear down the hall, and she was so

16 frightened.

17 Fortunately, that girl survived, but I'd

18 like to see stricter laws come into effect so that

19 those of us with compromised breathing ability know

20 when it's not safe for us to go outside. Thank you

21 very much.

22 MR. POWERS: Thank you very much for your
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1 testimony. Ryan?

2 MR. KNAPICK: Good morning. My name is

3 Ryan Knapick -- R-y-a-n K-n-a-p-i-c-k. I am a staff

4 attorney for the Clean Air Council. Clean Air

5 Council is a non-profit environmental organization

6 headquartered in Philadelphia. The Council has more

7 than 8,000 members throughout the Mid-Atlantic

8 region, and for more than 40 years, the Council has

9 fought to improve air quality and protect everyone's

10 right to breathe clean air.

11 Thank you for the opportunity to speak

12 today. Clean Air Council supports the EPA's efforts

13 to propose new National Ambient Air Quality

14 Standards for Ozone. However, the Council believes

15 that in terms of public health, the most protective

16 primary standard is 60 parts per billion. Although

17 progress has been made to reduce ozone levels,

18 concentrations of ozone remain unacceptably high in

19 many areas across the country.

20 In Pennsylvania, 9 of the 10 most

21 populated counties are designated non-attainment for

22 ozone. The Philadelphia and Pittsburgh metropolitan
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1 statistical areas are among the most polluted in the

2 U.S. Consequently, over 60 percent of Pennsylvania

3 residents live in an ozone non-attainment area.

4 Exposure to high concentration of ozone

5 can lead to significant health effects, such as

6 aggravation to existing respiratory and cardiac

7 conditions, lung tissue damage and premature death.

8 These impacts pose an even greater threat for

9 children, the elderly and those with preexisting

10 conditions, asthma in particular.

11 According to estimates, a standard at 60

12 parts per billion would provide benefits of 4,000 to

13 12,000 fewer premature deaths, 21,000 fewer hospital

14 and emergency room visits, and mortality benefits

15 and other health improvements that range from 35

16 billion to 100 billion dollars per year by the year

17 2020. Lastly, reduced health impacts on American

18 families and workers translate directly into less

19 time missed out of school and at work.

20 In reviewing the current standards, the

21 Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee, or CASAC,

22 recommended a revision of the primary standard and
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1 arranged from 60 to 70 parts per billion, including

2 that the 75 parts per billion level is inadequate to

3 protect public health from the negative impacts of

4 ozone pollution.

5 CASAC also noted that even healthy

6 individuals exhibited exposure responses at -- ozone

7 levels as low as 60 parts per billion, thus the

8 Council believes it is unreasonable to discount the

9 effects a standard above 60 parts per billion would

10 have on at-risk segments of the public due to

11 considerations of risk uncertainty and other

12 balancing considerations.

13 The Council also believes that a strong

14 ozone standard is a critical component of EPA's

15 future regulatory agenda. A Clean Power Plan,

16 direct regulation of methane, an updated air

17 transport rule all stand to benefit. For example,

18 where the agency has considered fuel switching and

19 process changes as mission abatement strategies,

20 resources in the energy generation sector, the

21 Council would urge EPA to also place energy

22 efficiency at the forefront of any such strategy.
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1 EPA must set stringent standards for ozone

2 because there is clear, scientific support for a

3 protective standard that safeguards all segments of

4 the American public, young and old. Clean Air

5 Council supports the EPA's effort to reduce ozone

6 pollution, as doing so will have a direct impact on

7 improving air quality, public health in Pennsylvania

8 and across the country.

9 Thank you.

10 MR. POWERS: Thank you very much. The

11 next two speakers are Kevin Sunday and Paul

12 Billings.

13 MR. SUNDAY: Good morning. My name is

14 Kevin Sunday -- K-e-v-i-n S-u-n-d-a-y. I am the

15 manager of Government Affairs for the Pennsylvania

16 Chamber of Business and Industry. We are the

17 largest broad-based business advocacy association in

18 Pennsylvania and we represent thousands of members

19 across every sector.

20 I want to thank EPA for holding this

21 hearing and the professionalism and diligence of

22 their staff in getting this session organized. I
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1 also want to thank EPA in advance for their time in

2 reviewing our comments and listening to our

3 concerns.

4 And our message today is this: EPA should

5 maintain the current standard of 75 parts per

6 billion. A downward revision to 70, 65 or even 60

7 parts per billion would inflect tremendous

8 compliance costs on our economy and provide a ripple

9 effect to nearly ever facet of it. It's clear that

10 these costs would be a tremendous waste of money

11 given that EPA says in its documents that this

12 rule-making, and I quote, "EPA's projection showed

13 that the vast majority of U.S. counties would meet

14 the proposed standards by 2025 just with the rules

15 and programs now in place or underway."

16 Industry has taken great strides to cut

17 emissions and while not without significant cost, we

18 are getting significant reductions in ozone

19 precursors of NOx and VOCs. Federal requirements

20 that are already on the books, or soon will be,

21 include NOx for PM2.5, SO2 and other pollutants,

22 MATS, CSAPR, the Clean Power Plan, and the Boiler
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1 MACT, all which will contribute to significant

2 reductions in emissions.

3 In addition, we have state laws on the

4 books in Pennsylvania that will increase energy

5 efficiency and increase renewables deployment

6 through the rest of the decade. Pennsylvania also

7 has one of the most aggressive vehicle emissions

8 inspection programs in the nation, as well as

9 innovative regulations governing emissions from

10 natural gas compressors and well sites.

11 Pennsylvania also recently prepared its

12 final revisions to the RAC rule, which will get us

13 additional reductions from sources across the state,

14 more use of natural gas and heating, power

15 generation, and CHP projects will lower emissions as

16 well. And most importantly, there are key

17 provisions of Pennsylvania's SIP for the 2008 ozone

18 standard that either await EPA approval or have only

19 been on the books for a few years. Please give us

20 time to implement what's already out there.

21 And even with only parts of the 2008 SIP

22 underway, Pennsylvania has already, between 2008 and
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1 2012, reduced emissions of SOx by 68 percent, NOx by

2 29 percent, VOCs by 21 percent, and carbon monoxide

3 by 16 percent. These reductions are having a

4 demonstrated impact on air quality with the EPA

5 forecasting fewer and fewer severe air quality

6 alerts each year.

7 In 2014, on just four days where ozone

8 action days forecasted in one or more regions in

9 Pennsylvania, compared to 28 such days in 2012, a

10 significant development considering the EPA

11 announced near the end of ozone forecasting season

12 in 2012, it would begin adding forecasting for eight

13 additional regions for a total of 13 regions in the

14 state. The whole state is monitoring attainment for

15 the 1997 ozone standard and we are almost the whole

16 way there with 2008. Recent Pennsylvania DEP data

17 showed that with the exception of one monitoring

18 station, the whole state is under the 2008 standard.

19 We've made significant progress, but an

20 abrupt drop in the ozone NAAQS would throw much of

21 the country and Pennsylvania into non-attainment

22 with grave consequences. And there are hundreds of
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1 thousands of Pennsylvanians employed in construction

2 and various trades, and federal highway funding for

3 badly needed infrastructure projects would be

4 jeopardized by widespread non-attainment

5 designations.

6 Federal highway funding makes up

7 approximately 50 percent of all bridge and road

8 capital investments in Pennsylvania. If much of the

9 state is put into non-attainment, the average

10 consumer would see higher energy prices at the pump

11 and in their utility bills. Manufacturers who

12 employ blue collar workers, the segment of the

13 workforce that needs a leg up right now, might not

14 be able to expand or even open their doors under

15 non-attainment designations.

16 While case law may not require EPA to

17 examine economic consequences of NAAQS requirements,

18 that does not mean EPA should outright ignore all

19 effects of the rules. It was on economic grounds

20 that the president asked EPA to hold off on a new

21 ozone NAAQS in 2011, and those concerns should still

22 stand. Given that Pennsylvania is in the ozone
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1 transport region, and that's already put us at a

2 competitive disadvantage with other states and other

3 countries, and given that EPA has said we are going

4 to get to a lower level of background ozone very

5 soon with or without this rule, and given the

6 tremendous costs associated with this rule, on

7 behalf of the Pennsylvania Chamber, I again urge EPA

8 to maintain the current standard.

9 Thank you.

10 MR. BILLINGS: Good morning. I'm pleased

11 to speak today in support of strengthening the

12 National Ambient Air Quality Standard for Ozone. My

13 name is Paul Billings -- P-a-u-l B-i-l-l-i-n-g-s --

14 and I am the senior vice president of advocacy and

15 education for the American Lung Association. The

16 Lung Association is the nation's oldest voluntary

17 health organization. Our mission is to save lives

18 by improving lung health and preventing lung

19 disease.

20 Air pollution, ozone smog, harms health.

21 The Clean Air Act requires EPA to set standards that

22 protect health. Today marks the third time in eight
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1 years I've testified before EPA urging a standard of

2 60 parts per billion. Five years ago, in 2010, I

3 spoke in support of this much more protective

4 standard. In August 2007, in Philadelphia, the

5 American Lung Association called on the EPA to adopt

6 a primary National Ambient Air Quality Standard for

7 Ozone of 60 parts per billion averaged over eight

8 hours.

9 The Clean Air Act requires the standard to

10 be set at a level that does not harm health,

11 including an adequate margin of safety. This clear

12 intent of Congress has been affirmed by a unanimous

13 decision of the Supreme Court. As I have testified

14 before, clean, healthy air is personal for me and my

15 family. My wife and I are blessed to have two

16 active daughters. Our youngest, who runs track and

17 plays soccer, has asthma, and hot, smoggy days make

18 it harder for her to breathe. Smog-induced asthma

19 can mean the difference between winning and losing a

20 race. It can also be much more serious, leading to

21 wheezing and struggling for breath.

22 In my wife's fifth grade class in Wheaton,
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1 Maryland, there are too many children with asthma

2 who are at risk from air pollution. The Clean Air

3 Act requires that the ozone standard protect all

4 children, whose lungs are still developing. Their

5 families, my family, and millions of others with

6 asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and

7 other chronic conditions, deserve to know the truth

8 about the air quality that we are breathing.

9 The current standard misleads all of us

10 about that air. The law is clear that the standard

11 must be set solely on one question -- at what level

12 does ozone harm health? But the law will not stop

13 some individuals and organizations who continue to

14 make the same outrageous claims about costs they

15 were making for years. These claims have been

16 proven false.

17 You'll hear specious arguments about

18 feasibility, again, clearly not relevant to the

19 decision before the agency today. But understand,

20 such claims are unfounded. We have the tools in

21 place to meet new ozone standards -- pollution

22 cleanup coming from tier 3 vehicles and lower sulfur
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1 gasoline, cleaner power plants, and additional plans

2 to clean up carbon pollution and methane.

3 We also know there are too many power

4 plants not using NOx controls that are already

5 installed, simply running pollution controls,

6 together with taking advantage of further

7 opportunities to reduce pollution from large trucks

8 and other mobile stationary and area sources will

9 help most areas meet the new protective standards.

10 As you know, cost and feasibility will be

11 fully considered during the implementation phase of

12 the process. Some arguments you'll hear are absurd.

13 A strong ozone standard will not block a new

14 hospital from being built, but a new standard may

15 help keep someone you love from having to be rushed

16 to the hospital.

17 Finally, you'll hear shrill claims about

18 uncertainty. I want to be clear, setting a standard

19 of 60 parts per billion will provide more certainty

20 and cleaner air. The Clean Air Scientific Advisory

21 Committee Ozone Review Panel, 20 esteemed and

22 independent scientists, looked at the evidence from
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1 over 2,000 studies. These scientists have

2 unanimously concluded that EPA must set a standard

3 between 60 and 70 parts per billion. They wrote,

4 quote, "The recommended lower bound of 60 ppb would

5 certainly offer more public health protection than

6 levels of 70 ppb or 65 ppb, and would provide an

7 adequate margin of safety."

8 Remember, ozone is a killer. A standard

9 set at 60 parts per billion will prevent up to 7,900

10 premature deaths -- 7,900 premature deaths -- 1.8

11 million asthma attacks in children, and 1.9 million

12 missed school days each year. It certainly will

13 provide essential health protection. There is

14 scientific consensus. The law is unambiguous. EPA

15 must adopt the standard that protects the health of

16 the public with an adequate margin of safety.

17 On behalf of the American Lung

18 Association, I urge you to follow the law and the

19 science, and remember the words of CASAC: "60 ppb

20 would certainly offer more public health protection

21 than levels of 70 ppb or 65 ppb."

22 Thank you very much.
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1 MR. POWERS: Thank you both for your

2 testimony. Next pair is Roger McClellan and Josh

3 Stebbins.

4 MR. McCLELLAN: Good morning. I'm Roger

5 McClellan, advisor to public and private

6 organizations on inhalation toxicology and human

7 health risk analysis related to air quality. I have

8 served on numerous clean air scientific advisory

9 panels and had the pleasure and privilege of

10 chairing CASAC for four years, thus, I understand

11 from first-hand experience the process by which the

12 air quality standards are developed and the role of

13 CASAC.

14 The process by which the standards are

15 developed has two key phases. In the first phase,

16 all the relevant science is reviewed and integrated.

17 In the second phase, which is now coming to a

18 conclusion, the science is used to inform policy

19 judgments that lead to a succinct policy outcome --

20 the standard with an indicator, an averaging time, a

21 numerical concentration, and a statistical form.

22 The comments I offer today are based on my
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1 closely following the multiple steps in the process

2 that have taken place since 19 -- since 2008 up to

3 the proposal of the present proposed rule. I am

4 still reviewing the proposed rule, hence the

5 comments that are offered today are a placeholder

6 for the final comments I plan to offer the agency.

7 At this time, I want to make several

8 points. I am pleased that the EPA administrator has

9 requested comments on the level from the current

10 standard -- 75 ppb -- down to 60 ppb. This affirms

11 that the 75 ppb level is not precluded by the

12 available science.

13 Two, as already emphasized, the setting of

14 a particular NAAQS requires the administrator to

15 make policy judgments informed by science. Science

16 alone is not sufficient to set the standards. CASAC

17 has an important role in reviewing EPA's assessment,

18 the science on ozone. However, that's an assessment

19 of that science. In my opinion, in this review,

20 CASAC has attempted to create a scientific algorithm

21 for identifying a science-based upper limit for the

22 standard. Quite frankly, this step is not possible
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1 without introducing the personal value judgments of

2 individual CASAC members, and most importantly, goes

3 beyond the specified advisory role of CASAC.

4 Four, it's important to recognize the

5 earlier ozone standards have been effective in

6 achieving continuous reductions in ozone levels in

7 most locales across the U.S. Implementation of the

8 ozone acts of 75 ppb set in 2008 is expected to have

9 further positive impacts in reducing ambient ozone.

10 The EPA has not yet provided the formal

11 guidance for states to implement that standard.

12 There is a robust body of scientific information on

13 the complex processes by which ozone is formed and

14 degraded. Perhaps the most remarkable increase in

15 knowledge of ozone in the last decade has been the

16 new information and the relatively high and variable

17 levels of background ozone across the USA.

18 As ozone -- as ambient ozone levels have

19 been reduced, the complex process of ozone formation

20 degradation poses even more challenges -- challenges

21 for developing ozone-controlled strategies. Indeed,

22 as EPA has acknowledged, further reductions of NOx
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1 in some locales may actually increase ambient ozone.

2 This disbenefit phenomena must be considered by the

3 administrator in promulgating any new standard.

4 The epidemiological database on ambient

5 ozone has steadily increased. Perhaps the most

6 striking finding in recent years has been the extent

7 to which associations previously attributed to

8 ambient ozone may be largely associated with the

9 co-pollutant PM2.5. The database on controlled

10 exposure of excising human subjects has increased

11 very modestly, with increased attention

12 appropriately focusing on re-analysis as to what

13 effects are adverse or not.

14 Finally, it's important to recognize that

15 the promulgation of a final NAAQS for Ozone will

16 involve a set of policy judgments that can only be

17 made by the EPA administrator, informed by the

18 available science. The available scientific

19 information does not preclude those policy

20 judgments, resulting in reaffirmation of the 2008

21 standard, which as I noted, has not yet been

22 formally implemented.
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1 Thank you for your attention.

2 MR. POWERS: Thank you very much.

3 MR. STEBBINS: I am Joshua Stebbins. I am

4 speaking here today on behalf of myself and on

5 behalf of Sierra Club. I'm going to talk about what

6 is at stake. What's at stake right now is our

7 infants' health -- pneumonia, bronchitis, lung

8 damage -- our children's health -- developing

9 asthmas, having asthma attacks, missing millions of

10 school days -- our parents, our grandparents'

11 health, the elderly health. We're talking about

12 deaths.

13 Environmental justice communities who are

14 disproportionately affected, that's what we're

15 talking about on the one hand. On the other hand,

16 what we're talking about are how large corporate

17 profits are, specifically, in particular, utility

18 profits. There are costs being paid today. Those

19 costs are in the form of our community's health.

20 There are economic costs, missed school days. There

21 are economic costs in missed work days. There are

22 economic costs in public health costs, particularly
32

1 for outdoor workers and those other sensitive

2 populations I just referenced.

3 What needs to be done here is a standard

4 of 60 part per billion must be set. The evidence

5 supports it. While I don't have time to discuss

6 that evidence, I can discuss briefly that every

7 major public health and medical society or

8 institution has supported a standard of 60 part per

9 billion. None of them has supported a standard of

10 70 part per billion.

11 What has EPA done here? EPA has

12 eliminated a 60 part per billion standard from the

13 current range under consideration. It's drafted a

14 proposed rule considering 70. In so doing, it has

15 relied upon those very institutions that have come

16 back, such as the American Thoracic Society, the

17 American Lung Association, that have come out and

18 said a 70 standard is not protective.

19 So the very -- the very institutions that

20 EPA is citing this proposed rule are not supportive

21 of the higher end of the range that EPA is

22 considering. Moreover, they say the devil's in the
33

1 details. Here the details are the form, the form of

2 the standard. The form of the standard is --

3 doesn't really mean that 70 parts per billion is 70

4 parts per billion and after -- if you concede that,

5 then you need to start to control your pollution.

6 In fact, the form that's proposed would allow

7 repeated exceedances of 70 parts per billion. You

8 can actually -- EPA -- EPA's form would ignore the

9 first three exceededness every single year. In

10 fact, even at the fourth exceedance, EPA's standard

11 would say, well, you can ignore that too unless it's

12 averaged over three years.

13 Now, the significance of that is not

14 necessarily that the form itself has to be amended,

15 but the form has to take into consideration the

16 numerical standards, and if you -- the higher the

17 numerical standard, the more stringent that form can

18 be. There is no administrative stability

19 requirement to pick the fourth standard. If you're

20 averaging it over the fourth highest, if you're

21 averaging it over three years, you could pick the

22 highest standard in the highest numerical value of a
34

1 design value for each year and average that over

2 three years. That gives you administrative

3 stability, which is what EPA is looking for in its

4 form.

5 So the current form, combined with a 70

6 standard, for example, would actually mean that the

7 public would repeatedly be exposed to much higher

8 levels of ozone than what a 70 standard would

9 indicate, and it would move the health protective

10 nature of the standard farther and farther from what

11 the medical literature suggests and indicates is

12 needed, which is a 60 standard.

13 So let's talk about costs for just a

14 minute. First off, costs are irrelevant. They're

15 -- they're irrelevant under the law. There's plenty

16 of court precedence on this. They're also typically

17 inflated. If you look at EP -- industry's

18 discussions of costs of seatbelts in cars or airbags

19 in cars or acid rain provisions, they're inflated.

20 Moreover, this is a time of change. There

21 is technological innovation. These costs come down,

22 much like they did in the Clean -- excuse me -- the
35

1 acid air provision -- acid rain provisions. They're

2 also baked-in reductions. More importantly, these

3 costs are already being paid. They're being paid by

4 our children, by our infants, by our elderly, by our

5 families, by our workers, by missed school days.

6 The question is only who's going to pay

7 the costs and how large they're going to be, and

8 your own cost benefit analysis suggests that if you

9 control the pollution, the costs will be much

10 smaller than if you continue to let the pollution go

11 forward at, for example, 70 or 75 parts per billion.

12 Briefly, the secondary standard proposed, which is

13 effectively the same as a primary standard, does

14 ignore the recent D.C. Circuit decision that says

15 there has to be an independent secondary standard.

16 So in sum, this is about people's health.

17 This is about protecting people's health. It should

18 not be about -- about concern about how significant

19 or how large corporate profits are. We are here

20 today paying these prices already. We're paying

21 more from them than we would pay if instead we

22 simply enacted a stringent standard of control for
36

1 these pollutants. Thank you.

2 MR. POWERS: Thank you both very much.

3 The next two speakers will be Sean Holihan -- pardon

4 me if I don't say it right -- and Betsy Monseu.

5 MR. HOLIHAN: Hi. Good morning. It's

6 Sean Holihan -- S-e-a-n H-o-l-i-h-a-n. Thank you

7 for the opportunity to speak before you today. I

8 work with the American Lung Association in Virginia

9 on our Healthy Air Campaign. We educate the public

10 about the impacts of air pollution on human health,

11 and we advocate for protections that are

12 science-based and strong.

13 I'm here to ask that you finalize into law

14 an ozone standard that fully protects public health.

15 As part of this campaign, we built a coalition of

16 public health organizations, medical professionals

17 and patients across Virginia who care about healthy

18 air. A fully protective ozone standard is one of

19 our top priorities because the scientific evidence

20 is clear -- our current standard is woefully

21 inadequate.

22 We often say ozone is like a sunburn on
37

1 the lungs. Ozone is a powerful respiratory irritant

2 that can lead to premature death. It can also cause

3 shortness of breath, coughing and wheezing, and

4 asthma attacks, just to name a few impacts, and it's

5 particularly dangerous for children, the elderly and

6 people with lung and heart disease.

7 We work with public health groups,

8 including the Virginia Asthma Coalition, the

9 Virginia Public Health Association, the Virginia

10 Royal Health -- sorry -- the Virginia Rural Health

11 Association. Our coalition partners understand that

12 supporting a stronger ozone standard helps the

13 health of the communities they serve.

14 We also work with dozens and dozens of

15 doctors, nurses, respiratory therapists and other

16 health professionals who are advocating on behalf of

17 their patients. These medical professionals can

18 often attest that they have personally seen the

19 impact that ozone and other air pollutants have on

20 their patients' health. And finally, we work with

21 volunteers, many of whom have lung disease

22 themselves. In the weeks leading up to this
38

1 hearing, we asked some of them who couldn't make it

2 here in person whether they'd like to pass on a

3 message for us. I wanted to share a couple of those

4 messages with you in their own words.

5 The first is from Karen Shaffer, a

6 resident of Bristol, Virgina. She said, "I live in

7 a rural part of far Southwest Virginia. I treasure

8 the tranquility of my home space. I have spring

9 water to serve all my needs, and I look out every

10 morning on a forest and field landscape that pleases

11 my heart. Others living in Southwest Virginia are

12 not as lucky as I am to have clean air at home.

13 Coal mining, gas drilling and power plants in nearby

14 counties have devastated the land, water and air

15 there.

16 "Lung disease abounds. The ozone and

17 other air contaminant levels are too high. If the

18 AP" -- "if the EPA hadn't regulated emissions from

19 vehicles and utilities back in the seventies, what

20 would my air quality be like today? I am

21 greatly" -- "I am grateful for such regulations.

22 "Our right to clean air cannot be
39

1 underestimated. It is imperative. Children suffer

2 from asthma and the elderly come down with COPD at

3 alarming rates. The future of our planet depends on

4 keeping levels of ozone and other air pollutants

5 down. The air there" -- "the air is all I have

6 here. We can't get it from anywhere else. Let's

7 keep our society healthy, our environment clean, and

8 focus on that. Everything else is just icing on the

9 cake."

10 The other letter I wanted to share with

11 you today is from a group called the Pulmonary Pals

12 of Greater Fredericksburg. This is a support group

13 for people with COPD and other lung diseases. At a

14 recent meeting, everyone present, 11 members in all,

15 signed the following letter: "Dear Administrator

16 McCarthy, the Pulmonary Pals of Greater

17 Fredericksburg is a supportive organization whose

18 members suffer from the various forms of lung

19 disease. Difficulty breathing is a condition each

20 of us struggles with every day. Our already

21 compromised lungs are further weakened by poor air

22 quality. Some days it is so bad we are prevented
40

1 from leaving our homes to carry on normal

2 activities.

3 "We are very concerned about cleaning up

4 the air we're breathing, not only for ourselves, but

5 also for our families, friends and the public in

6 general. No one should have their lungs polluted

7 due to preventable environmental causes. This

8 includes each of you and your families and friends.

9 "The air needs cleaning up. The current

10 ozone limit is not sufficient to protect the public

11 health. It must be lowered to improve air quality.

12 We appeal to you -- finalize the law to lower ozone

13 standards that the American Lung Association has

14 recommended. It will help us all to breathe."

15 It's no exaggeration to say that member --

16 that members of that support group are confined to

17 their homes on days with high ozone levels. To

18 protect their health, we need to continue the

19 progress we've made in reducing ozone pollution in

20 Fredericksburg and in Virginia as a whole. And

21 while that work is still ongoing, our volunteers

22 need accurate and honest information about the
41

1 quality of their air.

2 The National Ambient Air Quality Standard

3 for Ozone is the official word from EPA on how much

4 ozone is safe to breathe. It's the basis for EPA's

5 Air Quality Index, which is an important tool that

6 people with lung disease -- lung disease use to plan

7 their days. But because it's based on outdated

8 information about ozone, our volunteers may be told

9 that conditions outside are healthy when it's

10 actually dangerous to breathe. The standard is long

11 overdue for change.

12 On behalf of Karen Shaffer, the members of

13 the Pulmonary Pals, and the people all over Virginia

14 who rely on the American Lung Association to be

15 their voice in the fight for healthy air, I ask you

16 to finalize an ozone standard of no higher than 60

17 parts per billion. Anything less would fail to

18 fully protect our health. Thank you.

19 MR. POWERS: Thank you. Ms. Monseu.

20 MS. MONSEU: Good morning. My name is

21 Betsy Monseu, and I'm CEO of the American Coal

22 Council, or ACC. The ACC has been in existence for
42

1 33 years and represents the collective business

2 interests of the American coal industry. Our

3 members include coal suppliers, transportation

4 companies, terminals, electric utilities, industrial

5 consumers, and support services providers. They

6 touch every aspect of turning one of America's most

7 abundant energy resources into reliable, affordable

8 electricity. Coal is also integral to the steel

9 making process and the industrial production of

10 cement, chemicals and paper.

11 I appreciate the opportunity to address

12 the EPA's proposed NAAQS for Ozone. This rule is

13 yet another example of a misguided federal policy on

14 air quality. It will fail to deliver anything but

15 massive costs and hardship for businesses,

16 manufacturers, families and state and local

17 governments. Virtually no sector of the American

18 economy will escape the reach of this rule. Many

19 facilities that would be subject to it are already

20 being impacted by other EPA-proposed or enacted

21 rules. The rule is a needless piling on of

22 governmental regulation.
43

1 EPA concluded in 2008 that a 75 parts per

2 billion standard protects American health. There is

3 no justifiable basis for EPA's newly proposed

4 standard of 65 to 70 ppb. Concerns expressed in

5 2008 about harmful economic repercussions of

6 bringing the standard below 75 ppb are exponentially

7 greater now due to increased regulatory compliance

8 costs of other EPA rules since then.

9 The toll such rules extract is greatest on

10 the poor, the elderly and small businesses. These

11 groups were most affected by the year's long

12 economic downturn and widely acknowledged to still

13 be struggling, yet EPA has also indicated it will

14 take comment on an even lower ozone standard of 60

15 ppb.

16 I point to recent studies highlighting the

17 dramatic impacts of one, a 60 ppb study, and two,

18 the cumulative effects of EPA regulations. A July

19 2014 study by NERA Economic Consulting for the

20 National Association of Manufacturers analyzed a 60

21 ppb ozone standard and found huge costs and negative

22 impacts to the economy, employment and households.
44

1 These included U.S. GDP reductions of 270 billion

2 per year, a loss of 2.9 million job equivalents

3 annually, a decrease of $1,570 in average household

4 consumption annually, and increases in electricity

5 costs of up to 23 percent and natural gas costs of

6 up to 52 percent over the period to 2040.

7 To achieve the 60 ppb standard, large

8 reductions in NOx are required. Power plants,

9 industrial plants, autos, agriculture and commercial

10 and residential buildings will be affected. NERA

11 reported that EPA had only identified about

12 one-third of the controls to meet the 60 ppb

13 standard. With two-thirds of the controls unknown,

14 it would be exceedingly expensive and potentially

15 impossible to comply.

16 The other study was done by Energy

17 Adventures Analysis in November 2014, prior to EPA's

18 release of this ozone rule. It incorporates the

19 cumulative cost impacts of EPA regulations,

20 including MATS, regional haze, and the Clean Power

21 Plan. It projects residential, industrial and

22 commercial customers will pay over 284 billion more
45

1 in 2020 for electricity and natural gas than in

2 2012, a 60 percent increase. The average household

3 bill will increase by $680 over the period.

4 EPA found that on a percentage basis, the

5 industrial sector would be hardest hit with costs 92

6 percent higher in 2020 than 2012. Much of the cost

7 increase is attributable to higher demand in pricing

8 for natural gas due to the premature shutdown of

9 coal plants. Fuel choice and diversity are reduced,

10 coal is less available to hedge natural gas, and all

11 American consumers pay the price. Higher prices are

12 not the only threat. With its four building blocks

13 approach under the Clean Power Plan, EPA has

14 proposed transformational changes that unnecessarily

15 risk electric grid reliability.

16 ACC is greatly concerned that EPA has

17 proposed this ozone rule, in addition to other rules

18 that will compromise the provision of such an

19 essential service as electricity supply. This is

20 irresponsible policy and it's unconscionable

21 regulation. EPA's rule espouses the benefits of

22 avoided asthma and heart attacks and premature
46

1 deaths, yet EPA resorts to co-benefits, as it has

2 done with earlier regulations, to bolster its case.

3 EPA also fails to include the effects of

4 other human health aspects of its rules. A group of

5 healthcare professionals in Congress wrote EPA

6 Administrator Gina McCarthy last year to address

7 findings of Senator John Barrasso on the negative

8 impacts to public health of costly -- public health

9 of costly EPA regulations. These include more

10 illnesses, hospital visits and premature deaths.

11 They stated EPA must include the net impact of their

12 rules on health benefits, including adversely

13 affecting unemployment and the cost of increased

14 energy. ACC agrees.

15 The success of emissions reduction in the

16 U.S. is a great environmental achievement. Power

17 sector emissions of NOx particulate matter and

18 sulfur dioxide taken together have been reduced by

19 89 percent through 2013. Emissions will continue to

20 be reduced without this unnecessary regulation. The

21 ozone rule should be withdrawn to avoid severe

22 widespread economic harm across America.
47

1 Thank you for your attention.

2 MR. POWERS: Thank you. Okay, next panel

3 is Jalonne White-Newsome and Gary Ewart. Good

4 morning. Thank you.

5 DR. WHITE-NEWSOME: Good morning. Jalonne

6 White-Newsome -- J-a-l-o-n-n-e W-h-i-t-e -- hyphen

7 -- N-e-w-s-o-m-e. Very long name. Thank you for

8 the opportunity to offer comments today on the

9 proposed revision of the ozone National Ambient Air

10 Quality Standards.

11 My name is Dr. Jalonne White-Newsome, and

12 I'm the director of federal policy for WE ACT for

13 Environmental Justice, a community-based

14 organization in Northern Manhattan, New York that

15 works to build healthy communities by making sure

16 that communities are a part of the political

17 process.

18 According to the New York Department of

19 Health and Mental Hygiene, in 2012, children age

20 zero to four in Harlem visited the emergency room

21 280 times because of asthma. There is no doubt that

22 children in Northern Manhattan are suffering
48

1 disproportionally from asthma, which is exacerbated

2 by the formation of ozone and other social

3 stressors.

4 So on behalf of the children, the adults

5 and the other susceptible populations that are

6 subjected to breathing dirty air, WE ACT strongly

7 urges the agency to move forward with a more

8 stringent eight-hour ozone standard of 60 parts per

9 billion. For the past 27 years, through

10 community-based research, education and advocacy, we

11 have worked to try and improve the health of

12 residents in Northern Manhattan by reducing both

13 stationary and mobile-source pollution. So if you

14 talk to anyone in the neighborhood, what they say is

15 what we do is clean air.

16 So since Harlem and many other communities

17 aren't lacking in the ingredients that form ozone,

18 it is extremely important that we use all of the

19 regulatory and non-regulatory mechanisms to protect

20 the health of some of our most overburdened and

21 sensitive populations. In fact, the most recent

22 data from an ozone air quality monitor in Northern
49

1 Manhattan, near City College of New York, show that

2 in 2013, the annual daily max eight-hour average

3 recorded at this monitor was in fact 62 parts per

4 billion, very close to the 60 parts per billion that

5 WE ACT and many other health organizations are

6 recommending. So this reading further validates the

7 need to finalize a standard that will encourage and

8 push gently permitted sources to reduce emissions

9 even more intentionally, especially in overburdened

10 areas.

11 I think it's also important to highlight

12 some of the language found in Appendix 9A of the

13 EPA's regulatory analysis of this rule, which in

14 part, quote, "Sought to determine whether

15 populations of interest from an EJ perspective have

16 a higher representation in areas that exceed the

17 proposed range of ozone standard levels, and thus,

18 may be more affected by strategies to attain

19 alternative standards," end quote.

20 And what the results of your analysis

21 showed is that quote, "This rule will benefit those

22 areas with a higher proportion of minority and
50

1 low-income residents. It will provide the EPA the

2 much needed insight into how and with whom to best

3 target efforts to inform communities about the

4 proposed rule and otherwise ensure their meaningful

5 involvement in the rule-making process."So although

6 this rule does not contain the robust EJ analysis

7 that we've been asking for in the past, we will hold

8 you to this declaration.

9 With that said, WE ACT is respectfully

10 asking the agency to strongly consider four

11 recommendations. The first is to finalize a

12 standard of 60 parts per billion for ozone to

13 protect the communities that we come from. Members

14 of the public health community, as well as the CASAC

15 and their review of this plan from 2014, agree that

16 the current standard is not protective of human

17 health, so let's change it.

18 Secondly, incorporate a multi-pollutant

19 approach when reviewing primary standards. Again,

20 as suggested by CASAC in a 2004 report from the

21 National Environmental Justice Advisory Council on

22 cumulative impacts and risks, the agency must
51

1 consider the potential for disproportionate impacts

2 and the cumulative risks from all sources and that

3 all should be taken into account to inform proposed

4 standards.

5 Third, update the Air Quality Index and

6 improve risk communication. It is not only

7 important that the AQI be revised to properly

8 reflect the updated standard, but that risks are

9 communicated in ways that can be digested by the

10 general public so they know how to act when the air

11 is most hazardous to their health, especially for

12 sensitive populations.

13 And fourth, enhance community engagement.

14 Partnerships between regional EPA offices, other

15 stakeholders and impacted community partners should

16 be involved in the NAAQS state implementation

17 planning process. Everybody deserves a seat at the

18 table.

19 So in closing, we appreciate your work at

20 the agency to protect human health through recent

21 efforts to reduce emissions of GHGs and curb the

22 impacts of our changing climate. So on behalf of WE
52

1 ACT and thousands of residents in Northern

2 Manhattan, we hope you take seriously our

3 recommendations and adhere to the agency's theme,

4 and in fact, the administrator's pledge to quote,

5 "Keep environmental justice a priority," and quote,

6 "Make a visible difference in communities across

7 this country."

8 So thank you for the opportunity to speak

9 to you today.

10 MR. POWERS: Thank you.

11 MR. EWART: Good morning. I'm Gary Ewart,

12 director of government relations with the American

13 Thoracic Society. Last name E-w-a-r-t. The

14 American Thoracic Society is a medical professional

15 organization of over 15,000 individuals dedicated to

16 the prevention, treatment, diagnosis and cure of

17 respiratory diseases, critical care illness and

18 sleep disordered breathing. Put that simply, we

19 treat patients with lung disease. We also do the

20 basic clinical and translational research on what

21 causes lung disease and what exacerbates lung

22 disease. Based on our expertise, our clinical
53

1 experience and our research, we strongly support a

2 more protective national ambient ozone standard of

3 60 parts per billion.

4 We've been here before. In 2007, during

5 the EPA Administration -- under the Bush

6 Administration, we strongly recommended 60 parts per

7 billion when that ozone standard was up for

8 revision. As a matter of fact, we published an

9 editorial, catchly called, "Ozone, a Malady for All

10 Ages" -- I'll leave a copy of this editorial -- and

11 its walk through the health effects at both young

12 ages and older ages for those exposed to ozone, and

13 the conclusion of this editorial was that a more

14 protective standard of 60 parts per billion needs to

15 be established.

16 Fast forward to 2010, during the Obama

17 Administration first term, the ozone standard was up

18 again for review. The American Thoracic Society

19 again recommended a stronger, more protective

20 standard of 60 parts per billion. And again, we

21 published another editorial, this one called "A

22 Second Chance," setting a more protective ozone
54

1 standard.

2 Again, we went through and summarized all

3 the available evidence and the new evidence that

4 happened since the earlier review of the ozone

5 standard and found that not only were we more

6 confident in our recommendation of the 60 part per

7 billion standard, that there was more evidence and

8 gave us more specificity and more certainty that

9 there were adverse health effects at the existing

10 standard and that a more protective standard of 60

11 parts per billion need to be established.

12 We were very disappointed that EPA chose

13 not to move forward with a more protective standard

14 at that point. So here we are. Third time's a

15 charm hopefully, and again, the American Thoracic

16 Society is recommending a more protective standard.

17 And again, we have published an editorial. This one

18 is in press and will appear in the February issue of

19 the "American Journal of Respiratory and Critical

20 Care Medicine." I'll share a copy of this with you.

21 This one's called "Scientific Evidence Supports

22 Stronger Limits on Ozone."
55

1 So over the last almost 10 years, what has

2 changed? In some ways, not very much, and in some

3 ways a lot. What has not changed is that our

4 recommendation of 60 parts per billion has not

5 changed. What has changed is that there is a

6 greater availability of evidence that can articulate

7 both the health effects and the pathways of those

8 health effects of exposure to ozone.

9 I'm going to go a little off-script here.

10 We've had a number of speakers who have mentioned

11 costs, but they seem to be mentioning costs in the

12 absence of health effects. A Berman article of 2012

13 has estimated that if the EPA were to lower the

14 standard to 60 parts per billion there would be

15 somewhere between 5,000 and 7,990 deaths prevented

16 each year from a more protective standard. Those

17 saved lives save costs. Also saved are asthma

18 attacks, emergency room visits, hospitalizations,

19 missed school days, absenteeism. All of these are

20 costs that we are currently paying under the

21 existing standard and are benefits that we can reap,

22 economic and health benefits that we can reap with a
56

1 protective standard.

2 So let me conclude and say that the

3 evidence is strong and conclusive, consistent.

4 There are literally hundreds of studies that

5 demonstrate the health effects of ozone exposure at

6 levels below the existing standard. We believe that

7 the available evidence conclusively supports a

8 standard of 60 parts per billion and encourage the

9 EPA to act accordingly. Third time's a charm. Hope

10 you guys move forward this time. Thank you.

11 MR. POWERS: Thank you very much, to both

12 of you. The next --

13 MS. WILLIAMS: I'm just going to see what

14 --

15 MR. POWERS: All right. Yeah, it seemed a

16 little quiet there. Brief moment for technical

17 adjustments.

18 The next panel is Theodore Fuller and

19 Kevin Stewart.

20 (Pause)

21 DR. FULLER: Good morning. I am honored

22 to be with you, EPA, this morning. My name is Dr.
57

1 Theodore Fuller. I am a child psychologist and a

2 member of the Sierra Club for 11 years. And I'm

3 here today to give my professional testimony and a

4 personal testimony in terms of how smog has impacted

5 upon my life, as well -- as well as on the life of

6 the children that I see in my practice.

7 I -- to begin, many of the children that I

8 see come with many kinds of asthma-related

9 respiratory illnesses, many of them hereditary, but

10 many are also due to environmental conditions that

11 they live in. So consequently, they come with these

12 illnesses and it impacts in many ways upon their

13 development. And I'm just going to speak very

14 briefly in terms of what I see in terms of how these

15 illnesses impact the psychological development of

16 our children.

17 Many people have already spoken about some

18 of the economic, but I am here today looking at

19 basically the psychological impact of these

20 illnesses. As I said before, the smog and pollution

21 in our environment really complicates these

22 illnesses or even starts these illnesses in our
58

1 children. And I work primarily with children of

2 color and about 85 percent -- and many of them have

3 Medicaid so they are coming from poor families,

4 which also complicates the picture because prior to

5 the Affordable Care Act, they did not have the

6 appropriate insurance to see their doctors, and many

7 of them were victims of even racism in medical

8 services.

9 For example, they would go to the doctor

10 and the doctor would assume that because they're

11 black and poor that they can't afford certain kinds

12 of treatment that were available to the rich or

13 wealthy. So that was another handicap that many of

14 my patients and clients have experienced with the

15 medical system, which even complicates and worsens

16 their development from getting better because of

17 smog.

18 Now, how has it impacted my life? I was

19 thinking as I prepared this report that my whole

20 life has been one smog after another. I grew up in

21 the deep south, in Birmingham, Alabama, which was in

22 the late forties and the early fifties, throughout
59

1 the fifties, and as you know, Birmingham was the

2 Pittsburgh of the South, and at that time, we lived

3 in many, many houses, and I can't remember at any

4 point where we did not live across the street from a

5 factory.

6 For years we lived across the street from

7 a syrup factory, and then we lived across the street

8 from a coal and iron factory. And I remember it

9 bellowing clouds in my neighborhood from the smoke

10 from these factories, even to the extent that you

11 could look out on the cars and see the particles of

12 steel and other pollutants on the cars.

13 And as a child, I never asked myself

14 what's wrong with this picture, because as a child,

15 you're sort of ignorance is bliss kind of thing.

16 But as I grew older, the picture began -- the puzzle

17 began to fit together for me in terms of how I feel

18 about clean air because I was exposed all of my life

19 to unhealthy air, and I want -- since I work with

20 children, I want to make sure that their lives are

21 not complicated.

22 Fortunately, my life wasn't complicated.
60

1 I didn't develop asthma or any other respiratory

2 illnesses. My sister did, but she was able to

3 survive and she's healthy now because of family

4 support, although I do have a history of my

5 neighbors -- many of my neighbors, including my mom,

6 who passed away related to cancer-related illnesses

7 because of the environment.

8 So I come today with that background. But

9 I want to mention how it has impacted me in my

10 profession, because I bring my experience as a

11 person in that environment to my practice and

12 understand the sensitivities that these people are

13 going through and the experience they're going

14 through because of the asthma and their exposure to

15 the smog, because I was there.

16 I see it -- I work with children from 3 to

17 19, and the children that I see from 3 to middle

18 school really bring a whole set of different

19 symptoms related to asthma and respiratory illnesses

20 due sometimes to heredity, but many times due to

21 environment. Regardless of which one, if they're in

22 an environment that is very poor, they're going to
61

1 get sick.

2 For many of the young children, they come

3 with a lot of school absences related to their

4 illnesses, and they find themselves in a vicious

5 cycle because what they say to me is well, I've been

6 absent so many days, what the heck; I'll just breeze

7 on out and I won't worry about it because I'll never

8 catch up. And they get themselves in a continual

9 cycle of school failures because of their illnesses.

10 And they can't really get a lot of home-based

11 schooling because they're usually so sick that they

12 really can't take advantage of that.

13 So that's one of the symptoms that I see

14 in the younger group, as well as symptoms of poor

15 body image, as well as low self-esteem and

16 depression. Many of them are because they develop a

17 sick body image. They really don't see themselves

18 as healthy like their peers, and because of that,

19 they frequently feel well, I'm not as good as them;

20 something is wrong with me. And because of that,

21 they develop low self-esteem and eventually they

22 develop depression related to that.
62

1 I also see this in the children that I

2 work with who have Asperger's Disorder, as well as

3 children who have obesity. These are some of the

4 same symptoms they manifest, but in those

5 situations, of course, the biological risks are very

6 different.

7 MR. POWERS: Dr. Fuller, I'm going to have

8 to ask you to try to consolidate here. You're a

9 little over time.

10 DR. FULLER: I'm sorry. Okay. For the

11 older children, the older children come with similar

12 kinds of concerns, but their needs, developmental

13 needs are different. Frequently, they are in a need

14 for identity development, and when they don't have

15 that identity development as important in terms of

16 how they see themselves in relationship to their

17 peers, they feel like outcasts because of this,

18 because again, they are sick because of their asthma

19 and develop the same patterns, the low-esteem and

20 the low body image because of that.

21 What's different with the older group is

22 many times they -- they will develop social
63

1 problems. For example, they are victim to getting

2 into negative gangs, they are victims to bullying,

3 they may become involved in self-destructive

4 behaviors, drug experimentation and other behaviors

5 that are not good for them.

6 So I am here today to ask you to close the

7 gap for clean air for our children so that their

8 children can also have healthier lives.

9 MR. POWERS: Thank you very much. Mr.

10 Stewart.

11 MR. STEWART: Good morning. Thank you for

12 your work. I am Kevin Stewart -- S-t-e-w-a-r-t. I

13 serve as director of environmental health for the

14 American Lung Association of the Mid-Atlantic. I

15 represent not only some five million people in our

16 service area who suffer from chronic lung disease,

17 but also the millions more who desire to breathe

18 clean air and still protect their good health.

19 A truly immense body of evidence

20 demonstrates that ambient ozone pollution

21 significantly harms people's health and that it does

22 so at levels commonly found in the United States.
64

1 Simply put, ozone smog worsens and causes disease

2 and even death for real people.

3 Although we acknowledge the Environmental

4 Protection Agency for continuing to recognize that

5 the current standard level of 75 parts per billion

6 is inadequate to protect public health, we

7 nevertheless must state, despite the facts that both

8 EPA staff experts and CASAC concluded that

9 scientific evidence supports a standard within a

10 range of 60 to 70 parts per billion and that the

11 long-standing position of distinguished air

12 pollution researchers and physicians is one of

13 agreement, we are disappointed that EPA's newest

14 proposal now fails to encompass the strongest

15 recommendation of all of those advisors.

16 More than seven years ago, as can be found

17 in their testimony before you at that time, the

18 American Lung Association, the American Thoracic

19 Society, and many other organizations, concluded

20 that only CASAC's strongest recommendation of 60

21 parts per billion for the ozone standard was

22 sufficient to provide the margin of safety the law
65

1 demands.

2 With respect to the scientific evidence

3 that lower ozone concentrations in contrast to EPA's

4 recent statement that this uncertainty reduces

5 confidence that ozone standard levels below 65 parts

6 per billion will result in additional health

7 improvements, we must point out that the agency is

8 also on record stating the requirement that primary

9 standards include an adequate margin of safety was

10 intended to address uncertainties. It was also

11 intended to provide a reasonable degree of

12 protection against hazards that research has not yet

13 identified.

14 Therefore, given that over the past

15 decades many studies have been done showing

16 persistent adverse effects due to ozone exposure in

17 even the 40 to 60 parts per billion range, we again

18 find, as we did in 2007, that the 60 parts per

19 billion level is necessary to secure the

20 statutorily-mandated margin of safety for the health

21 of the public. Of the 558 counties EPA finds would

22 violate a 65 part per billion standard based on the
66

1 2011 to '13 concentrations, 87 lie within our region

2 and are home to 28 million people, about 72 percent

3 of our service area's population.

4 While only an additional 14 of our area's

5 counties -- where another million people reside --

6 would violate a 60 part per billion standard, we

7 must stress two things: Those tallies are based on

8 data only from counties that host monitors, and

9 there are reasons to suspect that some unmonitored

10 counties would violate a 60 part per billion

11 standard as well if they had monitors but are not

12 counted.

13 By 2025, when EPA anticipates that only

14 eight counties in our service territory with over

15 4.5 million people would still violate a 65 part per

16 billion ozone standard, we remain concerned that 34

17 additional counties, home to some 13 million more, a

18 third of our population, would continue at that time

19 to violate a 60 part per billion standard.

20 In our service territory comprising six

21 states and the District of Columbia, according to

22 our 2014 State of the Air Report, 84 percent of our
67

1 population lives in a city, county or metro area

2 earning a failing grade for ozone air pollution.

3 This means the populations at risk in our service

4 area, and known to be living with elevated ozone

5 levels, include at least the following: 13 million

6 infants, children, teens under 18, and seniors over

7 64; 3 million with asthma, 1.5 million with COPD,

8 and 2 million with heart disease.

9 And therefore, the American Lung

10 Association of the Mid-Atlantic urges EPA to adopt

11 as the primary standard the strongest value

12 recommended for consideration by its own expert

13 staff and by its own independent advisory panel and

14 set the standard for the daily maximum eight-hour

15 average ozone concentration at 60 parts per billion.

16 Thank you.

17 MR. POWERS: Thank you very much. The

18 next two speakers are Jim Dougherty and Nancy

19 Kruger. Hi Nancy, how are you? Thank you. And we

20 have Jim Dougherty?

21 SPEAKER: They're getting him.

22 MR. POWERS: Okay. He won't lose a spot,
68

1 I promise. Nancy, why don't you proceed.

2 MS. KRUGER: Okay. Thank you. Good

3 morning. I'm Nancy Kruger -- K-r-u-g-e-r -- deputy

4 director of NACAA, the National Association of Clean

5 Air Agencies, the national non-partisan, non-profit

6 association of air pollution control agencies in 41

7 states, the District of Columbia, four territories

8 and 116 metropolitan areas.

9 Thank you for this opportunity to testify

10 on EPA's proposed National Ambient Air Quality

11 Standards for Ozone. NACAA welcomes this proposal

12 to revise the current ozone acts which were

13 established in 2008. In particular, NACAA supports

14 EPA's use of scientific evidence to establish

15 primary ozone NAAQS that protects public health

16 based on the agency's assessment that the current

17 standard is not adequate to do so.

18 The serious threats to public health from

19 exposure to ozone are well documented. For example,

20 in the integrated science assessment for this NAAQS

21 review, EPA concluded, among other things, that

22 ozone pollution causes respiratory harm, is likely
69

1 to cause premature death and adverse cardiovascular

2 impacts and may cause damage to the central nervous

3 system and reproductive and developmental effects.

4 EPA's independent science advisors, who

5 comprised the Clean Air Scientific Advisory

6 Committee, also believe the primary NAAQS must be

7 more protective of public health. As the committee

8 stated in its June 2014 letter to EPA on that

9 agency's second draft policy assessment, CASAC finds

10 scientific justification that current evidence and

11 the results of exposure and risk assessment call

12 into question the adequacy of the current standard.

13 Furthermore, there is clear scientific support for

14 the need to revise the standard. CASAC supports the

15 scientific rationale presented in the second draft

16 PA on these points. CASAC also went on to say that

17 it further concludes that there is adequate

18 scientific evidence to recommend a range of levels

19 for revised primary ozone standard from 70 ppb to 60

20 ppb.

21 NACAA, therefore, supports EPA's proposed

22 revised primary NAAQS within the range of 65 to 70
70

1 parts per billion, which is at the upper end of the

2 science-based range recommended by CASAC. With

3 respect to the secondary ozone NAAQS, NACAA is

4 continuing to review EPA's proposal, as well as

5 CASAC's recommendations, and will provide our

6 comments in writing before the deadline.

7 On the issue of the Air Quality Index,

8 NACAA supports EPA's proposal to revise the AQI at

9 the same time it revises -- finalizes the revised

10 ozone NAAQS. The AQI is a risk communication tool

11 developed by EPA to keep the general public informed

12 about its local air quality and to help make

13 informed decisions about exposure to air pollutes.

14 The effectiveness of the AQI as a public

15 health tool will be undermined if EPA undertakes

16 regulatory changes to the ozone NAAQS without

17 simultaneously revising the AQI. Therefore, we are

18 pleased that EPA has proposed to move forward with

19 revisions to the NAAQS and the AQI at the same time.

20 Finally, while NACAA firmly believes that

21 EPA must maintain a strong firewall between standard

22 setting issues and implementation issues, we do
71

1 acknowledge that whatever decisions EPA makes on the

2 primary and secondary ozone NAAQS will have a

3 profound impact on the work of state and local air

4 pollution control agencies. EPA must also recognize

5 this and take timely action on several fronts.

6 First, EPA should commit to and follow

7 through on proposing the implementation rule to

8 revise the ozone standards -- or for the revised

9 ozone standards at the same time it issues the

10 revised standards and issuing the final

11 implementation rule within one year of filing its

12 proposal. It's imperative that development of the

13 implementation rule and any related guidance be done

14 in close collaboration with state and local air

15 agencies.

16 EPA should also work in close partnership

17 with state and local air agencies to increase

18 efficiencies in the planning process. Second, EPA

19 should take timely action to adopt or further

20 strengthen federal measures to control a range of

21 mission sources. It's extremely important that

22 these measures be adopted and implemented in time
72

1 for the associated emission reductions to contribute

2 to attainment by the specific deadlines.

3 Further, EPA should ensure that states are

4 able to take credit for federal measures that

5 achieve real emission reductions. Finally, in order

6 to fulfill the responsibilities to attain more

7 protective ozone standards by the prescribed

8 deadlines, state and local air agencies will need

9 more resources than they currently have. This is

10 especially true since many areas of the country will

11 face non-attainment status for the first time or

12 require additional training and resources to develop

13 and implement state plans.

14 EPA must assist states and localities in

15 this regard and request additional adequate federal

16 funding to enable them to successfully fulfill their

17 statutory responsibilities and their obligation to

18 provide their citizens with clean, healthful air as

19 expeditiously as practicable.

20 Thank you for this opportunity, and we

21 look forward to working with this EPA to ensure this

22 rule is promulgated in final form by October 1st.
73

1 MR. POWERS: Thank you very much.

2 MR. DOUGHERTY: Thanks.

3 MR. POWERS: Jim Dougherty. Sorry to call

4 you when --

5 MR. DOUGHERTY: Sorry for not being here.

6 You're running early, I guess you know.

7 Jim Dougherty is my name --

8 D-o-u-g-h-e-r-t-y. I'm a resident of Washington and

9 I'm a member of the board of the local chapter of

10 the Sierra Club, the D.C. chapter. I'm also a

11 member of the National Board of Directors.

12 Today you'll hear a lot of testimony about

13 policy, legal and technical issues. I'd like to

14 offer a couple personal perspectives on the proposed

15 rule. The first is that of someone who's been a

16 practicing environmental lawyer for almost 40 years,

17 and here in Washington, and during the course of my

18 career, I served more than one stint here at EPA

19 headquarters.

20 I worked in air enforcement in the

21 seventies. I worked in RIC enforcement in the

22 eighties. In the nineties, I was a branch chief
74

1 actually in the Circle Program. And generally, when

2 I wasn't working for EPA, I was suing it on behalf

3 of the Sierra Club or someone else, so I got to see

4 this from both perspectives.

5 And if you look at the way EPA has

6 implemented its six major statutes that it

7 implements, starting with the Air Act in '70 and

8 Circle in 1980, there's one compelling observation,

9 which is that every implementation step has

10 basically been a baby step or a half measure. We've

11 gone about it just bit by bit in a very incremental

12 way, which I contend is not consistent with the

13 mandate of the statute. I mean, the Clean Air Act

14 says -- sets standards that are protective of public

15 health.

16 But if you look at the evolution of the

17 NAAQS over 45 years, they set one standard, then

18 they lower it, then they lower it. They go -- and

19 the same has been true under the other statutes. In

20 the Water Act, there are technology-based standards,

21 they ratcheted them down. They found loopholes and

22 closed them, and Congress, of course, would come
75

1 back in the '77 amendments, '91 amendments. But

2 that's the way it goes. We keep taking these baby

3 steps, and what that means is that ultimately,

4 American health is not being protected.

5 All these -- all these steps indicate that

6 what we did before wasn't sufficient, and so we need

7 to do more. So we never actually achieved the goal.

8 I suggest a time to break the mold. Why don't we

9 set a standard that's going to do it. We've

10 submitted evidence during your rule-making process

11 to establish that 60 parts per billion is the right

12 level. I say -- I say go for that.

13 The precautionary principle would indicate

14 that we get ahead of the problem. Since we don't

15 fully understand the risk -- and there are a lot of

16 unknowns there -- let's get ahead of it. You won't

17 regret it. There's never been a time when we set a

18 standard and we went back later and said, oh, you

19 know, that was really too strong. We need -- we

20 need to weaken that. We've never closed a loophole

21 and then said, oh, you know, we really should

22 reestablish that loophole, you know. I mean, the
76

1 lessons have been compelling, so let's be bold this

2 time.

3 The other personal perspective I want to

4 share is that I live in Southwest Washington right

5 near the old waterside mall, and I live four blocks

6 away from a coal-fired power plant, and there aren't

7 many people in this country who can say they live

8 four blocks away from a coal-fired power plant.

9 This is a major.

10 The funny thing about the Capitol Power

11 Plant is that it has short stacks. It burns coal

12 all winter, and it has short stacks. So as you

13 know, most coal-fired power plants have tall stacks,

14 300, 600, 800 feet. They've got 80-foot stacks over

15 there. And while most of the emissions are

16 invisible, that's not the case during the winter,

17 especially on cold nights. A lot of the emissions

18 -- there's a lot of water vapor and so you can see

19 the trails. And I can't tell you how many times

20 I've been out at night walking my dog and I see the

21 emissions come out of those stacks and they just

22 curl to the ground just because of the wind or I
77

1 don't know what. It doesn't go up; it comes down.

2 And these are in neighborhoods. There's

3 an elementary school two blocks from that power

4 plant, downwind. You know, the prevailing winds go

5 to the northeast. And so you're talking about real

6 human impacts here and I think that underscores the

7 importance of setting strong standards for power

8 plants.

9 This is not a technical debate. This is

10 about -- and this is not about me. I'm healthy. I

11 can probably hack it. It's about the old people who

12 live there. It's about the kids who are attending

13 that elementary school. It's about people with

14 asthma and other -- other diseases. They're the

15 ones whose lives are at stake. So we can't lose

16 sight.

17 I mean, you're hearing from industry

18 lobbyists, environmentalists, but we have to

19 remember it's about the people out there and the

20 children. So I urge you to be bold in this

21 rule-making. That concludes my remarks. Thank you.

22 MR. POWERS: Thank you very much. Our
78

1 next pair is Mary Anne Hitt and Albert Donnay --

2 Donnay. Great. Thank you very much.

3 MS. HITT: Hello. My name is Mary Anne

4 Hitt, and on behalf of the Sierra Club and our 2.4

5 million members and supporters, I want to thank EPA

6 for proposing to strengthen the Ambient Air Quality

7 Standard for Ozone, otherwise known as smog, and for

8 providing us with this opportunity to comment.

9 The Sierra Club is calling on EPA, along

10 with many of the others here today, to finalize the

11 standard of 60 parts per billion because the medical

12 science is clear that is the level that's needed to

13 protect human health. I am the director of the

14 Sierra Club's Beyond Coal Campaign, and I'm also the

15 mom of a four-year-old. And as a mom, I count on

16 accurate labels to keep my family safe, whether it's

17 the expiration date on a milk carton or the SPF on

18 my sunscreen.

19 The same holds true for EPA's code red and

20 orange air alerts, which warn vulnerable people to

21 stay indoors when smog levels become dangerous.

22 They are considered the gold standard on air quality
79

1 by news organizations, school boards and other

2 community organizations that are tasked with

3 informing people about the safety of the air

4 outside.

5 Unfortunately, EPA's current code red and

6 orange air pollution alerts are not giving families

7 accurate information about whether or not our air is

8 safe to breathe. That's because those alerts are

9 based on outdated medical science. You don't have

10 to take my word for that. Obviously, you've heard

11 the American Lung Association and the American

12 Thoracic Society, and lots of others here today

13 testified to the same thing.

14 As it turns out, it takes a lot less smog

15 to threaten your health than scientists previously

16 understood. That means that updating our smog

17 standards is a matter of life and death, especially

18 for our kids. EPA's own medical science advisors

19 are clear -- ozone levels of 60 parts per billion

20 are dangerous and can trigger life-threatening

21 health problems like asthma attacks, but our current

22 ozone standard is set much higher at 75 parts per
80

1 billion, so even when air alerts give parents the

2 all-clear, kids could still be breathing in

3 dangerous levels of pollution.

4 By relying on alerts that are tied to the

5 old -- or I should say current 75 parts per billion

6 standard, parents and teachers may be sending

7 asthmatic kids outside to play, trusting that the

8 air is safe, only to have to rush them to the

9 emergency room thanks to dangerous ozone levels that

10 aren't picked up by EPA's current alerts. It's time

11 to update our ozone standard and protect our

12 families.

13 As you know, asthma is the number one

14 health problem that causes American children to miss

15 school, and it costs taxpayers tens of billions of

16 dollars each year in missed work and healthcare

17 costs. In response to EPA's proposal to update the

18 standard, polluters are once again trotting out the

19 same tired old arguments that this proposal will be

20 too costly, but the reality is, regular Americans

21 are the ones paying the cost of smog today through

22 our hospital bills, expensive medications, health
81

1 insurance premiums, and the lost opportunities that

2 come with illness.

3 A 60 parts per billion standard would

4 reflect the most accurate medical science on lung

5 safety. It would empower communities to make sound

6 decisions about the safety of outdoor events like

7 sports games, carnivals, fairs, that can expose us

8 all to dangerous pollution. Parents and caretakers

9 of the elderly will especially benefit since it will

10 allow them to better protect their vulnerable loved

11 ones.

12 We will all breathe easier. I encourage

13 you to set an ozone standard of 60 parts per

14 billion. The American people shouldn't have to wait

15 any longer for action on cleaning up the smog.

16 Thank you.

17 MR. POWERS: Thank you.

18 MR. DONNAY: My name is Albert Donnay.

19 I'm a consulting toxicologist and environmental

20 health engineer. I am here representing myself

21 today. No one has paid me for my testimony.

22 I want to raise three issues that come to
82

1 the credibility of the science that is at issue. I

2 want to preface by reminding my environmental

3 advocacy colleagues that I totally understand why

4 they would present to EPA only the evidence that

5 supports their position to lower the standard, and I

6 understand why industry would present just the other

7 side. But I think it's EPA's responsibility -- it

8 claims it's its goal to perform a complete weight of

9 the evidence, assessment of all the literature, and

10 to its credit, its HERO Database now allows us to

11 see which literature was considered and which was

12 cited, but not yet a tab for which was rejected.

13 But simply doing the subtraction, we see that Hero

14 considered 1,954 papers published on ozone from 2007

15 through 2012. It cited 878, so approximately 50

16 percent. That looks reasonable, because it only

17 cited and reviewed 10 percent of the CO literature a

18 few years ago. But in this same period, PubMed

19 lists over 4,200 papers on ozone. That leaves over

20 2,250 that were not even considered in this review,

21 or 54 percent of the total.

22 I put to you that the CASAC and EPA staff
83

1 and everybody else in this room cannot make an

2 informed judgment as to the weight of the evidence

3 on the ozone literature if we only have a review of

4 half of it, and we don't know why EPA threw out the

5 other half, if it even thought about it.

6 The evidence is not conclusive. It's

7 equivocal. And that brings me to my second point --

8 EPA's literature review in -- includes only four

9 epidemiology studies that reported protective

10 effects from increasing levels of ozone. By this I

11 mean the well-observed observation on every

12 continent and every country that's looked. But

13 ozone is highest in the summer when asthma rates of

14 exacerbation are lowest, and when asthma is highest

15 in the winter, ozone is lowest.

16 There are over 100 such studies in the

17 literature that have found protective effects for

18 ozone while other pollutants in the multi-pollutant

19 model showed adverse effects. The latter has even

20 been found in the famous Harvard Six Cities Study,

21 and my testimony includes a graph from that study

22 showing they found no dose response effect in the
84

1 range of 20 to 28 ppb across their cities and the

2 cities with the highest levels of ozone had the

3 lowest mortality.

4 So EPA needs to consider that the possible

5 explanation is that ozone may in fact be protective

6 for some conditions. Another possibility is that

7 humans have evolved mechanisms to protect us from

8 high exposure but not from low exposure.

9 Finally, I want to address the issue of

10 the size of the change in the standard that's now

11 being considered. From 75 to 60 is at most a 20

12 percent increase. At the small end, it might be a

13 10 percent decrease. You're dancing on the head of

14 a pin. It's physiologically irrelevant because the

15 total absorbed dose is repeatedly stated throughout

16 the ISA and correctly, the total absorbed dose is

17 the product of the concentration in air, the time to

18 which you're exposed, and one other variable that

19 EPA cannot regulate, which is your minute

20 ventilation, how much you breathe per minute.

21 EPA recognizes that this can increase over

22 500 percent during heavy work and exercise, and
85

1 compared to this natural variation, EPA's reduction

2 will have no discernable effect even if it's

3 achieved. It's like trying to reduce the risk of

4 drinking beer by lowering the allowable

5 concentration of alcohol from 7.5 to 6.5. This will

6 not protect binge drinkers, just as the proposed

7 change in the ozone standard will not protect those

8 who exercise heavily.

9 What matters to human health is not just

10 the allowable concentration, but how much air people

11 inhale per hour. And again, I stress EPA cannot

12 regulate this. To protect athletes, EPA needs to

13 lower the standard by an order of magnitude to 0.6

14 to 0.7. This is akin to non-alcoholic beer, which

15 can be consumed in any quantity without risk of

16 getting drunk. And similarly, athletes need to know

17 that they can breathe as much air as they like

18 without adverse effects of ozone. If they really

19 occur at 60 or 70, the standard needs to be ten-fold

20 lower to protect those who are breathing heavily.

21 Thank you. I'll leave extra copies

22 outside for those who want to look at the pretty
86

1 pictures.

2 MR. POWERS: Thank you very much. Terra

3 Pascarosa and Tia Shaderzay (phonetic) -- Shaderzey.

4 Sorry if I mispronounce the name.

5 MS. PASCAROSA: You did a great job.

6 MR. POWERS: Thank you. You can have a

7 panel of one. That does not double your time. See

8 if we can find the other.

9 MS. PASCAROSA: No problem.

10 MR. POWERS: Go ahead.

11 MS. PASCAROSA: Go ahead?

12 MR. POWERS: Sure.

13 MS. PASCAROSA: All right. Good morning,

14 and thank you for allowing us to be here to testify

15 this morning. I am Terra Pascarosa, a mother of my

16 two-year-old son, Brady, a native of Hampton Roads,

17 Virginia, a scientist.

18 MR. POWERS: I'm sorry. Could you spell

19 your name just for the court reporter?

20 MS. PASCAROSA: Sure. So it's Terra --

21 T-e-r-r-a -- and the last name is Pascarosa --

22 P-a-s-c-a-r-o-s-a.
87

1 MR. POWERS: Thank you.

2 MS. PASCAROSA: In addition, I'm a

3 scientist, a concerned citizen, an avid outdoor

4 enthusiast, and a regional field manager with Moms

5 Clean Air Force. Moms Clean Air Force is a

6 community of over 400,000 parents, with over 9,000

7 of those members residing in Virginia, fighting for

8 clean air.

9 I am very fortunate and thankful to be

10 able to speak to you here today about the National

11 Ambient Air Quality Standards for Ozone. I

12 respectfully urge you to set the smog standard at 60

13 parts per billion instead of the suggested 65 to 70

14 parts per billion that you proposed in November.

15 The scientific record demonstrates that this level

16 would provide the strongest public health

17 protections for Americans, and most importantly, for

18 our children.

19 I live in Virginia Beach, Virginia, and we

20 experience more and more high levels of smog every

21 year, every month, every day. The capital of

22 Virginia -- Richmond -- has the highest asthma rates
88

1 in the country. It is ranking number one in 2014,

2 as well as 2011 and 2012. These high rates of

3 asthma in my home state are unacceptable. We must

4 do everything we can to protect our communities from

5 high smog levels.

6 Smog pollution triggers hundreds of

7 thousands of episodes of asthma and other

8 respiratory ailments every year. It sends thousands

9 of children to emergency rooms and costs Americans

10 billions in healthcare costs, low -- lost

11 productivity and premature deaths. Nearly one and

12 every 10 school children in the United States has

13 asthma. Asthma is the number one health issue that

14 causes children to miss school.

15 Inhaling smog pollution is like getting a

16 sunburn on your lungs. I do not want my son, Brady,

17 to incur any such thing like sunburn on his precious

18 little lungs. That's not fair to Brady. It's not

19 fair to any child. I put sunblock on him every day

20 when we spend prolonged time outside. I cannot put

21 sunblock on his lungs. What I can do is I can check

22 the Air Quality Index, the AQI, on a regular basis
89

1 to ensure that my son is not going to be at risk for

2 simply playing at the beach or the playground on a

3 given day.

4 We miss deceivingly beautiful days

5 outside, at the beach, and just in general, because

6 of high ozone level days. The problem is that the

7 AQI represents the health determination implicit in

8 the EPA standard, so if the EPA standard is too lax,

9 that, in part, the AQI isn't helping parents or

10 children. We rely on this measure to help protect

11 our babies, our children, and ourselves.

12 Smog levels below 65 parts per billion can

13 harm some of the most vulnerable among us,

14 potentially people like myself and my child. Our

15 national standard needs to reflect higher smog

16 standards at 60 parts per billion. Parents,

17 communities, and all Americans have a right to know

18 the truth, what really needs to protect us.

19 Again, I respectfully urge you to set the

20 smog standard at 60 parts per billion instead of the

21 suggested 65 to 70 parts per billion. We must set a

22 standard that protects our children's lungs. Thank
90

1 you again for the opportunity to testify.

2 MR. POWERS: Thank you.

3 MS. PASCAROSA: Thank you.

4 MR. POWERS: Is Ms. Shaderzay here? Okay.

5 We'll put her on hold for the moment. Next panel is

6 Charles Wesley and Mariana LaFianza. Thank you.

7 Mr. Wesley? Okay. Please proceed.

8 MS. LAFIANZA: Good morning. My name is

9 Mariana LaFianza. Do you want me to spell that for

10 you? M-a-r-i-a-n-a L-a-F-i-a-n-z-a. I am a student

11 at GW and I want to share my personal experience

12 with you today.

13 I live in the Greater Los Angeles area, an

14 area of the country that has topped the American

15 Lung Association's list of most polluted cities by

16 ozone. Exposure to smog is linked to chronic

17 asthma. People with pre-existing conditions are at

18 an increased rate -- risk to pollutants because they

19 cannot handle the reduction in lung function or the

20 increase in respiratory symptoms.

21 I saw the effects of ozone pollution every

22 day growing up. My little brother, Joshua, suffered
91

1 from severe asthma as a child. I remember sitting

2 on the bathroom floor with him as he struggled for

3 breath while looking at me with panicked eyes asking

4 for help that I could not give him. There were many

5 days that he was forced to stay indoors instead of

6 playing outside with his friends at recess or going

7 to baseball practice to avoid triggering an attack.

8 There were other days that he did not make it to

9 school at all.

10 Asthma is the number one health --

11 health-related reason an American child misses

12 school. Kids should not be kept from their

13 education, exercise or being with their friends by

14 such a preventable cause as ozone emissions.

15 I urge the EPA to adopt a standard of 60

16 parts per billion. This standard could greatly

17 contribute to the reduction of up to 150,000 asthma

18 attacks. That's 150,000 times that a child could

19 play outside, 150,000 potential hospital visits

20 avoided, and 150,000 times a child is not afraid

21 because he or she can't breathe.

22 Of course, children with asthma are not
92

1 the only ones impacted by inhaling ozone. Such air

2 pollution is unhealthy for everyone to breathe and

3 can lead to lasting harm in every individual. We

4 need to work to limit air pollution in order to

5 protect everyone's health. Adopting the standard of

6 60 parts per billion on ozone is an important step

7 in curbing emissions and protecting the health of

8 the general population. I hope that with these

9 standards in place, the childhoods of future kids

10 are not so heavily shaped by ozone and that people

11 will be able to look forward to a healthier future.

12 Thank you.

13 MR. POWERS: Thank you. Mr. Wesley? Did

14 we find Mr. Wesley? Okay. The next panel is Kathy

15 Robertson and Patrick McKinney.

16 MS. ROBERTSON: Thank you for the chance

17 to testify today regarding smog pollution. My name

18 is Kathleen Robertson and I currently reside in

19 Washington, D.C. Living in D.C., with hot summer

20 temperatures and heat island effect, smog pollution

21 is something we don't often realize is present. We

22 take clean air for granted until the effects of poor
93

1 air quality ripple through our health and wellbeing.

2 I am an avid hiker and walker, and I

3 appreciate being able to take deep, cleansing

4 breaths of clean air. I grew up in Newark, New

5 Jersey, where smog pollution also played a part in

6 the health and wellbeing of my family. My father

7 worked at a coal-fired power plant, one of many that

8 emit pollution of all varieties, including smog, and

9 now suffers from health-related issues.

10 My sister suffers from asthma, a problem

11 that not only effects her and her family, but her

12 employer, a public school system, and her students.

13 She misses work more often than usual due to her

14 asthma and asthma-related diseases. There is a

15 ripple effect to asthma that isn't necessarily

16 apparent in all the statistics. Her struggle to

17 breathe impacts her ability to live a more active

18 life, leading to other health issues.

19 It would seem in a country so vast and

20 beautiful as our own the simple act of breathing

21 shouldn't be an issue. The Clean Air Act is

22 critical to making sure that every breath we take is
94

1 safe. It would be in the best interest of Americans

2 if the ozone standard was lowered from 75 parts per

3 billion to 65 parts per billion as recommended, and

4 even better, as the Sierra Club recommends, to

5 reduce it to 60 parts per billion.

6 Smog pollution is disruptive to our

7 economy as more and more children are affected.

8 This in turn impacts parents and their work

9 schedules. When children are sick as a result of

10 asthma, their parents need to miss work or work less

11 productively while attending to their children's

12 needs. As children need more attention, their

13 parents suffer through stress. Asthma curtails

14 exercise, adding to the obesity crisis in this

15 country. Being able to breathe clean air is

16 essential for children to play outdoors safely, the

17 minimum we should expect in this country.

18 Dirty air impacts everyone, not just

19 children and their parents. Any person seeking to

20 enjoy the outdoors is affected. In a world that

21 needs more contact with nature, it's unfortunate

22 that in some areas nature is not its friend. Dirty
95

1 air makes hiking, walking or simply sitting outside

2 not merely unpleasant, but unhealthy. No one should

3 risk their health just by walking outside for

4 exercise or to run errands.

5 Dirty air impacts employees who work in

6 areas impacted by smog. These areas are generally

7 where businesses and the economy flourishes. We are

8 putting our economy at risk and perpetuating dirty

9 air that risks the health not just of employees but

10 of customers and consumers. How are folks expected

11 to get out in the community when the very air they

12 breathe is not clean? How fundamental is clean air?

13 Thank you for your time and consideration.

14 MR. POWERS: Thank you.

15 MR. MCKINNEY: Thanks for your time. I'm

16 from Silver Spring. My name --

17 MR. POWERS: Would you spell your name.

18 MR. MCKINNEY: Sorry. It's Patrick

19 McKinney.

20 MR. POWERS: Spell that last one just for

21 the court reporter.

22 MR. MCKINNEY: Okay. M-c-K-i-n-n-e-y.
96

1 And I'm here today -- this issue is important to me

2 because my cousin, Bennett McKinney, is the most

3 adorable kid you'll ever meet, and he turned three

4 last month and his asthma is preventing him from

5 being the active, fun cousin that I've come to know

6 him as.

7 So this month, Super Bennett, as we now

8 call him, was hospitalized for another six days. It

9 was his third hospital stay in the last six months,

10 and it left us all pretty shaken up. Bennett's dad,

11 Russ, is an Army veteran, someone that I've always

12 looked up to, and I used to tell my friends stories

13 when I was a kid about the exaggerated super human

14 strength and bravery that was in my bloodline.

15 But our last two visits to see Russ and

16 Bennett have been under these unfortunate

17 circumstances. I know how strong Russ is, but I can

18 tell he spends a lot of time these days fearing for

19 the absolute worse, so he's not himself. It's

20 obvious that he would do absolutely anything to give

21 Bennett some relief, but it's tough to know exactly

22 what that would be.
97

1 So having looked into this, we're struck

2 by how much can be done to alleviate asthma

3 symptoms. These unacceptable levels of smog

4 particulates are not only causing suffering, but as

5 it turns out, we're spending more on healthcare to

6 treat the effected than it would cost to simply

7 improve the air quality with pollution controls.

8 I see by the EPA's own estimate, each

9 dollar invested in pollution control equipment can

10 save $7 in hospital bills. So while I understand

11 these are complex matters and regulating is never as

12 easy as it should be, I think we've absolutely got

13 to do the right thing here.

14 And obviously, we're deeply thankful we

15 live in a country where Bennett has access to

16 high-quality medical care that he needs, because for

17 him, it is the difference between life and death.

18 But we should be able to say that we live in a

19 country that does the only intelligent thing and the

20 right thing and keeps kids like Bennett out of the

21 hospital in the first place.

22 So thank you for your time.
98

1 MR. POWERS: Thank you very much.

2 MR. MCKINNEY: I also forgot to mention

3 I've got a picture of him here --

4 MR. POWERS: Nice.

5 MR. MCKINNEY: -- from this month. Do you

6 want it?

7 MR. POWERS: Thank you. Sure. You want

8 me to put it in the record?

9 MR. MCKINNEY: Sure.

10 MS. WILLIAMS: Put it in.

11 MR. MCKINNEY: Thanks. Appreciate it.

12 MR. POWERS: Thank you. Next panel is Jim

13 Schulman and Brian Willis.

14 MS. WILLIAMS: Just tell us who you are

15 before you start.

16 MR. POWERS: Yeah. Right.

17 MR. SCHULMAN: Good morning, EPA leaders

18 and staff. My name is Jim Schulman, spelled

19 S-c-h-u-l-m-a-n. And actually, I have testimony for

20 you.

21 MR. POWERS: Great. Thank you.

22 MR. SCHULMAN: I am president of A
99

1 Thousand Friends of Virginia's Future. I am also an

2 active member of the D.C. Sierra Club and the

3 Chesapeake Sustainable Business Council, the CSBC.

4 In general, A Thousand Friends and CSBC are

5 supportive of EPA's ongoing efforts to more strictly

6 regulate gases that impact health and contribute to

7 climate change.

8 The Sierra Club would like to see the EPA

9 tighten those standards in keeping with current

10 medical and agricultural evidence. I speak now

11 regarding the ozone standards, not representing any

12 organization but as a citizen, mostly because I only

13 learned of this opportunity to testify regarding

14 smog standards before the CSBC Policy Committee and

15 the Thousand Friends Board of Directors were able to

16 meet.

17 Nevertheless, I feel it's important to

18 share with you my thinking on the matter. In the

19 summer of the year 2000, I was going door to door in

20 the near northeast neighborhood of Washington, D.C.,

21 just north of where I still live on Capitol Hill, in

22 the Capitol Hill neighborhood of Washington, D.C. I
100

1 was an elected advisory neighborhood commissioner

2 representing approximately 2,000 people in what was

3 then the ANC 6A.

4 I had become aware of the problem of the

5 improper citing and regulation of trash transfer

6 stations, including a facility at the former Uline

7 Arena at 3rd and M Streets Northeast. I became

8 active with a civic group called CATTS -- Citizens

9 Against Trash Transfer Stations. We held meetings,

10 conducted a citizen summit, and worked with

11 attorneys at the Georgetown University Law School

12 Environmental Law Clinic to address this

13 environmental justice issue.

14 During that summer, I helped interview

15 dozens of families and individuals about their

16 experience living very near the trash transfer

17 station where garbage was dumped from packer trucks,

18 loaded on to long haul semi-trailers, headed for

19 landfills in southern Virginia.

20 I became aware of a deeper problem when

21 the smells of putrescible waste and heavy truck

22 traffic. There were many households with at least
101

1 one asthmatic child or senior with respiratory

2 problems so severe that they could not go outside in

3 the summer or even open their windows for fear of

4 bringing on the need for an emergency room visit.

5 I was heartbroken to meet children who had

6 to stay inside every day of their summer vacation to

7 protect their health, and some of these families did

8 not have the benefit of air conditioning or air

9 filters. I observed signs on people's porches in

10 large bold lettering informing visitors not to

11 smoke.

12 Now, I don't know the extent to which it

13 may have been soot particles or diesel exhaust or

14 ozone that brought with it this horrible health

15 sentence of remaining indoors for all of June, July

16 and August in Washington, D.C., but I do know that

17 these people reported not suffering anywhere near as

18 much the rest of the year, and from what I know, the

19 formation of ground level ozone, hot temperatures

20 and sunshine helped to cook it. So I can't help but

21 think it was a contributory factor to the health

22 issues being described by these folks.
102

1 The upshot of our efforts with the

2 District government was that we won some battles,

3 but we lost the war. After a two-year transition

4 period, we did get the trash transfer station at 3rd

5 and M Streets to shut down, but we were not

6 successful in changing the District of Columbia's

7 laws for citing or better regulating these

8 facilities. That's why I believe it is so important

9 for EPA to default the Ambient Air Quality Standards

10 towards greater public health.

11 There are still people in the District of

12 Columbia living too close to transfer stations, and

13 nationwide, there are too many people living in the

14 air sheds of national gas compressor stations, oil

15 refineries, coal and natural gas burn power plants

16 and all the other sorts of industrial facilities

17 that help make it harder for the young and old among

18 us to breathe.

19 I am, therefore, in favor of a strong

20 standard of 60 parts per billion. I believe that a

21 fossil fuel burning which contributes to the

22 formation of ground level ozone, including the
103

1 production and burning of natural gas, if that keeps

2 growing along with the efficiency with which it is

3 produced, the U.S. will fail to achieve the

4 objective of cleaning our air. We need to set an

5 air quality standard at a level that protects people

6 no matter their health condition, age or where they

7 live.

8 Thank you for this opportunity to share my

9 views.

10 MR. POWERS: Thank you. Mr. Willis.

11 MR. WILLIS: Full disclosure. I'm the

12 press secretary with the Sierra Club. Mary Anne

13 Hitt and the fellow people with all the high-level

14 clean air memorabilia on, they're my friends;

15 they're my colleagues.

16 I have a very interesting story to tell.

17 I'm a D.C. native, which is kind of rare these days.

18 I was born in 1985 -- heydey of Marion Barry -- in

19 Southeast D.C. Keep heading down Penn across Azusa,

20 a right on Branch and Hillcrest. My mother was a

21 nurse. My father is a retired Secret Service agent.

22 I was one of the lucky ones. I had both
104

1 parents that were very loving and worked very hard.

2 Me and my brother, first generation college. My --

3 I was put in Boy Scouts to keep me out of trouble,

4 because back then, Southeast was very real, very

5 real. And I had to read a lot of books. I had to

6 be in the Shenandoah Valley often. I had to be

7 outside of the city.

8 And my brother and I developed asthma. We

9 were put into all of these activities basically to

10 keep us out of trouble, keep us away from Good Hope

11 Road, keep us away from MLK Avenue, especially when

12 the street -- street lights came on. And it became

13 a very real issue during the school year, whenever

14 we went outside to play basketball, whenever we

15 would do community service projects after school,

16 again, to keep us out of trouble and on the straight

17 and narrow.

18 We always had to have inhalers, and

19 sometimes those simply weren't enough. My father,

20 who had to work around 12 to 16 hours overtime,

21 because there were freezes happening at the agency

22 at the time over at the Secret Service, couldn't
105

1 take time off, so my mother would have to take time

2 off, and that's basically taping -- taking help away

3 from people at Washington Hospital Center at the

4 time while she was a nurse. She had to take time

5 off of work.

6 I had to go to Children's Hospital, which

7 wasn't that far away from where she worked as well,

8 so it was going to one part of the city, then had to

9 go all the way back. And I had to have steroids

10 pumped into my lungs for 20, 30 minutes or so. Not

11 only was it scary when you're young, even as an

12 adolescent when you can't breathe. It's like a

13 basic function. I still think about it when I stole

14 -- stub my toe in the morning, you know, something

15 isn't right, is it bleeding? It hurts.

16 But when you're a kid and the world is

17 still full of fascination, but as well as anxiety

18 and it frequently takes your parents to calm that

19 anxiety, it really doesn't help that you don't know

20 when you go outside whether or not you're going to

21 start wheezing or not. It also doesn't help that

22 you have the peer pressure to go outside when you're
106

1 in middle school or you're in elementary school, to

2 go outside and have fun with your -- with your

3 friends.

4 The reason why I'm giving you a background

5 story, the reason why I'm -- you know, I'm giving

6 you a little bit of local perspective is because all

7 of the -- I don't want to say older folks, because

8 my grandma always taught me to say everybody's 27

9 until they tell you otherwise. But every single

10 time they talk about their children, every single

11 time they talk about the missed days of school, the

12 missed days of work, that was me, that was my

13 brother.

14 Since leaving school, we've done pretty

15 well for ourselves. I'm the press secretary of a

16 phenomenal organization. My brother's an accountant

17 with Treasury, has a wife. They have a condo out in

18 Annandale, et cetera, et cetera. But the good thing

19 about growing older is that your parents become a

20 lot more honest with you when you were -- things

21 that they didn't tell you when you were in high

22 school, things they didn't tell you when you were in
107

1 elementary school because you know that, you know,

2 kids bring things up and most of the time they don't

3 know what they're talking about.

4 So once I got a little bit older and

5 really started talking to my aunts and uncles, my

6 father -- I'm afraid my mother passed at around 16

7 or so -- the main thing that they always talk about

8 is the struggles of parenting and of being a good

9 parent, especially when we have both of them

10 working, both of them saving up for your college,

11 you have a mortgage, you have the cars, and stuff

12 like that.

13 I just want to say, this is one less thing

14 that they have to worry about, one less trip, one

15 less everything, and especially the difficulties

16 that my parents went through raising two boys in my

17 part of the city. Not -- sorry, that one less

18 thing, it's vitally, vitally important. That's

19 better of you on a job application, better

20 references, because, as you know, children are

21 sometimes seen as a burden, especially when people

22 are hiring. It's one less thing that a mom or a dad
108

1 has to worry about.

2 That's the reason why I decided to speak,

3 and Brenna really asked me to. So I want to -- this

4 is off the top of my head. I'm afraid I don't have

5 anything written. But I was the -- I'm the

6 incarnation of the person that he talked to door to

7 door when he said, yeah, my kid has asthma. Both of

8 my mother's and father -- both my mother and father,

9 both their boys, had asthma, and a 60 parts per

10 billion standard would go a very long way,

11 especially in the Mid-Atlantic region, which is the

12 tailpipe of the midwest with all of those factories

13 or the manufacturing. It would go a long way. And

14 thanks for going door to door.

15 MR. POWERS: Thank you very much. The

16 next pair is Leslie Fields and Joelle Novey. And

17 then after those two, we'll take a five-minute

18 break. This is a three-part panel.

19 MS. NOVEY: There's three of us.

20 MS. FIELDS: Good morning. Thank you so

21 much for this opportunity. I'm Leslie Fields. I'm

22 the environmental justice director for the Sierra
109

1 Club here in Washington, D.C., and I also serve on

2 the Board of the Children's Environmental Health

3 Network. We're also based in Washington, D.C.

4 And I'm very proud and pleased to follow

5 in my good colleague, Brian, on this issue. And I

6 want to thank you for this opportunity to comment on

7 the national quality standard for ground-level

8 ozone. I urge the EPA to choose the strongest

9 standard supported by scientific evidence.

10 I have lived and worked in affected

11 communities here in D.C., Texas, California and the

12 midwest and on the East Coast. And this is such a

13 critical issue. People's lives, and mine, as you

14 heard all morning and continue to hear today, are

15 affected by the standard, and we have to admit that

16 this is not the most stringent standard promulgated.

17 The Clean Air Act mandates that the

18 standard is set based solely on what -- what levels

19 protect the public health with an adequate margin of

20 safety. The science and what the standard protects

21 from though is clear. The case of ozone -- the

22 review panel found out the current NAAQS standard
110

1 for ozone is not protective of human health. As you

2 know, the panel determined that the concentrations

3 of ozone meeting the current standard still exists

4 in association between short-term ozone exposure and

5 expected respiratory effects, including respiratory

6 symptoms, hospital admissions, emergency department

7 visits, inflammation. Such ER visits, as you've

8 heard, result in missed school days and work days,

9 disrupting people's actual lives, the worry and the

10 stress and the financial costs of possibly losing

11 your job because you have to be with your kid in the

12 hospital.

13 There have been many, many, many studies

14 of when there are releases by plants -- by

15 pollution-causing plants and hospital visits and the

16 correlation between parents, a number of parents, a

17 number of children in hospital rooms and what

18 happened to those communities.

19 The panel's findings build on the

20 conclusion of the previous case of ozone review

21 panels which has been previously included in 2011

22 and 2013 -- 2014 as a strong scientific evidence for
111

1 a standard below 70 parts per billion with great

2 health benefits for a 60 parts per billion primary

3 ozone standard.

4 The EPA mandate with stronger standards

5 supported by scientific evidence is particularly

6 relevant for communities of color and urban

7 communities. Climate change is a threat multiplier

8 for these communities. According to a 2011 --

9 science report, climate change in your health,

10 rising temperatures, worsening ozone pollution, and

11 decided by Drs. Robert Fuller, Beverly Wright,

12 environmental justice treaties, the wrong complexion

13 for protection -- African Americans, Latinos -- are

14 almost three times more likely than whites to die

15 from asthma.

16 One in 72 percent of African Americans

17 live in counties that violate federal air pollution

18 standards, while only 58 percent of the white

19 population does. One of every four American

20 children live in areas that regularly exceed EPA

21 ozone standards, and half the pediatric population,

22 too many children, live in these areas. More than
112

1 27 million kids under the age of 13 live in areas of

2 ozone levels above the EPA standard. More than 61.2

3 percent of African American children, 69.2 percent

4 of Hispanic kids, and 67 of Asian American kids live

5 in areas that exceed the 80 parts per billion ozone

6 standard.

7 To properly implement environmental

8 justice concerns under this rule, EPA must prepare

9 an environmental justice analysis of this rule as

10 required under Executive Order 12898. In the rule

11 itself, it is cited that this EJ analysis is

12 contained in Section J, in a separate section of the

13 docket. I was not able to access that section of

14 the docket, so it's very hard to actually review the

15 EJ analysis without being able to have access to it.

16 And so I recommend that this portion of the docket

17 be available for us, for communities, for the

18 private sector, for everyone to review, if indeed

19 there has been an EJ analysis.

20 EPA has done this before with the

21 Definition of Solid Waste Rule, which provided a

22 excellent comprehensive EJ analysis, and we believe
113

1 that there should be such an analysis -- such an

2 analysis for each and every rule. The DSW Rule uses

3 a six-step approach, and the six steps include

4 hazard characterization; identification of

5 potentially affected communities, the demographics

6 of those communities; identification of other

7 factors that affect vulnerability and potentially

8 affect the communities; information census;

9 assessment of the disproportionate impact; and step

10 six, identification of potential for effective and

11 mitigation strategies. This analysis really needs

12 to be done as a measurement, not as an afterthought,

13 but as a central part of the rule-making.

14 It's also important to highlight Executive

15 Order 13045, which is the Executive Order for the

16 Protection of Children from Environmental Health

17 Risk and Safety Risk. Again, if it's in the docket,

18 it's very hard to find, and that analysis needs to

19 be done. We would appreciate this being lifted up

20 and centralized as part of this rule-making. And I

21 appreciate this opportunity to speak. Thank you

22 again.
114

1 MR. POWERS: Thank you very much. Ms.

2 Novey?

3 MS. NOVEY: Yes. Through Interfaith Power

4 & Light, hundreds of local congregations of all

5 religious traditions work together on energy and

6 climate issues.

7 MR. POWERS: Could you spell your last

8 name?

9 MS. NOVEY: Yes. Sorry. Joelle Novey --

10 N-o-v-e-y. And I'm here with Ellis. Every

11 religious tradition teaches that we must take

12 responsibility for the most vulnerable members of

13 our society and consider the consequences of any

14 action we take on those people, on the least of

15 these, on the orphan and the widow. And there's

16 strong evidence that dirty air is particularly

17 harmful to precisely these vulnerable people.

18 Here in D.C., we have one of the nation's

19 highest asthma rates, particularly among children.

20 Nearly 14,000 children in our nation's capital city

21 sometimes struggle to breathe because of our dirty

22 air, and we just heard a really vivid story about
115

1 that.

2 A few weeks ago, I became a mother to this

3 little guy, and I was so relieved at those first

4 moments after he was born when he screamed and I

5 knew his lungs were working. I knew he was

6 breathing. And since then, I noticed as a new

7 mother I'm always checking multiple times a day to

8 make sure he's still breathing.

9 I listen -- late at night I listen to make

10 sure I can hear him breathing. In the car I look in

11 the rearview mirror and make sure I can see his

12 little chest rising and falling. But even though

13 I'm so focused on his breath and the miracle of his

14 breath, I can't provide clean air for this very

15 vulnerable little person; only you can do that.

16 So I'm going to ask today -- and I'll wrap

17 up here -- please pass a strong standard of 60 parts

18 per billion today so that we as a nation can take

19 care, good care of all of our most vulnerable

20 people.

21 MR. POWERS: Thank you. We'll expect to

22 hear him testify in the future.
116

1 So let me just give people a sense of when

2 we come back. We'll take a five-minute break and

3 just let people stretch their legs, including the

4 panel. Keya Chatterjee and James Washington are the

5 first panel when we come back. And I have -- it's a

6 quarter past is five minutes from now, six minutes

7 from now.

8 (A brief recess was taken.)

9 MR. POWERS: And our next panel is Keya

10 Chatterjee and James Washington. We have James

11 Washington. Oh.

12 MS. CHATTERJEE: Good morning. Thank you

13 for having me. My name is Keya Chatterjee, and I

14 came here this morning after dropping my son off for

15 -- from school. I have been a mom --

16 MR. POWERS: Can I ask you to spell your

17 name?

18 MS. CHATTERJEE: Yeah. The first name is

19 Keya -- K-e-y-a -- and the last name is Chatterjee

20 -- C-h-a-t-t-e-r-j-e-e.

21 MR. POWERS: Thank you.

22 MS. CHATTERJEE: And my more important
117

1 identity is that I am a mom, and I have been for

2 about four years now. And I know it's very cliche

3 to say it, but being a mom changes you. Before

4 coming a mom -- becoming a mom, I worked at NASA on

5 earth observations. I was trained as an

6 environmental scientist. I understood very, very

7 well the health risks of tropospheric ozone and smog

8 pollution, but it was really only when I was

9 pregnant and walking around Washington, D.C. in the

10 summer of 2010 that I actually felt emotion about

11 it, that I felt anger about it.

12 And the reason is that, you know, it's

13 infuriating that for a very, very long time,

14 politicians have been really in fear of their

15 polluting donors and for that reason, not wanting to

16 clean up the air that I knew my baby was going to

17 have to breathe. And I can remember going to

18 Children's Hospital -- and my son was about six

19 weeks old at the time -- and just looking around the

20 waiting room and it's all babies of people of color.

21 It's all communities of color and babies that simply

22 can't breathe.
118

1 And I was really lucky, right. My son had

2 a very temporary respiratory issue. It was, you

3 know, barely worse than a cold. But a lot of people

4 in the waiting room were not that lucky. And

5 studies bear this out. You've heard this this

6 morning many times, but the fact is that, you know,

7 African Americans have two times the rates of asthma

8 as white children and four -- and are four times as

9 likely to die of asthma.

10 And that's not something that mothers can

11 be calm about, and it's not something that is okay.

12 And I think we all know that's not okay. And we

13 also know that we have alternatives. We know how to

14 make renewable energy of scale. We know how to

15 create local jobs in the community while we do it,

16 and it's long past time for us to shake off the

17 influence of industry and pass a strong smog

18 pollution rule that sets the standard no higher than

19 60 parts per billion.

20 So my message today is a simple one, which

21 is just do it and do it right while you're doing it.

22 I think you probably don't want to deal with a bunch
119

1 of angry moms coming in here all the time. And I

2 want to really also thank you for all the work that

3 you've put into getting us this far. It's greatly,

4 greatly appreciated by all the parents out there in

5 this country. So thank you.

6 MR. POWERS: Thank you. Mr. Washington.

7 MR. WASHINGTON: I came here today with

8 the Sierra Club of Hampton Roads. My name is James

9 Washington. My concern is about the coal does back

10 home in Norfolk, Virginia, and a lot of people has

11 been getting sick and people have been going to the

12 doctor saying something -- something going on with

13 their lungs when the coal dust -- when the coal dust

14 back at home.

15 And my concern is is there any way that

16 you all have a solution about the problem? And

17 there have been numerous public organizations have

18 over 60 ppb as the standard of smog pollution and I

19 don't think that the local government is doing

20 enough to stop these problems from getting out of

21 hand. And my concern is about the -- about the kids

22 and the premature births. It's a devastating loss
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1 to the families that have to endure these problems.

2 This -- all of a sudden the coal business

3 been there since 1885. And you all might be

4 familiar with it. I'm not sure if you're all

5 familiar with it, but it's just been a problem for

6 so many years that they even got comfortable with

7 it, but it must -- it must stop. There must be a

8 solution to the problem.

9 MR. POWERS: Okay. Thank you. I

10 appreciate. I don't have a solution for you right

11 --

12 MR. WASHINGTON: Right.

13 MR. POWERS: But to have us reminded of

14 it. Thank you.

15 MR. WASHINGTON: Yes, sir. Any time.

16 MR. POWERS: The next panel is Vernon

17 Savage and Gretchen Welfinger. And just to give

18 people a heads up, the next panel after them will be

19 Carol Whitman and Rob White.

20 MR. SAVAGE: Good morning. My name is Ron

21 Savage and I've been with the Sierra Club out of

22 Norfolk for three years, and I'm here to support
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1 among this pollution. And first I'd like to bring

2 up, just like Mr. Washington said, I stay close by

3 -- Norfolk Southern right in -- a lot of health

4 issues that coming up with children and stuff that

5 they have to go to the hospital. And let me see.

6 And they have most -- greater risk to the

7 communities in the one area, and also have a lot of

8 health risk with asthma and stuff.

9 And that's pretty much all I have.

10 MR. POWERS: Okay. Thanks.

11 MS. WELFINGER: Hello. Thank you. My

12 name's Gretchen Welfinger. I come with the Sierra

13 Club, and I'm also a member of the Institute for

14 Health and the Environment. I come here today as a

15 scientist and educator and advocate and most

16 importantly, a concerned citizen.

17 The threat of air pollution, especially

18 smog, at ozone is a real serious threat to human

19 health. There's been countless studies that are

20 documented: Respiratory disease, increased asthma,

21 cardiovascular disease, more susceptible to

22 infections, and this has been documented primarily
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1 in urban areas, a lot of times in poor urban areas,

2 which is unfortunate.

3 In order to prevent this from continuing

4 to happen, many steps need to be taken. Enacting a

5 60 ppb policy is key. Changing the way we live, our

6 energy resources to more renewable, will save a lot

7 of pollutants out there that we don't need. It will

8 also provide jobs. We can use our technology to

9 find ways to reduce air pollution.

10 Right now our children can't even go

11 outside and play. Smog can travel for over 60

12 miles, so it's not just an urban problem. Kids in

13 the country are being exposed to it as well. And

14 then when they get sick, not only can they, you

15 know, not go outside and play now because they're

16 sick, they're just going to get sicker and sicker,

17 and what kind of lives are they going to live as

18 adults?

19 How much is this going to cost in

20 healthcare? This is something that's going to be a

21 long-term chronic problem and we're going to need to

22 be dealing with children with lung diseases that you
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1 would see in coal miners if things don't change.

2 Wildlife is also threatened. If we lose

3 our ecosystems, we're going to be losing our natural

4 capital. If we lose our natural capital, that's

5 resources we're not going to get back and it's going

6 to cost us more money. The most responsible thing

7 we can do is limit the amount of smog that we are

8 exposed to. Thank you very much.

9 MR. POWERS: Thank you. Thank you both.

10 Carol Whitman and Rob White.

11 MS. WHITMAN: Good morning. I'm Carol

12 Whitman, representing the National Rural Electric

13 Cooperative Association. NRECA is the national

14 service organization for more than 900

15 not-for-profit rural electric utilities that provide

16 electric energy to over 42 million people in 47

17 states, or 12 percent of electric customers.

18 Kilowatt hour sales by rural electric

19 cooperatives account for approximately 11 percent of

20 all electric energy sold in the U.S., and NRECA

21 members generate approximately 50 percent of the

22 electric energy they sell and purchase the remaining
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1 50 percent from non NRECA members.

2 The vast majority of the NRECA members are

3 not-for-profit consumer-owned cooperatives. NRECA

4 members also include 65 generation and transmission

5 cooperatives which generate and transmit power to

6 668 of the 838 distribution co-ops. The G&Ts are

7 owned by the distribution co-ops they serve. Both

8 distribution and G&T cooperatives were formed to

9 provide reliable electric service to their owner

10 members at the lowest reasonable cost.

11 These activities are especially important

12 given the demographics that cooperatives serve. The

13 mean average household income among cooperative

14 members is 11.5 percent lower than the national

15 average, and cooperatives supply power to more than

16 90 percent of the persistent poverty encountered in

17 the U.S., which are defined as those counties with

18 poverty rates of at least 20 percent over the last

19 three decades.

20 With that context, EPA's proposal to lower

21 the ozone NAAQS would significantly expand the

22 number of non-attainment areas nationwide and bring
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1 many rural areas into the program without an

2 effective means to meet EPA's proposed ambient

3 concentrations. Already facing significant economic

4 challenges, these rural areas will have an even

5 greater burden of attracting and developing business

6 if they are deemed non-attainment by EPA. At a

7 minimum, they face increased costs associated with

8 new emission controls, restrictive and expensive

9 permit requirements, and possible limits on new

10 business.

11 At the lower end of EPA's proposed range

12 of consideration, even pristine areas such as

13 Yellowstone National Park would be deemed to have

14 poor air quality. This doesn't seem realistic.

15 NRECA recommends that EPA retain the current

16 protective ozone NAAQS, which is set at 75 parts per

17 billion. We appreciate that EPA heed the call from

18 citizens and businesses, as well as congressional

19 Democrats and Republicans, in deciding to accept

20 comment on retaining the current standard.

21 Through ongoing efforts across many

22 industry sectors, including ours, air quality
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1 continues to improve. Since 1980, emissions of

2 ozone precursors have been cut in half, and the

3 ozone concentrations are down by more than a third.

4 For their part, NRECA members are proud of the

5 progress that they have made in reducing emissions

6 of ozone precursors and other NAAQS pollutants.

7 As recently as the fall of 2011, the Obama

8 Administration halted a similar EPA proposal to

9 tighten the ozone NAAQS stating the need to minimize

10 regulatory costs and burdens on the economy. At

11 that time, the Obama Administration affirmed that

12 the current standard issued in 2008 was adequately

13 protective of human health and the environment and

14 that EPA's proposal was going too far with too

15 little benefit.

16 That is still the case today. And as Dr.

17 Jonathan Samet, former Clean Air Science Advisory

18 Committee chair, has acknowledged, the NAAQS have

19 been reset at lower and lower levels over recent

20 decades to the point where the gap between what is

21 considered by EPA as acceptable concentrations of

22 ozone and irreducible background levels have
127

1 dramatically narrowed. In fact, the lower ozone

2 concentration ranges being considered in EPA's

3 proposal would be at or below the naturally

4 occurring ozone levels in many rural areas,

5 particularly in the western part of the country.

6 How does EPA anticipate that these areas

7 could ever achieve attainment when even eliminating

8 all anthropogenic emission sources would not ensure

9 compliance with the limits being considered at the

10 lower end of EPA's proposal and to what benefit? As

11 long as the EPA models the health benefits -- health

12 effects with linear dose response curve, they will

13 most likely be able to find some level of reaction

14 to ozone concentrations regardless of how low they

15 set the standard, including levels below naturally

16 occurring ozone.

17 This implies that they have identified no

18 threshold below which there is zero risk to human

19 health and the environment. Congress never intended

20 for EPA to eliminate all the risk but rather to

21 provide an ample margin of safety. The elimination

22 of all risks is both impossible and not what EPA is
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1 required to achieve.

2 Thank you for the opportunity to comment.

3 MR. POWERS: Thank you very much. Mr.

4 White.

5 MR. WHITE: Thank you for the chance to

6 speak. My name is Rob White and I'm here -- I'm a

7 member of the Sierra Club. I title these comments

8 "Don't Struggle with This." The only thing missing

9 is the rubber mallet and elevator music. He's

10 sitting at the edge of the exam table at an urgent

11 care center in Charlottesville, Virginia. There's a

12 medical mask at his side. It's 2015. He's middle

13 aged now and hasn't had a physical for 20 years, but

14 he's worried about a vicious sore throat that has

15 lasted for more than a week. With the stethoscope

16 at his back, the doctor tells him to breathe. He

17 does so, slow and steady. On his second inhale, the

18 doctor quickly stops him, catching his eye, saying

19 to speed it up, that she has a lot of people out

20 there waiting.

21 The Old Dominion has always been proud of

22 its popular slogan. You know it because you've seen
129

1 all those hearts and t-shirts and bumper stickers

2 and the little red birds on signs up and down her

3 highways and bi-ways. Truth be told though, these

4 days when most people hear Virginia is for lovers,

5 they're not thinking about hand holding and walks on

6 the beach. They're thinking about that old standard

7 the EPA knows so well -- 55 to stay alive. The

8 words are so catchy that even a young and inpatient

9 Sammy Hagar had to make a rock and roll song out of

10 -- out of it. Do you remember hearing some of the

11 words? It was 1984, "One foot on the brake and one

12 on the gas, there's too much traffic I can't pass.

13 I tried my best illegal move, black and white

14 touched my groove."

15 Of course, you have to sing it along with

16 a guitar and drums. Okay for me hear a song, up to

17 date culture news. I'm now active and have been

18 poking around on Facebook. I like the service

19 because it reminds me of growing up, of that mythic

20 mind common to kids and young adults, the one that

21 rationally likes and doesn't like, that she's as

22 good from bad, right from wrong, us from them. I'll
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1 confess.

2 I did what any English major from the

3 early nineties would do. I tried to friend my

4 favorite authors, in my case, Virginia Woolf and

5 William Faulkner. The other day, Woolf sent me a

6 link. Here's the headline. Stick it to the man

7 with 10 Virginia Woolf questions for thinkers. My,

8 I went straight to number five, a quote from her

9 autobiographical sketches of the past. I noticed

10 she was just trying to help me out with some of the

11 problems I've been having with the news these days.

12 She said, here I come to one of the memoir writer's

13 difficulties, one of the reasons why, though I read

14 so many, so many are failures. They leave out the

15 person to whom things happened. The reason is that

16 it is so difficult to describe any human being.

17 So they say this is what happened, but

18 they do not say what the person was like, to whom it

19 happened. Who was I then? Today, here in

20 Washington, D.C., you and I are grappling with an

21 old and ongoing conversation, one that is part of

22 what our leaders do every day, the job of tending to
131

1 the relationship between a nation's laws and its

2 memory.

3 When I say 55 to stay alive, you know I'm

4 not talking about miles per gallon. I'm talking

5 about smog and carbon emissions and the speed with

6 which the world scientists tell us that we must

7 lower the parts per billion of our carbon emissions.

8 Imagine, right now in my mind's eye, it's

9 1976 and I'm at Dr. Kappes' office in Waynesboro,

10 Virginia, sitting at the edge of an exam table

11 getting ready to have a physical. My mom is at my

12 side. I don't know anything about foreign lands,

13 about oil embargoes, or a law passed two years

14 earlier called the Emergency Highway Conservation

15 Act. I can think though, and while the doctor goes

16 about his business, I'm having a secret conversation

17 with his stethoscope, Mr. Stethoscope and Ms. Rubber

18 Mallet.

19 At that time, I have no way of knowing

20 that it's going to be another 30 years before I can

21 even begin to understand the many secrets of my

22 body. I ask, what is this delicate thread that goes
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1 between lull and memory, Mr. Stethoscope? He's

2 always quick to speak up, says that his job is to

3 provide the conditions for my learning. Thank you,

4 Mister, I say. Ms. Rubber Mallet's response isn't

5 so simple. She knows I have a question and I notice

6 she has a kid-sized rubber tomahawk mallet and a lot

7 of people waiting.

8 What is this delicate thread that binds

9 us? She responds to me, don't struggle with this.

10 I ask in this town of handshakes and high five, who

11 would even want to drive at 55?

12 MR. POWERS: Thank you. Thank you both

13 for your testimony. The next panel is Adrian Shelly

14 and Seth Heald. And on deck after them are Peter

15 Pagano and Ishmael Buckner.

16 MR. SHELLY: Hello. Adrian Shelly here

17 from Houston, Texas, representing Air Alliance

18 Houston and Earthjustice. I come from a city that

19 has never met an ozone standard and from a state

20 that denies the science of the health impacts of

21 ozone.

22 Our first statement from the TCEQ doubting
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1 the science of the new ozone standard was released

2 within minutes of the rule being proposed. It was

3 obviously at the ready. After the TCEQ combed

4 through the rule, they identified a couple of items

5 that they have made a great to-do about in the

6 press, as you guys may or may not be aware. There

7 was the study looking at the potential for an

8 increase in deaths in Houston as a result of a

9 NOx-only reduction approach. I understand that that

10 study expresses a low confidence versus many of the

11 other studies that are showing higher confidence of

12 benefits throughout the nation, including in

13 Houston, of mid-range reductions that can be

14 achieved with a NOx and VOC approach.

15 We would appreciate guidance in Texas

16 about how to implement such an approach, although I

17 don't have a lot of confidence that TCEQ is looking

18 for guidance from the EPA, but many of us are, and

19 we need your help. Our state has never enacted a

20 pollution law that was not required by the federal

21 government. We have not enacted any clean air laws

22 that were not -- or regulations rather that were not
134

1 required in our SIP, and we need your help. The

2 Clean Air Science Advisory Committee did find there

3 would be benefits of a standard as low as 60 parts

4 per billion and research conducted in Houston

5 supports that as well.

6 I'm going to supplement my comments after

7 today with written comments, but I just want to cite

8 quickly studies by Kathy Ensor and Raun Loren at

9 Rice University showing incremental benefits in the

10 52-70 ppb range. An increase of 20 parts per

11 billion in the 52-70 ppb range over three days is

12 correlated with an increase in asthma attacks of 13

13 percent in Houston. That is 10 percent for one day

14 of a 20 ppb increase in the 50 to 70 range, in the

15 70 to 90 range, 45 percent increase in asthma

16 attacks for three days of increase at 20 ppb, 21

17 percent increase for one day of an increase of 20

18 ppb. So there is ample evidence that a standard as

19 low as 60 is requisite to protect human health, and

20 we do recommend that standard.

21 In Houston, we have seen a slack off of

22 reduction in precursors in the last couple of years.
135

1 We have not reduced VOCs in particular in the last

2 couple of years, and have little confidence that we

3 will continue to do so without a strong standard and

4 a new SIP. And so that is what we are asking for

5 today, and that is what we need from you.

6 Thank you.

7 MR. POWERS: Thank you. Mr. Heald.

8 MR. HEALD: Good morning. My name is Seth

9 Heald. I live in Virginia. I'm an active --

10 MR. POWERS: Can you spell your last name

11 for the court --

12 MR. HEALD: Last name is spelled

13 H-e-a-l-d.

14 MR. POWERS: Thank you.

15 MR. HEALD: I live in Virginia. I'm an

16 active volunteer with the Sierra Club and I serve as

17 vice chair of the Sierra Club's Virginia chapter.

18 I'm also a student in the master of science and

19 energy policy and climate program at Johns Hopkins.

20 I'm speaking today though as an individual, not on

21 behalf of any organization.

22 I want to commend the EPA for proposing to
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1 strengthen the nation's ozone pollution standards.

2 The agency should follow the recommendations of

3 health and science expert professionals. We know

4 from the science that the current ozone standard of

5 75 parts per billion is too high to protect the

6 public health. To protect our health, we need a

7 standard no higher than 60 parts per billion.

8 I've lived in Virginia for more than three

9 decades. That's long enough to see and breathe the

10 harmful effects of ozone pollution as our population

11 has grown, traffic has worsened, and more power

12 plants and industrial facilities have been built.

13 For many years, I biked to work, mostly in

14 the summers in Northern Virginia, but I remember

15 many times, days when I really couldn't go out

16 because of the ozone alerts and the unhealthy

17 atmosphere out there, and that's not right. That's

18 what we're trying to fix and what we need to fix.

19 I retired a year ago from my job in

20 Washington, D.C., and I don't bike to work now, but

21 I'd still like to be free to ride my bike for

22 pleasure or to get around without having to put my
137

1 health at risk. We know how to improve our air

2 quality and to reduce smog, so now is the time to do

3 it.

4 You're no doubt hearing from those who say

5 we can't afford -- cannot afford to do this, that

6 it's too expensive, too onerous. I read just a few

7 days ago, a former lieutenant governor of Virginia

8 had an opinion column in the "Richmond Times

9 Dispatch" making that sort of argument. He made the

10 shop-warn misguided argument about the supposedly

11 overzealous proposed new EPA ozone standards.

12 In that column, he didn't once mention

13 ozone's harmful and expensive health effects, not

14 once, not even in passing, and all the more shocking

15 given that Richmond, Virginia is the current asthma

16 capital of the United States, according to the

17 American Lung Association. Richmond has had that

18 dubious distinction several other times in recent

19 years.

20 Asthma and other illnesses attributable to

21 ozone pollution cause premature deaths, untold

22 suffering, and they cost our economy huge amounts in
138

1 healthcare and lost work and lost school. Those who

2 say we cannot afford to reduce ozone levels are

3 looking out not for ordinary Americans, certainly

4 not for children or the elderly and others who are

5 the most vulnerable to the health effects, but for

6 the polluters and especially the largest polluters

7 who have the funds to pay for disseminating

8 misinformation about ozone's health effects and the

9 economic effects of regulating -- improving

10 regulation of it.

11 The fact is that when you fairly compare

12 all the costs and all the benefits, the analysis

13 shows that reducing the ozone standard to 60 parts

14 per billion makes economic sense as well as good,

15 good health policy. For as long as the Clean Air

16 Act has existed there have been naysayers claiming

17 that we just can't afford to improve air quality.

18 They have been proven wrong every time as the EPA

19 has worked for more than 40 years to enforce this

20 important law.

21 I thank the EPA for proposing to

22 strengthen the ozone standards in order to follow
139

1 the current science on ozone's harmful effects. We

2 can do this and we can afford it. Thank you.

3 MR. POWERS: Thank you very much. Next

4 speakers are Peter Pagano and Ishmael Buckner. And

5 on deck are Zachary Jarjoura and Winsome Earle

6 Sears. Ishmael.

7 MS. SEARS: Winsome Earle Sears?

8 MR. POWERS: No. You're the sort of next

9 one. Sorry. I was giving people advance --

10 advanced notice. Peter, go ahead.

11 MR. PAGANO: Good morning. Thank you for

12 the opportunity to speak in the hearing today. I

13 appreciate it. My name is Peter Pagano and I am the

14 vice president for environment and public policy for

15 the American Iron and Steel Institute.

16 I'd like to first briefly provide some

17 background on the steel industry and some of the

18 challenges our member companies are currently

19 facing. The steel industry directly employs 150,000

20 people in the United States. The institute is an

21 association comprised of 19 producer member

22 companies, including integrated and electric furnace
140

1 steel makers and approximately 125 associate members

2 who are suppliers to our customers of the steel

3 industry.

4 The member companies represent the

5 majority of U.S. steel capacity and have operations

6 in nearly 40 states. I'll also note steel's the

7 most recyclable material on the planet, more than

8 all other materials combined. Steel is the engine

9 that drives recycling for many consumer goods, as

10 can be seen by the 85 percent recycling rate of

11 automobiles and 82 percent recycling rate of

12 appliances.

13 More than one billion tons -- that's b,

14 billion -- tons of steel have been recycled by the

15 North American industry since 1988, basically over

16 the last 25 years or so. The institute member

17 companies are doing everything they can to reduce

18 their energy usage as well as their environmental

19 footprint.

20 Since 1990, the domestic steel industry

21 has reduced its energy intensity and associated

22 greenhouse gas emissions by approximately one-third.
141

1 Nevertheless, the production of steel is inherently

2 energy intensive, as energy is typically 20 percent

3 or more of the cost of making a ton of steel. The

4 industry consumes substantial amounts of

5 electricity, natural gas and coal, quote/unquote, to

6 make our products. Maintaining affordable and

7 reliable sources of these energy sources are

8 critical to the international competitiveness of our

9 industry as we deal on the global market.

10 Steel producers in America are currently

11 under substantial challenges from international

12 competitors. The American steel industry continues

13 to face the surge in unfairly traded imports from

14 multiple countries. Countries like China and Turkey

15 continue to disrupt world markets by subsidizing the

16 production and exportation of steel by their

17 producers. The overall surge in imports has led

18 some steel producers to file trade cases on six

19 different products and a number of U.S. facilities

20 have already been idled and workers have lost their

21 jobs.

22 Foreign government interventions are
142

1 creating global overcapacity in steel and a surge of

2 steel imports into the U.S., inhibiting the

3 industry's ability to recover fully from the recent

4 economic downturn. In 2014, finished steel imports

5 are estimated to capture a record 28 percent of the

6 market. For the steel industry, operating in the

7 United States under tight margins with substantial

8 subsidized competition from overseas, any new

9 policies that raise energy costs and/or require

10 additional capital expenditures would threaten our

11 competitiveness again in the global market.

12 Given the competitive challenges to our

13 industry and our workers that I have described, the

14 institute encourages the agency to maintain the

15 current standard of 75 parts per billion. We also

16 think common sense would dictate retaining the 2008

17 standard since it has not been fully implemented and

18 the benefits of that action have yet to be

19 completely realized.

20 In regards to the request for comments by

21 the agency about setting the standard at 60, I'll

22 just note that a standard that low is approaching
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1 background levels in some portions of the country,

2 therefore, from a practical standpoint, it may not

3 be possible to reach attainment in those -- in those

4 areas with a standard that low.

5 Again, thank you for the opportunity to

6 participate today and I look forward to submitting

7 written comments as well for the record.

8 MR. POWERS: Thank you very much.

9 Ishmael.

10 MR. BUCKNER: Sorry I wasn't in here. I

11 thought I was going at 4:30 and then someone came

12 and got me.

13 MR. POWERS: Sorry about that. We keep

14 people on their toes. Thanks for coming in.

15 MR. BUCKNER: But yeah. My name is

16 Ishmael Buckner. I am a resident of P.G. County,

17 Maryland. I was born in D.C. I work in Northern

18 Virginia. And I think from any conversation around

19 the smog rule and around lowering the standard,

20 hopefully to 60 parts per billion, needs to be

21 centered around public health and who's most

22 adversely affected by the rule.
144

1 I think the people who are most adversely

2 affected by the rule are the communities that, you

3 know, bear the brunt of asthma, the communities that

4 are the ones that can't go outside when the air

5 quality days are bad, the -- you know, the folks who

6 have to contemplate whether or not their kid's going

7 to be playing baseball or football, or maybe they

8 want to try an indoor sport this season because they

9 don't want their children outside, and the idea that

10 people are actually having those conversations at

11 home and on Sunday and when they're over at their

12 friends' houses. They're like, I don't know if I

13 want him outside because his asthma is real bad.

14 The idea that the federal government could

15 be doing something very simple to address that and

16 they're not is problematic. It's problematic for

17 the folks who deal with it. It's problematic for

18 the ER and the rooms that have kids coming in for

19 asthma that could not have them coming in for that,

20 that could be dealing with other things that are

21 coming into emergency rooms.

22 It's something that I care about a lot.
145

1 Tonight I'm supposed to be at a friend's house who

2 just moved to the area, just moved to Northern

3 Virginia, and she literally has five different

4 inhalers. And I was telling her, you know I'm going

5 to be going to an EPA hearing on smog, and she was

6 like, really, you should talk about me. I have five

7 different inhalers. I was like, I will talk about

8 you.

9 So the idea that -- you know, I think

10 there's a lot of arguments for why we shouldn't have

11 a better standard. I just want to make sure that

12 the people who are most adversely affected are kept

13 at the center of this conversation, the communities

14 -- Leslie Fields was up here earlier, the

15 environmentalist justice director for Sierra Club.

16 I think she knows that over 70 percent of African

17 Americans live in counties that are already in

18 violation of the standard. Nonetheless, it's

19 probably going to be more once it goes down, which,

20 you know, there's a good and bad part. It's bad

21 that that's a reality, but it's good that

22 municipalities, once the rule comes out, will start
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1 to work on addressing those issues, that states will

2 take -- will move that up the ladder of priority.

3 Because right now it's not. Right now, for a lot of

4 people and a lot of communities, their health

5 doesn't factor into the equations.

6 Even in D.C., a lot of the work that's

7 done by city councilmen and the women, it's more so

8 about what developers are cutting checks to their

9 campaigns and not necessarily the health of the

10 communities that are in D.C. So if I just want to

11 make one note for this testimony is that you -- the

12 people most adversely affected should be the people

13 who are at the center of conversations about

14 improving health outcomes, because those are the

15 people who are going to gain the most, the people

16 who are going to be prospering more, the people who

17 are going to have more opportunities, who will spend

18 more time in class studying and less time in ERs and

19 sitting around worrying about their health.

20 Yeah, I think that's all. Thank you.

21 MR. POWERS: Okay. Thank you. All right,

22 next panel is Zachary Jarjoura and Winsome Earle
147

1 Sears. And sort of on deck after them are David

2 Baron and Claire August.

3 MR. JARJOURA: Me first?

4 MR. POWERS: I guess so. Higher on my

5 card here.

6 MR. JARJOURA: All right. Again, I'm Zach

7 Jarjoura. I'm a resident of Norfolk, Virginia, and

8 thank you --

9 MR. POWERS: Could you spell your last

10 name?

11 MR. JARJOURA: Yeah. J-a-r-j-o-u-r-a.

12 I've prepared some brief comments. Many of them

13 will echo the comments that were already made. But

14 basically I -- we need a stronger smog rule to

15 protect public health. We've seen that documented

16 in science, scientific community that a standard of

17 60 ppbs is one that would be a stronger -- a

18 stronger rule to protect public health and the

19 environment as well.

20 I won't go through all the health effects

21 because you've already heard a lot of them, but I

22 would urge -- urge you all to think about these new
148

1 regs holistically, especially when you're

2 considering input from industry. All too often, I

3 feel like the society is burdened with a lot of the

4 external costs from industry, whether it's

5 healthcare costs or it's the cost of cleaning up the

6 environment. So I just encourage you all to think

7 about -- to think about that.

8 And I'd also like to reinforce that EPA is

9 here to protect people and the environment and not

10 -- not the polluters. And that's -- that's all I

11 have. Thank you.

12 MR. POWERS: Thank you.

13 MS. SEARS: Good morning. Thank you for

14 the opportunity to speak to you today regarding the

15 lower -- regarding lowering the current ozone

16 standard. For the record, my name is Winsome Earle

17 Sears. I'm a small business owner, a veteran of the

18 United States Marine Corps, and I've served the

19 Commonwealth of Virginia for some years, both as a

20 Virginia State Delegate, where I represented some of

21 the poorest urban areas in the Commonwealth, with

22 its attendant problems.
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1 Most of my constituents are black. Most

2 felt powerless against their government. And I'm

3 currently vice president of the Commonwealth of

4 Virginia's State Board of Education. I'm a strong

5 proponent of clean air and regulations which protect

6 public health. It's a no-brainer. I have asthma,

7 as do my daughters, and I'm fully aware of how it

8 feels to personally have an asthma attack, and as a

9 mother treating a child who's going through an

10 attack who has been to the ER many times.

11 I have lived and visited in areas

12 throughout the United States and other countries

13 where ozone levels were higher than the 75 parts per

14 billion and in areas where the ozone level has been

15 at or near the 75 parts per billion. My lungs can

16 feel the difference. However, I also know from

17 experience that there are triggers other than the

18 quality of the air that have led to my asthma

19 attacks. In fact, from the CDC's own website, we

20 learn that pets, mold, smoke, chemicals in our every

21 day life, even sinus infections, may trigger asthma

22 attacks.
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1 Now, this doesn't take away from the

2 trials of other families whose children and loved

3 ones are suffering from respiratory problems. I'm

4 sensitive to that fact. What brings me here today

5 is to question whether the current standard of 75

6 parts per billion needs to be lowered, because from

7 personal experience, as well as literature that I've

8 read, I believe the current standard is protective

9 of public health.

10 I don't dispute the fact that living in an

11 area where the air is cleaner can have positive

12 effect on respiratory problems. However, are the

13 good intentions of the so-called smart people such

14 that they are using a heavy-handed approach with

15 miniscule results? When it comes to setting

16 far-reaching public policy, what I carefully

17 consider is the science that is being used to

18 conclude that the current standard is not protective

19 of public health and the science that is promoting

20 the EPA to lower the standard to 65 parts per

21 billion, or even lower, to 60 parts per billion, a

22 policy which would impact Americans across the
151

1 nation.

2 I believe we should keep the current

3 standard until all areas have come into compliance

4 with the current standard and to give us more time

5 to conduct more scientific research that would prove

6 the need to lower the current ozone standard. As a

7 mother and a small business owner, I'm concerned

8 about lowering the standard. You've already heard

9 about -- it's been alluded to -- our former

10 lieutenant governor, Bill Bolling, has talked about

11 the impact of such standards if we were to lower it.

12 I own a company which provides appliance

13 repair, plumbing and electric business. I have four

14 employees and others who work for me from time to

15 time as subcontractors. We service the lower

16 Northern Virginia area. We rely on our trucks, our

17 vehicles to service our customers. Some of the

18 vehicles are older. Some are newer. But it could

19 become very expensive if lower ozone standards do

20 not allow these vehicles to pass tighter emissions

21 tests.

22 Decisions will have to be made. I may
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1 have to let technicians go because we pulled, I

2 don't know, out of the air, a certain standard

3 instead of allowing the current standard to

4 continue. These are not decisions I want to be

5 forced to make. I want to know how the so-called

6 smart people thought this whole thing through. Have

7 they spoken with small business owners? Is it

8 simply merely a philosophical matter for these smart

9 people? I'm not alone though. I am only one of the

10 23 million smart -- small business owners across the

11 country who could be faced with the difficult

12 decision of having to let workers go if this lower

13 standard goes into effect.

14 During my years of service as a Virginia

15 State Delegate, and now on the State Board of

16 Education, I have learned that there are many

17 factors that must be considered when setting public

18 policy, since it could have very far reaching

19 effects. In the case of ozone, we should be

20 considering not only the health impact from a lower

21 standard, but the broader picture, the economic

22 impact that the lower standard could have on small
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1 businesses and individuals.

2 Many people in my community commute to the

3 D.C. area. Has the smart crowd considered how

4 lowering the current standard could be devastating

5 to rural and some already suffering urban areas and

6 to commuter families? And really, are the winds of

7 the rest of the world going to stop crossing

8 America's borders?

9 Frankly, I'm sick of the constant world is

10 coming to an end panic that we live today. Can the

11 government just leave us alone? Can government

12 stick to its role and allow us to just live without

13 knowing what's best for us? I ask you today to keep

14 the current ozone standard and not further introduce

15 it.

16 My father came to this country with $3.75

17 in his pocket. I was born in Jamaica, and I came to

18 America at six years of age. I'm a citizen now and

19 this country has been very good to me. I have

20 watched and listened to ordinary citizens come

21 before the board when I was on it to petition their

22 government for redress. It's one of the many things
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1 that I love about this country, that ordinary folks

2 have a say in how our government, our government

3 operates. Many of the people I represented did not

4 feel that way. They were powerless, in fact, they

5 felt, against their government.

6 So I thank you again for allowing me to

7 present my testimony today.

8 MR. POWERS: Thank you very much. Next is

9 David Baron and Claire August. And on deck after

10 them are Charles Wesley Long and David Smedick.

11 MS. COLLINS: Which Claire are you

12 calling?

13 MS. AUGUST: Which Claire?

14 MR. POWERS: Sorry about that. We got

15 more -- Claire August. I also have Claire Collins,

16 but you're a little further down.

17 MS. AUGUST: We're two Claire's.

18 MR. POWERS: Exactly. David?

19 MR. BARON: Thank you. David Baron -- B,

20 as in boy, a-r-o-n, with Earthjustice. I want to

21 talk about what the law requires and why that means

22 we need a standard of 60 parts per billion to
155

1 protect us and our kids from this dangerous

2 pollutant.

3 The Clean Air Act requires that health

4 standards like for pollutants like ozone to be

5 strong enough to assure the absence of adverse

6 health effects to our most vulnerable populations --

7 kids, asthmatics, seniors and those with respiratory

8 disease.

9 There are now mountains of evidence that

10 the current standard of 75 parts per billion flunks

11 that test. There are chamber studies showing

12 breathing impairments at levels as low as 60 parts

13 per billion. There are epidemiological studies

14 showing hospitalizations, premature deaths,

15 aggravation of asthma, and other adverse health

16 effects at ozone levels far below 75.

17 Four times in the last eight years EPA's

18 independent science advisors have unanimously

19 recommended more protective standards than 75. The

20 American Lung Association and the American --

21 nations leading medical societies have agreed. So

22 there's no question scientifically, medically, that
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1 we need a stronger standard.

2 Now, as to the level, the evidence

3 strongly supports the standard no higher than 60

4 parts per billion. In the last review, EPA's staff

5 scientists found that ozone at this level, quote,

6 "Is likely to cause adverse effects in sensitive

7 groups," closed quote. And that means kids with

8 asthma, adults with asthma and people with

9 respiratory disease.

10 The evidence is even stronger today. We

11 have evidence not only from chamber studies of

12 breathing impairment; we now have evidence of lung

13 inflammation at 60. We have numerous

14 epidemiological and panel studies showing adverse

15 effects at, close to, and even below 60, including

16 premature deaths. And that's why the Lung

17 Association and leading medical societies have

18 called for a standard of 60 parts per billion.

19 Now, I've heard it said by EPA and by some

20 other folks here today that the Clean Air Act does

21 not require a risk-free standard that issues a zero

22 risk. That's not what's at issue here. We're not
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1 talking about guessing or extrapolating health

2 effects at levels below the current standard. We

3 have actual evidence of people suffering harm at 60

4 parts per billion and even lower levels.

5 And the harm isn't trivial. According to

6 EPA's own very conservative estimates, in just a few

7 city studies, tens of thousands of more asthmatic

8 kids will suffer adverse effects, or estimated to

9 suffer adverse effects at 65 and 70 parts per

10 billion than at 60. So we're not talking about just

11 a few -- a few folks. This is a major public health

12 concern.

13 Now, EPA's science advisors have also

14 repeatedly called for a separate standard to protect

15 trees and plants from ozone damage, and EPA's

16 proposal to reject that advice violates the Clean

17 Air Act and is totally arbitrary. The proposal will

18 allow significant damage to trees and leaves over

19 the accumulative effect of ozone from during the

20 growing season, and EPA was chastised by the Court

21 the last time around for failing to adopt a standard

22 that was adequate to protect against all of those
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1 harms.

2 EPA can't ignore that advice from CASAC

3 and its science -- and the National Park Service

4 this time around. Thank you.

5 MR. POWERS: Thank you. Claire number

6 one.

7 MS. AUGUST: Hi. Good morning. My name

8 is Claire August. I'm a sophomore at the George

9 Washington University, originally from New Jersey,

10 and I live here now in the District.

11 I want to preface my statement by talking

12 about how important public health is and how

13 potentially irrelevant economics can be if public

14 health is not held up to a certain standard that the

15 Environmental Protection Agency is here to protect.

16 So I'm the president of our student

17 environmental club, Green GW, and I'm here today to

18 testify in favor of lowering the acceptable level of

19 smog in our air. I'm extremely concerned about this

20 issue, having experienced effects of air pollution

21 firsthand, and especially as a young adult looking

22 forward to the future. I am hopeful, yet concerned,
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1 for public health issues resulting from air

2 pollution during my generation and that of my

3 potential future children and grandchildren.

4 Air pollution, as I've learned in my

5 geography classes at GW, is one of the biggest

6 threats to public health in the United States.

7 Smog, in particular, has been linked to inflammation

8 of the lungs and leads to an increased risk of

9 serious respiratory diseases, such as asthma,

10 emphysema and lung cancer. I am incredibly worried

11 about the consequences of smog, as I've seen --

12 excuse me.

13 I have my own life ahead of me, but I have

14 also seen firsthand the devastation caused to

15 families as a result of respiratory diseases. My

16 grandfather, Peter Tuzzolo (phonetic), passed away

17 from -- from lung cancer in 2003. He was a

18 scientist and would also be here with me today

19 voicing his support for lowering the smog standard

20 to 60 parts per billion if he were alive.

21 I sympathize with the hundreds of

22 thousands of families who suffer every year because
160

1 of a loved one diagnosed or passed away from

2 respiratory disease, and I hope that the EPA will

3 safeguard our health with a stricter regulation

4 level in order to reduce the amount of families that

5 go through this pain.

6 Looking forward to my future and my life

7 as a young woman, I hope to one day start a family.

8 Exposure to smog while pregnant can cause birth

9 defects as serious as -- often fatal. Losing a

10 child before birth or having a child with

11 debilitating birth defects would be devastating.

12 I've had several miscarriages in my family.

13 Knowing that the EPA could have reduced

14 levels of smog that have caused -- may have caused,

15 either result would be heartbreaking. I'm concerned

16 for my future child. Will he or she be affected by

17 a debilitating illness from birth because I was

18 breathing unsafe levels of smog? I'm also concerned

19 about another specific consequence of human exposure

20 to smog being the increased level of asthma and more

21 severe asthma attacks for those who already have

22 asthma.
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1 As a kid, and still today, I enjoy time

2 outside. I've learned team building and

3 responsibility and build strong friendships through

4 outdoor team sports such as soccer and tennis, and

5 today I like to hike and bike as exercise and stress

6 relief. We should be rewarded with these benefits

7 of outdoor sports and recreation, not coerced to

8 risk our health and becoming more vulnerable to

9 asthma in the process.

10 The number one reason kids call out sick

11 from school in the United States is asthma, and in

12 addition to it being a health concern, I've tutored

13 elementary school children in Camden, New Jersey,

14 where the smog levels are certainly very high, and

15 seen how getting behind in school can affect them

16 academically and emotionally. Kids can't succeed in

17 school if they can't go to school. Reducing smog

18 levels is crucial for our childrens' future so that

19 playing soccer or t-ball in a league outside is

20 beneficial for our health, not detrimental to it.

21 Finally, I believe the United States

22 should follow the example of other countries that
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1 have set lower smog pollution limits and seen the

2 health benefits that resulted. Canada, Japan and

3 Europe all have lowered their smog levels -- smog

4 level restrictions and have seen cases of

5 respiratory illness decline since doing so. The

6 United States, as the most powerful country in the

7 world, should be at the forefront of combating

8 pollution and protecting our citizens' health on the

9 world stage, not in the background. This is the

10 country that I am proud to be a citizen of and I'm

11 proud to have been born in.

12 Today I am here to stand up for my health.

13 I'm representing my late grandfather and those who

14 suffer from respiratory diseases, and their family

15 members. I'm asking the EPA to safeguard the air

16 that my and my peers' future children will breathe

17 and the air that pregnant women will breathe while

18 carrying those children. I ask the EPA to act in

19 restricting smog in a way that reflects the current

20 science to 60 parts per billion and protects the

21 future of my generation and those to come.

22 Thank you.
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1 MR. POWERS: Thank you very much. Next

2 panel is Charles Wesley Long and David Smedick. And

3 on deck is Claire Collins and Hunter Derensis. I

4 called Charles first.

5 MR. LONG: Hi. My name is Charles -- I go

6 by Wesley Long. So I'm currently a student of

7 government and policy at George Mason University,

8 right here in Northern Virginia, and I'm here

9 representing the Collegians for a Constructive

10 Tomorrow.

11 Today I'd just like to point out that

12 there's been a lot of -- a lot of rhetoric or

13 accusations on both sides about saying that the sky

14 is falling, or having a negative outlook on the

15 future here. Now, when I first started researching

16 this issue, I was surprised to find that the

17 statistics here are actually kind of uplifting. I

18 mean, I was a little surprised. I was expecting to

19 see dreary numbers of smog increasing over time.

20 And what I actually found through the EPA's website

21 was that over the past decade, and even more over

22 the past 30 years, smog levels as measured -- as
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1 measured on the ground, have been steadily

2 decreasing.

3 In fact, the EPA's website says that

4 between 1980 and 19 -- and 2013, there's been a 33

5 percent decrease in the national average here. So

6 what I see here is a very positive trend, and this

7 should be -- this should come as good news to, you

8 know, either side of this debate. Clean air is

9 something everyone wants, regardless of whether you

10 think further regulation will impede economic growth

11 or not.

12 So what we're seeing here is that even at

13 the EPA's current set of 75 parts per billion, what

14 we're seeing is a positive trend. So I would argue

15 that I don't see the necessity or the immediate

16 crisis which is motivating -- pushing even further,

17 which could have immediate effects on the economy

18 when we're already seeing a positive trend.

19 In economics, there's the law of

20 diminishing marginal utility. Basically this means

21 that there's costs associated with having too much

22 of even a good thing. There comes a point where
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1 even if having cleaner air benefits people, if the

2 costs that it costs in other areas supercedes the

3 benefit, it doesn't become worth it, and what I see

4 here is a problem that as technology advances, as

5 green technology in a really growing vibrant

6 innovative sector is developing solutions to these

7 problems, regulation is becoming less necessary.

8 These problems, essentially, the market is causing

9 these problems to be solved on their own.

10 So I would argue that the immediate need

11 for further EPA regulation is -- will be mitigated

12 in time in that the current pain that would be

13 caused to the economy not only through massive

14 compliance costs, but also through lost revenue in

15 the sectors -- I've heard people talk about the

16 steel sector.

17 There are other sectors of industry -- and

18 there's -- I mean, I wasn't actually going to

19 mention this, but I've actually -- you know, I'm

20 critical of lowering these standards, but I actually

21 have suffered from asthma my entire life. I carry

22 around a rescue inhaler my entire life. And I
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1 realize it's anecdotal, but others who have

2 mentioned this have prompted me to just mention it

3 in passing. I've had multiple asthma attacks most

4 years of my life, and I've never once been able to

5 trace any link towards smog or ozone or anything.

6 It's always been very, very clear: Pet allergies,

7 dandruffs, mold, even exercise, which is -- which

8 interesting, when you were mentioning education,

9 right, like PE programs, children go out and

10 exercise.

11 I would say that I don't think it's in

12 dispute that people who suffer from asthma can have

13 triggers for asthma simply through the act of

14 exercising. It's happened to me. It happens to

15 other people I know with asthma. When you exercise

16 vigorously, there is an increased risk for asthma

17 attack regardless of the air conditions. If you

18 have better air, it doesn't necessarily diminish

19 this fact.

20 So yeah, in conclusion, I would just say

21 that I am critical as to whether these increased

22 regulations would actually have a positive impact.
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1 And I'll yield back the remainder of my time.

2 MR. POWERS: Thank you very much.

3 MR. SMEDICK: My name is David Smedick.

4 That's spelled S-m-e-d-i-c-k. And thanks for

5 letting me speak today.

6 I grew up in Maryland, where currently

7 just today, 85 percent of residents live in an area

8 of non-attainment with healthy air standards from

9 the Clean Air Act. It's a pretty shocking number.

10 When I grew up, I played soccer pretty much all the

11 time. My parents drove me all over the state to

12 games, practices, tournaments.

13 During one of my games, when I was really

14 young actually, I started feeling a tightness in my

15 chest. I had never really felt that before. I

16 thought it was just a cramp or something. But it

17 only got worse. And pretty soon, my parents were

18 actually speeding down the road to the closest

19 emergency room because I had my first asthma attack.

20 And I'm not afraid to say that I was really

21 terrified. I've had many since then, but it was

22 just a bit of a traumatic experience when I was
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1 young.

2 But I am one of the lucky ones; I'll make

3 that clear. I've been able -- as I've grown, I've

4 been able to manage my asthma pretty well. I know

5 lots of people that haven't and do suffer from the

6 bad air quality in Maryland. But, you know, many

7 days I don't notice my asthma at all, but I do

8 believe that part of that is actually because I just

9 moved -- I recently moved away from Maryland and

10 have just moved back into -- I lived in areas with

11 better air quality. But moving back to Baltimore,

12 which is the city that currently has the worse ozone

13 designation on the East Coast, I've noticed that my

14 breathing is starting to -- has started to struggle

15 again when I go out and exercise.

16 There are three coal plants just outside

17 of Baltimore City and two of the plants don't have a

18 state-of-the-art NOx pollution controls. As I think

19 a lot of people know, NOx is one of the main

20 contributors to ground level ozone. Needless to

21 say, with that information of the coal plants right

22 outside Baltimore, it's one of the main reasons that
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1 Baltimore has the dubious honor of having moderate

2 non-attainment for ozone, again, the worst

3 designation on the East Coast.

4 So personally, I'm thrilled that the EPA

5 is looking to strengthen the ozone standard to

6 protect our lungs. Doctors, scientists, public

7 health officials, they all agree that we need to not

8 just seek comment on 60 parts per billion, but we

9 need to act on it. We need our air alert system to

10 be based on the most up-to-date science, and we need

11 to do it for the millions of Americans that suffer

12 from respiratory problems.

13 To be a little selfish just for a moment,

14 we need to do it for Baltimore, in my opinion, where

15 the asthma rate for children is under 18. It's

16 double the national average. That's a pretty

17 frightening situation there. And I'd like to

18 challenge the notion that if we wait for areas to

19 get in compliance with the current standard, that

20 we'll be okay. We shouldn't have to wait for

21 healthy air.

22 Further delays won't really help anyone.
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1 I'm dealing with this problem right now in Maryland,

2 where the Department of the Environment is already

3 six months overdue in submitting our compliance plan

4 for NOx emissions from coal plants to the EPA. And

5 on top of being six months overdue, the governor

6 just pulled that plan for further review and

7 possible revision. So it's just causing more delay,

8 more bad air in Baltimore and in Maryland where we

9 suffer pretty heavily from this issue.

10 So I ask, how do you tell a person with

11 asthma that their health is delayed because of

12 politics and economics? I'm asking you to send a

13 signal to my state that the delay is unacceptable

14 and that we need to address the problem. I can't

15 count how many times I've been told to listen to

16 your doctor. All I'm really asking is for the EPA

17 to listen to the doctors and the science. We need

18 60 parts per billion and I'm really urging you to

19 act on that.

20 So that's all I have. Thank you for the

21 opportunity to speak and I appreciate the time.

22 MR. POWERS: Thank you. Next panel is
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1 Claire Collins and Hunter Derensis. And on deck

2 after them is Joe Cook and Jessica Greenstein.

3 Claire number two.

4 MS. COLLINS: Thank you. Thank you for

5 the opportunity to testify on the Ozone National

6 Ambient Air Quality Standards. My name is Claire

7 Collins and I currently serve as a county supervisor

8 in Bath County, Virginia. Basically, I'm an elected

9 member of the Cedar Creek District, representing the

10 Cedar Creek District.

11 I am testifying today on the impact lower

12 ozone standards has on building healthy and economic

13 resilient communities. Before I share my thoughts

14 about the potential economic impact of this lower

15 ozone standard, I would first like to share my

16 thoughts about ozone and the impacts of health.

17 I grew up in a military family. We lived

18 all over the country and also overseas. My brother,

19 who is now 59 years old, suffered with asthma as a

20 young child. We moved to different places. He was

21 born in Anchorage, Alaska, which was very pristine

22 at the time. He suffered from asthma. I remember
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1 going with my parents to the emergency room of

2 different hospitals no matter where we lived, even

3 in Germany. The asthma, as he grew up and lived

4 other places, and newer environments, ended up

5 ceasing over time. He now lives in lower, slower

6 Delaware. I just thought I would share that,

7 because I do know the impact of asthma from a child

8 on up.

9 I believe that air quality standards based

10 on sound science are valuable to ensure that

11 reasonable targets are set to protect public health.

12 Thus, the first question to be asked is, is the

13 current 75 parts per billion standard protective of

14 public health? From what I have read, the answer is

15 yes, that the current standards are protective of

16 public health. Thus, the second question is, what

17 is the impact of lowering the standard?

18 From a health perspective, of course,

19 cleaner clean air would be protective of public

20 health. But it begs the question at what cost. And

21 if lowering the ozone standard negatively impacts an

22 economy, would that result in the negative impacts
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1 in other areas of public health and welfare? My

2 response is a resounding yes, which is the focus of

3 my testimony today.

4 In Virginia, local government partners

5 with community leaders, businesses and industries

6 work to create healthy and resilient communities and

7 have worked to meet the current 75 parts per billion

8 standard. Currently, six cities and three counties

9 located in Northern Virginia are in non-attainment

10 areas with the current 75 parts per billion

11 standard. It would be prudent on the part of the

12 EPA to help these nine communities and others --

13 which we heard Baltimore is one of them --

14 throughout the United States to meet the current

15 standard before any change in lowering ozone

16 standards.

17 Reducing the ozone standards to 65 parts

18 per billion could result in approximately half of

19 Virginia in non-attainment, and at 60 parts per

20 billion, approximately 91 of the 95 counties in

21 Virginia could be in non-attainment areas. Bath

22 County would continue to be one of the few counties
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1 in attainment. We currently are today. We probably

2 are the most environmentally sound county in the --

3 not only the Commonwealth of Virginia, but in the

4 United States.

5 With counties within the region of the

6 Shenandoah Valley that surround us, they would end

7 up being at 60 parts per billion in non-attainment

8 that now are in attainment. To meet lower ozone

9 standards, local governments would have to consider

10 realignment of service delivery, new fees or taxes,

11 and shift emphasis to meet yet another federal

12 regulatory requirement, placing an undue financial

13 burden on residents and businesses, further ruining

14 the local economy at a time that growth and support

15 is needed.

16 In our -- in our community, we've worked

17 hard. We, in 2009, had a 9 percent unemployment

18 rate. Today, I'm happy to say, we have a 3.7

19 percent unemployment rate. For a rural county in

20 Virginia, that is a huge accomplishment. Healthcare

21 also is important to our community. Healthcare is

22 our number two employer. It's 10 percent of our
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1 jobs, so healthcare is very important to our

2 community.

3 Every economic sector of our community

4 will be impacted by the lower ozone standards. With

5 less money to spend to retain or create jobs due to

6 diverting profit margins to address many lower ozone

7 standards, growth and manufacturing, particularly in

8 energy intensive sectors -- iron and steel, cement,

9 aluminum, pulp and paper and chemicals -- will slow.

10 Also, investment in existing businesses, such as gas

11 stations, bakeries, printing operations and dry

12 cleaners, will halt due to having to invest in new

13 equipment instead of growing their business.

14 According to Dan Bosch, manager of

15 regulatory policy at the National Federation of

16 Independent Business, the rules could require small

17 business owners to buy and install specific controls

18 for emissions. New small businesses may not be able

19 to receive required air permits if the area is out

20 of attainment. More regulation on industry and

21 business minimizes and stunts growth of economy and

22 lessens the ability to create healthy and resilient
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1 communities.

2 Even consumers will pay more for

3 communities to meet lower ozone standards. Owners

4 of cars, light-duty trucks, off-road vehicles,

5 heavy-duty diesel trucks and vehicles, most likely

6 will have to meet stronger and more costly emissions

7 requirements, paid by hardworking people trying to

8 make a living and raise a family.

9 In addition, agriculture, the backbone of

10 our healthy food movement, will have increased costs

11 in needing to retrofit equipment to comply with

12 higher emission requirements, ultimately passing

13 costs onto the marketplace, paid for by the

14 consumer. The overall ability of being able to

15 afford the cost to make lower ozone standards will

16 stagnate local economies and stunt business growth.

17 No community existing today can afford the

18 impact of lower ozone standards or any new standards

19 placed on businesses and consumers. Job losses,

20 higher cost of living and potentially stricter

21 services provided by counties could all negatively

22 impact the health and welfare of individuals above
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1 and beyond the benefits of cleaner air. Thus, the

2 economic impact that the lower standard could have

3 on the overall public health and welfare should be

4 taken into account.

5 Over the past several years, air quality

6 has improved and ozone emissions will continue to

7 decline without changing the current ozone standards

8 because it is the right thing for any community or

9 business to do. People living, working and playing

10 in communities take pride and seek out pristine

11 environmentally friendly areas such as where I

12 represent, and encourage individual spark plugs,

13 many of them in this room today, who inspire and

14 motivate others to address environmental concerns

15 without unnecessary regulation.

16 One such example is the efforts of an

17 industry in our region -- MeadWestvaco -- with 1,200

18 employees at it's Covington bleach board paper mill.

19 They have an entire environmental department. They

20 serve as the linchpin of our region's economy with a

21 long commitment to environmental stewardship.

22 Having the foresight and corporate capacity in
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1 recent years, they invested $285 million for

2 construction and operation of an environmentally

3 sound bio-met spoiler without requiring further

4 regulatory actions. This is an industry --

5 MR. POWERS: I'm going to have to ask you

6 -- I can see you're near the end of your script.

7 You are over time, so could you just wrap?

8 MS. COLLINS: Yes. Businesses all -- and

9 industry do this all the time.

10 In closing, I respectfully request and

11 urge EPA to delay lowering ozone standards and

12 further encourage EPA to partner with communities to

13 build healthy and resilient communities and address

14 those that are currently not meeting the current

15 standard. Thank you.

16 MR. POWERS: Thank you.

17 MR. DERENSIS: Hello. My name is Hunter

18 Derensis and I'm originally from Pennsylvania, and I

19 would like to express my gratitude at being able to

20 be here today.

21 MR. POWERS: Would you spell your name for

22 the reporter.
179

1 MR. DERENSIS: Derensis --

2 D-e-r-e-n-s-i-s.

3 MR. POWERS: Thank you.

4 MR. DERENSIS: I'm a student at George

5 Mason University, representing Collegians for a

6 Constructive Tomorrow. I'm here to voice my

7 opposition to what many predict may be the most

8 expensive regulation in the history of the United

9 States.

10 It is both sad and frightening that an

11 executive agency has the power to enact such

12 standards. The economic impact of new ozone

13 regulation could be a crippling attack on cumulative

14 capital at a time when the American economy is

15 already fragile from previous intrusions and

16 manipulations by the government. This adjustment is

17 not only harmful, but unreachable, as many of the

18 states haven't even reached attainment levels from

19 the last lowering of the standards.

20 Not only do I ask the EPA to reconsider

21 its actions; I encourage it to end all arbitrary

22 regulations and act as a defender of property
180

1 rights, not an aggressor. Thank you.

2 MR. POWERS: Thank you. I think you

3 averaged out okay for the two panels.

4 Next speakers are Joe Cook and Jessica

5 Greenstein. Mr. Cook?

6 MR. COOK: Yeah. My name is Joe Cook, and

7 I live in Norfolk, Virginia. I come today on behalf

8 of myself and as chairperson of the Chesapeake Bay

9 group of the Sierra Club to testify in favor of the

10 EPA strengthening the National Air Quality Standard

11 for ground-level ozone, also known as smog, to a

12 level of 60 parts per billion to protect my health,

13 along with millions of other people and Mother

14 Earth.

15 We humans and our mother can only stand so

16 much abuse, so let's get busy and finally stop some

17 of it by following the recommendations of countless

18 public health experts and the Sierra Club.

19 Americans deserve to know if our air is safe or not,

20 and we count on the EPA to issue standards that will

21 try to protect us.

22 Living near a main thoroughfare with a
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1 daily traffic volume of 40,000 vehicles, including

2 2,000 diesel-powered trucks serving the port of

3 Virginia, I suffer from the exposure to a large dose

4 of smog-producing pollutants that adversely affect

5 my respiratory health. I'm also a cancer survivor.

6 I don't want to have cancer or other respiratory

7 problems. Add to that emissions and particulate

8 matter from two nearby coal plants, 90,000 pounds of

9 coal dust annually from Norfolk Southern's coal

10 terminal and other sources of pollutants for daily

11 exposure to a toxic soup mixture where I live. So

12 as you can see, I, along with millions of other

13 people, need some relief.

14 As you well know, the EPA's own Clean Air

15 Science Advisory Committee expressed concern that

16 "Although a level of 70 parts per billion is more

17 protective of public health than the current

18 standard of 75, it may not meet the statutory

19 requirement to protect public health with an

20 adequate margin of safety. The recommended lower

21 level of 60 ppb would certainly offer more public

22 health protection than levels of 70 or 65 and would
182

1 provide an adequate margin of safety."

2 This group of outside scientists wrote to

3 EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy. Furthermore,

4 remember that the EPA Clean Air Advisory Group first

5 recommended 60 to 70 ppb range in 2007, when the

6 former administration put industry profits before

7 the health and welfare of the people and

8 corporations before the health and welfare of the

9 communities.

10 I remember when the Clean Air Act was

11 passed in 1970, industry representatives who are

12 here today talking about the sky is going to fall

13 and all of our profits are going to suffer and all

14 these other kind -- that's the same thing they said

15 about the Clean Air Act. It's amazing it never

16 happened. It's amazing how well we have done, how

17 much healthier we are and how many billions we have

18 saved in public -- public health costs and how many

19 lives have been saved from dying prematurely.

20 Millions of people have suffered and

21 thousands have died prematurely as a result of this

22 75 standard, so please don't let that happen again.
183

1 You don't have to be sued in order to get you to

2 address this issue, which -- this was supposed to be

3 done in 2012, as you well remember, every four

4 years.

5 And having smog is like getting sunburn on

6 your lungs. The American Lung Association reports

7 that breathing in smog pollution often results in

8 immediate breathing trouble. Long-term exposure can

9 harm our health in countless ways and have life

10 threatening and lasting consequences. Exposure to

11 smog pollution is linked to chronic asthma and other

12 respiratory lung diseases, contrary to what some of

13 the people here today who even have asthma have

14 testified.

15 Also has had consequences for reproductive

16 and developmental harm, and as I said, premature

17 death. It sends thousands of children to emergency

18 rooms each year and costs us billions in healthcare

19 costs, lower productivity and premature death, while

20 those guilty of blame take no responsibility and are

21 not held accountable for the pain and suffering and

22 lost quality of life.
184

1 Public health and environmental groups

2 have lobbied the government for years to reign in

3 ozone emissions. The cost of regulation is one of

4 the most important health decisions Mr. Obama can

5 make while still in office. "Ozone is the most

6 pervasive and widespread pollutant in the country,"

7 said Paul Billings, senior vice president of the

8 American Lung Association. William Becker of the

9 National Association of Clean Air Agencies said,

10 quote, "Ozone is not only killing people, but

11 causing tens of millions of people to get sick every

12 day." And EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy has said

13 herself, "Bringing ozone pollution standards in line

14 with the latest science will clean up our air,

15 improve access to crucial air quality information,

16 and protect those most at risk."

17 We do know that the air we breathe in most

18 parts of our country today is not safe, so it's up

19 to the EPA to use its authority under the Clean Air

20 Act and take responsibility to set the maximum level

21 of 60 ppb to make it safer. A new bipartisan

22 national survey done by Greenberg Quinlan Rosner
185

1 finds that a vast bipartisan majority of American

2 voters support tighter standards from smog-causing

3 pollution. Nearly two-thirds of voters favor

4 updating standards with stricter limits. Public

5 health experts, scientists and the American people

6 want safer air, which the 60 standard would give us.

7 So I join with my fellow Americans in

8 urging the EPA to stop dragging its feet and just do

9 it now. Thank you.

10 MR. POWERS: Thank you.

11 MS. GREENSTEIN: Hello. My name is

12 Jessica Greenstein. Thank you for letting me speak

13 today. I am an international student from Hong

14 Kong, currently completing my final year at American

15 University. I am here to testify today because

16 there is no such thing as American air. There is

17 only one ozone, one atmosphere, and it belongs to

18 all of us all over the world.

19 Growing up in Hong Kong, I have personally

20 experienced the worst of filthy, polluted air. At

21 home, we are suffocating from the pollutants in the

22 air that are a result of the dollar bills that our
186

1 politicians and multi-national corporations are so

2 incredibly obsessed with. This is not the fault of

3 my fellow Hong Kongers. Most of the pollution in

4 our air comes from neighboring countries.

5 From primary school all throughout high

6 school, government officials would frequently send

7 our teachers warnings that pollution levels were too

8 high for us to go outside. More often than not, we

9 were forced to stay indoors for recess. We were

10 deprived the opportunity to run outside and play, an

11 opportunity that every child deserves to have. As a

12 result, part of my childhood was robbed.

13 The smog is so bad at home that on most

14 days it is difficult to see a couple feet in front

15 of you. This has caused many traffic accidents, in

16 addition to respiratory illnesses that our

17 population faced. The air that we breathe is thick.

18 It is dirty and it is disgusting. I fear that my

19 future kids will not know what a blue sky looks

20 like. The thought of a sky turning from blue to

21 green makes that unrealistic, but it is currently

22 the reality that we are facing. This is why we need
187

1 to work together to bring our blue skies back. We

2 need to clean up our air now.

3 As I already mentioned, there is no such

4 thing as American air, but there is such thing as

5 American responsibility. It is not only ethical,

6 but necessary to reduce the smog pollution standard

7 to 60 parts per billion. We, the rest of the world,

8 look to Americans as exemplary citizens of the

9 world. We look to your governmental policies for

10 their high standards.

11 If you reduce your pollution standard to a

12 safer level, the rest of the world might realize the

13 necessity of assessing themselves and hopefully make

14 positive changes to ensure their own public and

15 environmental health. We look up to you as a

16 country, as a nation that acts based on the needs of

17 your citizens.

18 It has been proven by science that your

19 citizens are breathing dirty air. It has been

20 proven that your citizens need to breathe clean air

21 in order to live healthier lifestyles. So please,

22 use your world power for good and set the right
188

1 example for the rest of us. Thank you.

2 MR. POWERS: That is all of the cards that

3 I have, so we're going to break for lunch now, and I

4 am actually not sure whether we're starting again at

5 2 or 2:30.

6 MS. WILLIAMS: 2:30.

7 MR. POWERS: 2:30.

8 MS. WILLIAMS: Yes.

9 MR. POWERS: We're going to start again at

10 2:30. Give people enough time.

11 (Whereupon, at 12:36 p.m., a luncheon

12 recess was taken.)

13

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

21

22
189

1 A F T E R N O O N S E S S I O N

2 (2:13 p.m.)

3 MR. DEMOCKER: Good afternoon. My name is

4 Jim DeMocker, and I'm the chair of this sessions --

5 this session of today's public hearing. Thanks for

6 coming today. Joining me on the panel this

7 afternoon is Robin Langdon.

8 So I've got a prepared statement, so bear

9 with me, please. We're here today to listen to your

10 comments on proposed revisions to the National

11 Ambient Air Quality Standards for Ozone. EPA

12 announced this proposed rule on November 25, 2014,

13 and published it in the "Federal Register" on

14 December 17, 2014.

15 EPA's proposal is based on extensive

16 scientific evidence about ozone's effects on public

17 health and welfare. The proposed updates will

18 improve public health protection, particularly for

19 children, the elderly, and people of all ages who

20 have lung diseases such as asthma, as well as

21 improved public welfare protection, particularly

22 related to ozone-sensitive trees and other plants in
190

1 protected forests and ecosystems such as national

2 wilderness areas.

3 We've proposed to strengthen both the

4 primary ozone standard to protect public health and

5 the secondary ozone standard to protect public

6 welfare. We're proposing to set the levels of the

7 primary and the secondary standards in a range of

8 from 65 to 70 parts per billion. These standards

9 would be met when the three-year average of the

10 annual fourth highest daily maximum eight-hour

11 average ozone concentration is at or below the new

12 level.

13 The proposal would also extend the ozone

14 monitoring season for many states and update the Air

15 Quality Index to ensure people are informed about

16 their air quality. These proposed standards do not

17 establish emission control requirements for any

18 particular industry. Each state, as needed, will

19 determine how to best meet the standards in a way

20 that makes the most sense for that area.

21 States will have time to develop and

22 implement plans to meet revised standards. Existing
191

1 and proposed federal rules will help the vast

2 majority of areas meet the proposed standards by

3 2025. I'd like to thank you for taking time out of

4 your day today to join us and share your comments.

5 We will accept comments on all aspects of the

6 proposal, including on retaining the existing

7 standards.

8 Before we get started, I'd like to go

9 through a few housekeeping items and ground rules

10 that will help make today's hearing run smoothly.

11 First, please be sure you've checked in at the

12 registration desk, even if you are not planning to

13 speak today. And if you signed up to speak online

14 or by phone but haven't told us that you're here,

15 please step out to the registration desk and let the

16 EPA staff there know that you've arrived.

17 And just as an ad lib, to be clear,

18 signing in at the guard desk was required, but that

19 is not the same as registering at the speaker desk.

20 So if you haven't done the second sign-in and you're

21 scheduled to talk, or expected to talk, please check

22 in with the EPA staff at the registration desk.
192

1 Okay, so here's how today's hearing will

2 work. I'll call up speakers in pairs. When your

3 name is called, please come to the table at the

4 front of the room and remain at the table until both

5 speakers have completed their comments. When I call

6 on you to speak, please state your name and spell it

7 for the court reporter. There she is.

8 Your comments will be transcribed and

9 included in the official record of comments or

10 docket on the proposed rule. Each speaker will have

11 five minutes to give comments. We have a light,

12 which Robin is going to man here -- take care of --

13 to let you know how much time you have left to

14 speak. When the light turns from green to yellow,

15 that means you have one minute remaining. When it

16 turns red, that's a signal to wrap up your

17 testimony. The light will flash red and beep when

18 you have spoken for five minutes and it is time to

19 stop. Hope we won't get to any beeping red lights

20 though.

21 When you're finished speaking, please

22 remain at the table until the person next to you has
193

1 completed his or her testimony. We're here to

2 listen to you today. However, a panel member may

3 ask questions to clarify your comments. I will then

4 call up the next pair of speakers and so on.

5 If you have a written copy of your

6 testimony, please give it to the staff at the

7 registration desk before you leave today. We will

8 put any written comments submitted today in the

9 official docket for the proposed rule. If you have

10 additional comments you'd like to make, you can

11 submit them in writing until March 17, 2015.

12 Instructions for submitting additional written

13 comments are available at the materials table near

14 the registration desk.

15 The hearing will continue until 7:30 p.m.

16 today. In addition, we make take occasional short

17 breaks during the afternoon as needed. We'll keep

18 you posted as the day goes on. If you have any

19 questions during the day, please see the staff at

20 the registration desk and someone will try to help

21 you.

22 Finally, I want to ask each of you to
194

1 please be respectful of everyone who speaks today.

2 We have people with a wide variety of views in the

3 audience and we want to hear from all of you. So we

4 can do that, and to be fair to everyone, we ask that

5 everyone listen quietly. Even applause can slow

6 things down, and we want to hear from everyone who

7 has signed up to speak.

8 Thank you again for taking the time today

9 to share your comments on EPA's proposed rule, and

10 let's get started. Okay.

11 So first up, we have -- and I apologize if

12 I mispronounce any names. What really matters is,

13 like I said, spelling it for the -- for our court

14 reporter -- Paul Cicio -- C-i-c-i-o -- and Jerome

15 Paulson. If you could come on up to the table. And

16 after that, just so you're aware, the next two will

17 be Kevin Kriescher and Thomas Hervey. So the next

18 two up. But for now, it's Paul Cicio and Jerome

19 Paulson.

20 MR. CICIO: Paul -- P-a-u-l C-i-c-i-o.

21 Should I start?

22 MS. LANGDON: Yes.
195

1 MR. CICIO: My name is Paul Cicio, and I

2 am the president of the Industrial Energy Consumers

3 of America. We are a non-profit trade association

4 whose member companies have over $1 trillion in

5 annual revenues, and we employ 1.4 million people.

6 I am here to express serious concerns about the

7 excessive costs and limited effectiveness of the EPA

8 proposed -- proposal to tighten the National Ambient

9 Air Quality Standard from 75 parts per billion to

10 between 70 and 65.

11 For these companies, relatively small

12 increases in cost can have relatively large impacts

13 to global competitiveness and their ability to

14 create jobs, make capital investments and exports.

15 These industries consume 73 percent of all of the

16 energy of the entire manufacturing sector. While

17 they do consume a lot of energy, EIA data says they

18 are extremely energy efficient and have a consistent

19 track record of reducing energy and greenhouse gas

20 -- gases.

21 Unfortunately, the proposed ozone standard

22 -- standards are projected to substantially increase
196

1 the cost of both natural gas and electricity,

2 directly impacting these companies. IECA companies

3 support responsible, cost-effective action to

4 address ozone. The proposed lower ozone standards,

5 however, provide a substantial economic and

6 technical challenge because the proposed ozone

7 levels are so low that they may not be

8 distinguishable from natural, ground level ozone.

9 As you know, ozone is created by a

10 chemical -- complex chemical reaction that is

11 impacted by nature, weather and temperature. Due to

12 limited cost-effective ozone reduction options,

13 manufacturers will be unable to consistently meet

14 these lower ozone levels. It is important to note

15 that if the cost of operating facilities in the

16 United States becomes too high and they can no

17 longer compete, companies will move their operations

18 to other countries. This is called emission

19 leakage, and it moves both the emissions and the

20 jobs offshore.

21 Imports will also increase, further

22 aggravating the trade deficit. Approximately a
197

1 third of the country -- approximately a third of the

2 country is in regions that currently do not meet the

3 current ground level ozone standard. We believe

4 that the EPA should focus on achieving the existing

5 standard before it is lowered. The ability of these

6 regions to meet the current standard speaks loudly

7 to the challenge of meeting lower standards and

8 should give EPA pause.

9 The cost would grow exponentially because

10 each increment of reduction would be more costly

11 than the last, with diminishing options for

12 companies to reduce either inside their fence line

13 or by offsets outside their fence line. As a

14 result, the new standard is likely to be the most

15 costly environmental regulation ever proposed,

16 slowing job growth, eroding America's manufacturing

17 base that is just now beginning to recover.

18 According to EPA's data, the current

19 standard -- if the current standard were tightened

20 to 65 parts per billion, an estimated 59 percent of

21 the U.S. population would live in regions that would

22 not be in compliance. Even a less stringent
198

1 standard of 70 parts per billion would mean 48

2 percent of Americans would live in areas that do not

3 meet the standard.

4 IECA as an organization has consistently

5 advocated for cost-effective environmental

6 regulations that address the societal concerns

7 without imposing undue cost on the economy and job

8 creation. In this instance, leaving the current

9 ozone standard in place and focusing on meeting the

10 standards across -- the existing standard across the

11 entire United States is the appropriate EPA

12 position.

13 According to the EPA, the annual cost of

14 this ozone rule would be $3.9 billion at 70 parts

15 per billion, 100 -- $15 billion at 65. The National

16 Association of Manufacturer study indicates that

17 this would increase the cost of natural gas 52

18 percent, in electricity at 23 percent, and that

19 impacts not just manufacturers but also homeowners.

20 Regardless of which study is correct, good jobs and

21 economic growth will be impacted.

22 Thank you.
199

1 MR. DEMOCKER: Thank you.

2 MR. PAULSON: Good afternoon. I'm Jerome

3 -- J-e-r-o-m-e -- Paulson -- P-a-u-l-s-o-n. Thank

4 you for the opportunity to provide comments today.

5 I'm a pediatrician who has managed the Mid-Atlantic

6 Center for Children's Health and the Environment,

7 which is one of the 10 EPA and ATSDR-funded

8 pediatric environmental health specialty units since

9 2000. In the past, I have also served as a member

10 of the EPA's Children's Health Protection Advisory

11 Committee. I am involved in a number of other

12 children's environmental health organizations and

13 activities and currently chair the executive

14 committee of the American Academy of Pediatrics

15 Council on Environmental Health.

16 In my past work as a primary care

17 pediatrician, and in the work that I do consulting

18 with other healthcare providers and parents through

19 the Mid-Atlantic Center, I am well aware of the

20 problems that children encounter as a result of

21 ozone pollution. Based on what I know from medical

22 and public health research, I would like to see the
200

1 EPA set the ozone pollution limit at 60 parts per

2 bill -- per billion.

3 Knowing that this is not part of the

4 current discussion, I certainly support the EPA's

5 proposed ozone pollution limits of between 65 and 70

6 parts per billion as a critical and long overdue

7 first step. Ozone pollution in the air

8 disproportionally impacts children, whose unique

9 health and developmental needs make them more

10 susceptible to pollutants. Children are not little

11 adults and one cannot extrapolate from what one

12 knows about adults and their physiology and the

13 impact of toxicants on their bodies and assume that

14 some rule of thumb will allow you to reach correct

15 decisions about children.

16 Kids breathe faster than adults. They

17 spend more time outdoors playing and being

18 physically active. We have an epidemic of obesity

19 in this country. We want kids outside and active to

20 help with that. But, of course, when kids are

21 outside and active, they are breathing more ozone

22 because they're breathing faster. And at a given
201

1 concentration of that pollutant, ozone in this case,

2 they get a higher dose than an adult who is in the

3 same environment.

4 But children's lungs are not fully

5 developed until they're about 18 years of age. Some

6 will be a little younger, some will be a little

7 older, but it's somewhere around there. High levels

8 of ozone in the air, including levels above 60 parts

9 per billion, can lead to decreased lung function in

10 all children on an acute basis -- coughing, burning

11 of the throat, shortness of breath, as well as

12 inflammation and swelling of the airways, the

13 trachea and the neck, the bronchial tubes and the

14 chest.

15 With long-term exposure to ozone

16 pollution, children can experience permanent

17 scarring of their lungs. For children who already

18 have asthma, ozone pollution can cause flare-ups of

19 their symptoms, resulting in trips to the doctor's

20 office, emergency room or even the intensive care

21 unit for treatment. The children miss school and

22 they're unable to engage in recreational activities
202

1 while their parents are forced to miss work. This

2 creates a significant economic burden on all

3 families and on the economy as a whole.

4 In 2007, 2010, and again now in 2015, the

5 medical community has recommended that EPA adopt an

6 eight-hour ozone National Ambient Air Quality

7 Standard of 60 parts per billion in order to

8 adequately protect the public health. While the

9 recommended standard endorsed by the physician

10 community has not changed during this time, the

11 scientific evidence supporting this recommendation

12 has significantly increased. The scientific

13 evidence available seven years ago adjusting this --

14 justifying this recommendation has been supplemented

15 by an even greater understanding of health effects

16 of ozone exposure, including infant respiratory

17 problems, worse childhood asthma control, reduced

18 lung function, and although I'm a pediatrician,

19 increased mortality in adults.

20 EPA's own analysis demonstrates how

21 children are impacted if we do not lower the

22 permissible limits of ozone. At 70 ppb, in the
203

1 worst ozone year, 21 percent of children experienced

2 decreased lung function of 10 percent or more. At

3 65 ppb, this percentage of children with decreased

4 lung and -- lung function decreases to 18 percent,

5 and at 60, to 14.

6 I encourage you to limit ozone as low as

7 you possibly can under your current guidelines.

8 MR. DEMOCKER: All right. Thank you both

9 very much. All right. Next up we have Kevin

10 Kriescher and Thomas Hervey. All right, Mr.

11 Kriescher.

12 MR. KRIESCHER: I'm Kevin Kriescher --

13 K-r-i-e-s-c-h-e-r, and in the past I have been a

14 teacher of math and physics, but I have decided to

15 devote my time to environmental efforts, mainly the

16 Sierra Club's project to move Maryland beyond the

17 coal generation of electricity. And as you may

18 know, this effort seemed to be going in the right

19 direction. We achieved great success, but they've

20 all been through regulations that we have achieved

21 off the table.

22 And I've learned a lot from this
204

1 experience, mainly that progressing in that

2 direction, i.e., improving our air quality through

3 the changing of electricity generation over from

4 carbon to renewables, would seem to me to be a very

5 multi-faceted project, one part of which is

6 educating the people as -- about the cause of their

7 cardiopulmonary disease and reminding them that

8 organizations such as the EPA are not just

9 regulators statutorily, but they are on their side

10 and may be reducing the ppb, but they are at the

11 same time increasing their health, and some people

12 need to be reminded about the language and the world

13 around them.

14 The other was, of course, to rally the

15 industry. And as you know, the renewable industry

16 has achieved great success, and if more of the

17 investors in the coal industry realized that

18 investment in renewable industry was a much more

19 promising venture, then a lot of the battles that I

20 have experienced or witnessed or learned from would

21 simply fade away. And definitely lowering the regs

22 to 60 ppb seems to me to be a step in that right
205

1 direction.

2 The one concern I have though is that the

3 big problem I noticed in Maryland was that our coal

4 plants were a major violation of the EPA --- EPA

5 regulations and found a significant number of

6 loopholes around them. And my concern is that as

7 these regulations are being adjusted in the right

8 direction -- and I am in tremendous support of

9 lowering it to 60 ppb -- that a due amount of time

10 is spent holding these coal industries to task and

11 punishing them, and not just allocating that job to

12 the states. Because it does seem that they do

13 easily buck the system, and so that is my concern.

14 I do applaud lowering it to 60 ppb, but I want to

15 make sure that equal effort is applied to making --

16 making the industries conform to that.

17 That's basically all I have to say. I may

18 add something else to something that Mr. David

19 Smedick added earlier before lunch. He has lived

20 outside of the Maryland area and has experienced

21 differences in the quality of air. I've experienced

22 exactly the same thing. I grew up in New York and
206

1 most recently, I was reminded of there's a

2 difference. For the first time in my life when I

3 was returning to Baltimore, I noticed a tremendous

4 decrease in the quality of air in my lungs and the

5 flu and bronchitis season hit me 10 times as hard.

6 And that -- that's -- that was the first time I

7 noticed that. That was my opener. Thank you for

8 your time.

9 MR. HERVEY: Good afternoon. My name is

10 Thomas Hervey -- T-h-o-m-a-s -- last name Hervey --

11 H-e-r-v-e-y. I am a recent college graduate and I

12 currently live in Baltimore. I have been in the

13 Baltimore area pretty much my whole life, besides

14 traveling across this country. I want to thank you

15 for your time in allowing me to testify. I know you

16 have a lot of speakers, and I hope that everything

17 goes pretty well and you guys aren't too tired by

18 the time you get out.

19 My testimony today is going to be pretty

20 brief. It's actually a learning experience for me.

21 This is the first time I've been able to come to one

22 of these hearings, and I don't have anything
207

1 strategically prepared with any sort of quantifiable

2 numbers or sentimental stories, not to undermine any

3 of the valuable ones that we've heard before.

4 But my purpose is a little bit more of a

5 representative perspective. I am, like my colleague

6 here, very much in favor of the proposal to lower

7 down to 60 bbs (sic). And while I think that a lot

8 of the stories that I heard in the previous session

9 are both very, very moving, as well as very

10 important and applicable, I am here because I wanted

11 to explain that I think that there are not enough

12 cases like this where we're able to actually speak

13 out about this scenario.

14 I've been told today that there are only

15 three locations, including this one, where there is

16 actually this public hearing, and I know due to

17 different circumstances, there can't be more, and in

18 a lot of other cases, there aren't even three public

19 hearings. But I wish that there was something that

20 could be -- that could happen more often, because I

21 know at least just from my personal experience that

22 there are plenty of people who would like to get
208

1 this opinion out about lowering the smog levels but

2 are unable to really determine who they need to talk

3 to about it. And I think that that would -- that

4 would be a voice that would be echoed across many

5 different states and communities.

6 I am currently -- one of my part-time jobs

7 is I'm freelance mapping for a couple different

8 companies in the central Baltimore area, one of them

9 being Central Baltimore Partnership. And through

10 that work, I have actually talked to individuals at

11 different neighborhoods. And while I mention this

12 isn't really a sentimental ploy, this is more about

13 representation, I've talked to a lot of mothers and

14 their kids who have talked about how they are unable

15 to figure out who their -- their delegates are and

16 their other representatives in order to get their

17 points across, and that they are actually too busy

18 to be dealing with those sort of things when they

19 actually have to be taking their kids for asthma

20 attacks.

21 Now, Baltimore is not only heavily

22 polluted, but it has a lot of other climate
209

1 injustices and disparities that aren't completely

2 applicable to this situation. But one of the things

3 that I've noticed is that the whole -- Maryland as a

4 state, as a whole, especially different communities

5 across the state, are already within a failing state

6 that the EPA has already generated, Baltimore being

7 worse than that. And having talked to a lot of the

8 individual families, including mothers and kids

9 directly in the central Baltimore area, I find it

10 pretty disturbing that, you know, they have these

11 issues and they don't know how to get these issues

12 across, and so they'll talk to -- they'll wind up

13 mentioning these things to their local legislatures

14 if they're even able to find out who they are. But,

15 you know, I actually mentioned this to a few people

16 today, that I was coming to this hearing, and that,

17 you know, it was something that was not widely known

18 to them.

19 So, in conclusion, my point is that these

20 families have this opinion, the same one that a lot

21 of us here do as well, and not only do I think that

22 they are not represented as well as they could be,
210

1 they also don't seem to get the attention when they

2 finally have their voices heard.

3 That was a little bit longer than I

4 thought, but that's all. Thank you.

5 MR. DEMOCKER: All right. Thank you both

6 very much. Appreciate your comments. Let's see,

7 next up we will have Paul Friedman and Mandy Warner,

8 and after the two of them, on the on-deck circle, is

9 Donald Garrett and Catherine Thomasson. It seems

10 like it's sort of a directional mic, so got to make

11 sure it's pointed toward you.

12 MR. FRIEDMAN: Hello. I thought I would

13 begin, if I may, with just an opportunity to show

14 you what it's like to have asthma, because I have a

15 breathing problem today. You can hear that

16 wheezing. And I got this as an adult. So let me

17 begin by saying, good day. I am honored to have the

18 opportunity to -- oh, let me say my name first.

19 Paul Friedman -- P-a-u-l F-r-i-e-d-m-a-n -- Paul

20 Friedman.

21 I'm honored to have the opportunity to

22 come before you today to express my views regarding
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1 the EPA's proposed new ozone pollution standards.

2 Few Americans have the privilege to be in this

3 position, as we just heard. So I am aware that I

4 have a special responsibility.

5 I grew up in Trumbull, Connecticut. My

6 small town just north of Bridgeport was blessed with

7 clean air and water. As a child, I took that for

8 granted. Tragically, as an adult, I know that we

9 can't take clean air and water for granted. I

10 contracted asthma as an adult when I was a student

11 at -- in New York City, at New York Law School, and

12 continue to suffer from it today, as someone who

13 lives and works here in the D.C. Metropolitan area.

14 Indeed, one night while gasping for air in

15 D.C., I needed to go to the emergency room at GW

16 Hospital, and that's no fun for an adult or let

17 alone a child. Fortunately, we have a federal

18 government that's able to address this issue and

19 reduce everyone's likelihood of suffering from

20 asthma and ozone-related health problems.

21 To paraphrase, the president of the United

22 States, from his State of the Union address, I'm not
212

1 a scientist, but there are a lot of really good

2 scientists devoted to this issue, and we're

3 convinced we need to significantly strengthen our

4 ozone standard. They overwhelmingly believe that

5 too many people have gotten sick or died prematurely

6 because of unhealthy levels of ozone pollution. We

7 need to trust them.

8 They say that when a person inhales ozone

9 pollution, it reacts chemically. It oxidizes with

10 the body's internal tissues, causing inflammation,

11 like sunburn of a lung. Ozone acts as a powerful

12 respiratory irritant at the levels frequently found

13 across the nation environment, especially during the

14 summer months.

15 In June of last year, the Clean Air

16 Scientific Advisory Committee, an independent

17 committee of scientists, unanimously recommended

18 that a much stronger standard was needed to

19 adequately protect public health from ozone

20 pollution. They recommended a range from 60 to 70

21 parts per billion, but pointed out the standard 60

22 parts per billion provided the best level of
213

1 protection as required under the Clean Air Act.

2 An ozone standard of 60 parts per billion,

3 if you finalize it into law, will assure Americans

4 are better protected from ozone pollution that can

5 make people sick or die prematurely. Americans have

6 a right to be protected from dangerous air

7 pollution. They even have a right to take it for

8 granted. Moreover, I call your attention to the

9 Supreme Court ruling that held unanimously in 2001

10 that the Clean Air Act said that the EPA had to base

11 the nation's solely on what it took to protect

12 public health, period.

13 Finally, as I work for the national child

14 advocacy group Every Child Matters, I feel it is

15 only appropriate that I close my remarks by

16 reminding you of what is at stake for our kids.

17 Ozone is particularly dangerous for children. Their

18 lungs are still developing. They breathe in more

19 air per unit of body weight than adults do. They

20 also tend to spend more time outside. Children with

21 asthma are especially at risk of harm from elevated

22 ozone levels, but even healthy children can suffer
214

1 permanent damage to lung function if they're exposed

2 to ozone when they're young.

3 The idea that children are our future is

4 universally revered in our society. No doubt there

5 are financial interests opposed to setting the ozone

6 standard at 60 parts per billion. But this is an

7 opportunity to put our money where our mouths are.

8 I urge you to do so. Thank you.

9 MR. DEMOCKER: Thank you.

10 MS. WARNER: Good afternoon. My name is

11 Mandy Warner -- M-a-n-d-y W-a-r-n-e-r -- and I'm

12 with the Environmental Defense Fund, a non-partisan,

13 non-profit environmental group with more than a

14 million members nationwide. Thank you for the

15 opportunity to testify here today.

16 As you know, ozone, the main component of

17 smog, is a harmful air pollutant that is associated

18 with numerous adverse health effects like asthma and

19 other respiratory diseases, and is even linked to

20 early death. EPA's proposal to strengthen the

21 current standard for ozone to a range that is

22 consistent with the recommendation of our nation's
215

1 leading scientists and public health and medical

2 professionals, is critical to protect the health of

3 our children, families and communities, and to

4 ensure that all Americans know whether the air they

5 are breathing is safe.

6 In finalizing these important health

7 standards, EDF respectfully urges EPA to set the

8 standard for ozone at 60 parts per billion, as the

9 scientific record demonstrates that this level would

10 provide the strongest public health protections for

11 Americans.

12 In 1970, Congress established an effective

13 process in the fight against air pollution. A

14 bipartisan majority in Congress determined that the

15 nation's health-based air quality standards be based

16 on public health considerations alone. Then, in

17 determining how to achieve these health standards,

18 states and municipalities thoroughly consider

19 economics in developing the strategies best suited

20 to their own circumstances. This dual system has

21 been time tested, congressionally mandated and

22 reaffirmed by the Supreme Court.
216

1 EPA's independent Clean Air Scientific

2 Advisory Committee has indicated that the current

3 standard is inadequate to protect public health and

4 recommended a standard in the range of 60 to 70

5 parts per billion. CASAC is clear that a standard

6 of 60 would offer more public health protection than

7 a standard of 65 or 70.

8 CASAC's recommendation and EPA's analysis

9 reflected in the proposal are based on an extensive

10 and compelling body of scientific evidence. Since

11 the last proposal, there have been more than a

12 thousand new studies that demonstrate the health and

13 environmental harms of ozone. EPA's analysis

14 highlights the clear, profound health benefits of

15 strengthening the standard to 60.

16 Under a standard of 60, for example, EPA

17 projects as many as 7,900 fewer deaths, 1.8 million

18 fewer asthma attacks in children, and 9.2 million

19 fewer minor restricted activity days or lost school

20 days. Indeed, EPA estimates at this level of

21 protection, the monetized benefits in 2025 will be

22 37 to 75 billion.
217

1 Now, naysayers hat use hyperbolic language

2 when describing the economic impacts of

3 strengthening clean air standards have not produced

4 any credible evidence to support their claims of an

5 economic harm stemming from reducing ozone

6 pollution. The U.S. has four and half decades of

7 experience implementing the Clean Air Act while

8 maintaining strong economic growth.

9 In 1997, during another debate over

10 strengthening national ozone standard, Senator

11 Spencer Abraham was among those who claimed that the

12 new standards would have serious economic impacts.

13 He stated, quote, "Dry cleaning establishments, hair

14 salons, and other small businesses will not be able

15 to absorb the increased costs imposed by these

16 regulations," end quote.

17 These claims of economic doom and gloom

18 did not come to past, as we know, as has been the

19 case with many other instances of strengthening

20 public health standards. In an extensive report,

21 "Assessing the Costs and Benefits of the Clean Air

22 Act," EPA found that the net benefits of the Clean
218

1 Air Act from 1970 to 1990 are valued at over $21

2 trillion. By 2020, the EPA estimates the 1990

3 amendments will prevent a projected 230,000 deaths.

4 Additionally, EPA projects a net overall

5 improvement in economic growth due to the benefits

6 of cleaner air. As in the past, our nation has

7 common sense and cost-effective solutions already

8 moving forward that will help to achieve a more

9 protective ozone standard and restore healthy air.

10 These solutions include clean air measures supported

11 by the U.S. auto industry that will dramatically

12 reduce the smog-forming emissions from new cars

13 beginning in Model Year 7 -- 2017, and the landmark

14 Clean Power Plan that will reduce a suite of health

15 harming emissions from power plants.

16 We know that the health benefits of

17 reducing ozone are substantial and that in part due

18 to clean air standards already in effect and

19 expected to be implemented, we can achieve

20 cost-effective, lifesaving reductions of ozone as

21 we've done in the past.

22 Here in the nation's capital, we face
219

1 higher levels of ozone. The most recent American

2 Lung Association state-of-the-air report gave D.C.

3 an F grade on ozone. The D.C. region ranked eighth

4 out of the 277 metro areas examined for high ozone

5 days. We also know that rising temperatures from

6 our changing climate will worsen ozone challenges in

7 some places, and the communities will need help

8 reducing ozone pollution now and in the future.

9 Setting the ozone standard to 60 will help those of

10 us in D.C. and across the country breathe easier.

11 Thank you again for the opportunity to

12 testify today. We will be submitting further

13 technical comments to EPA.

14 MR. DEMOCKER: All right. Thank you.

15 Okay, next up we will have Donald Garrett and

16 Catherine Thomasson. After them, this order,

17 Jessica Hodge and Seth Bush, and after them

18 Charlotte Wallace and Katie Huffling. So if you

19 haven't heard your name but you're -- as the

20 afternoon wears on, if you -- if you haven't been

21 called up, you want to make sure -- there's a second

22 room -- that you aren't actually scheduled to speak
220

1 in the other room. So you can just check with the

2 registration -- the folks at the registration desk

3 if you think we haven't given you a chance to speak

4 yet.

5 All right, Donald Garrett.

6 MR. GARRETT: Good afternoon. My name is

7 Donald Garrett -- D-o-n-a-l-d G-a-r-r-e-t-t -- and I

8 want to thank you for the opportunity to hear me out

9 this afternoon. I really believe that environmental

10 protection is an important priority for us here in

11 America, because not only are we the current

12 stewards of our earth and our environment, but also

13 for the future generations here as well.

14 However, protecting the environment must

15 be balanced with maintaining a strong economy with

16 an environment that is also friendly to jobs. How

17 are we to enjoy our beautiful earth if companies

18 take away economic opportunities and place them

19 overseas?

20 There are many situations where regulation

21 intervention is justified, but this is not one of

22 them. This regulation would destroy billions and
221

1 billions of potential economic impact in our

2 communities and studies have shown that this is one

3 of the most expensive regulations in America.

4 We are still -- we are in a still

5 recovering economy, and earlier industries have

6 testified that jobs would be lost due to this

7 regulation. I believe the EPA should reconsider

8 this rule and instead uphold the current standard of

9 75 parts per billion.

10 MS. THOMASSON: Thank you. Hello. My

11 name is Dr. Catherine Thomasson. That's

12 C-a-t-h-e-r-i-n-e -- Thomasson -- T-h-o-m-a-s-s-o-n.

13 I'm a physician, and I'm also the executive director

14 of Physicians for Social Responsibility.

15 As a physician, I've treated people who

16 have acute wheezing and asthma and put them in the

17 hospital for treatment. I've seen and treated acute

18 heart attacks and fainting from erythremias, as well

19 as dealing with those individuals who have chronic

20 pulmonary obstructive disease. I learned over time

21 that I needed to warn patients about high ozone or

22 bad air days so that they -- so that they would
222

1 restrict their activities because it was harmful to

2 their health or would cause them to be placed in the

3 hospital or even potentially dying.

4 But in even on -- and on bad air days,

5 even healthy adult workers need to restrict their

6 activities or be careful because ozone, as we know,

7 is a toxin to the lungs. In addition, there are

8 other ozone-caused problems that we only know

9 because of studies that are done. We don't see it

10 as a -- necessarily as a cause and effect but we

11 have found these to be true on a broader population

12 level.

13 So we know that over time exposure to

14 higher levels of ozone results in smaller lung

15 volumes in children who are exposed imminently to

16 higher ozone levels when they play more sports

17 outdoors. We know that statistically, children born

18 to mothers who live in higher ozone rates have lower

19 fetal birth weight. This is a marker for chronic

20 health problems in the future and a suppression of

21 growth.

22 The current eight-hour standard of 75
223

1 parts per billion fails to protect health for the

2 general population, let alone those at higher risks.

3 The peer-reviewed literature also does not provide

4 evidence for the existence of no adverse effect

5 level. In other words, ozone is bad at whatever

6 level you are at. So it is important for us to set

7 an appropriate level that protects not only those

8 who are at high risk, but also to help -- and in

9 addition to the healthy overall population.

10 So I'm very pleased that the agency is

11 considering lowering the National Ambient Air

12 Quality Standard for Ozone. We hope the agency

13 moves towards the adoption of a final rule by

14 October 1, 2015 that's based exclusively on

15 scientific, health-based data and not allow

16 political considerations, rather viewing the facts.

17 The Clean Air Act requires primary

18 standards to be requisite to protect public health

19 with an adequate margin of safety, including the

20 health of groups of people considered at higher

21 risks. The lower limit encouraged by this proposed

22 rule of 65 to 70 parts per billion does not meet
224

1 that requisite standard. It does not provide an

2 adequate margin of safety for sensitive populations,

3 including the fetus, children and patients with

4 respiratory and cardiac diseases.

5 The peer-reviewed literature now, since

6 the last standard, shows ample evidence that ozone

7 levels of 60 parts per billion still produces

8 reduction in pulmonary function at relatively short

9 exposure times in research healthy individuals.

10 Therefore, the primary eight-hour standard should be

11 no higher than 60 parts per billion.

12 The agency should also sponsor or at least

13 encourage research to determine whether the current

14 and proposed form and averaging time provide an

15 adequate margin of safety. We don't believe it

16 does. The break point for the revised Air Quality

17 Index of moderate quality should also be no higher

18 than 60 parts per billion in view of published

19 reports that this concentration causes symptoms

20 among healthy adults.

21 And again, we hope the track is maintained

22 and that we get the final rule by October 1st.
225

1 Thank you very much for allowing me to provide

2 testimony today.

3 MR. DEMOCKER: All right. Thank you both

4 for your comments. All right, next up will be

5 Jessica Hodge and Seth Bush, followed by Charlotte

6 Wallace and Katie Huffling.

7 MS. HODGE: Hi. My name is Jessica Hodge,

8 and I work for Earthjustice and also live in D.C.

9 MR. DEMOCKER: Is that H-o-d-g-e?

10 MS. HODGE: H-o-d-g-e, correct. So as I

11 said, my name is Jessica Hodge and I work, play and

12 live in Washington, D.C., which you all know has a

13 smog problem. I could talk about all of the -- I

14 could read back your fact sheets to you, which

15 there's a lot of great information there, and I

16 appreciate everyone that has talked about the health

17 impacts and the facts around that. But I'm just

18 going to talk about, kind of, my experiences here.

19 So one reason I decided to speak today is

20 on behalf of me and my fellow -- fellow triathletes

21 and exercisers here in D.C. When I first moved

22 here, I never jogged a day in my life, but as you
226

1 know, everyone does it here, so you kind of jump on

2 the bandwagon and you spend a lot of time outdoors.

3 Many of my teammates have to watch the Air

4 Quality Index to determine when they can run, bike

5 or swim outside. Unfortunately, they are still at

6 risk from asthma attacks and respiratory distress at

7 levels currently reported as safe. When you can

8 figure out if you're having an orange high terrorist

9 alert day or an orange air quality day, you try to

10 figure out where you're at. But right now, people

11 are still in danger from what is deemed safe.

12 They need a standard that not only works

13 to improve air quality, but warns them when polluted

14 air may put them at risk. You've heard this before,

15 but I'm not a scientist or a health expert, but I'm

16 confident in the overwhelming scientific evidence

17 that ozone is harmful at levels of 60 parts per

18 billion and above. I believe EPA must follow the

19 science, which is the more protective standard of

20 60.

21 So there was a -- one of our women I work

22 with in Landover that was supposed to come today,
227

1 but she was actually having breathing problems and

2 so she sent me a little set of testimony, so I will

3 read it for you, and then make sure it gets in the

4 record. This is actually a pastor from -- Emma

5 White -- from Landover, Maryland.

6 MR. DEMOCKER: What's her name? Do you

7 know how her name is spelled?

8 MS. HODGE: It's Emma White -- W-h-i-t-e.

9 Pastor Emma White. She says, "I am honored to have

10 this great opportunity to speak." I am honored to

11 speak for her, on behalf of her family and friends

12 who have passed away or who are still suffering with

13 allergies, asthma, and serious bronchial issues.

14 "The reason I'm unable to attend the

15 hearing to speak out against these environmental

16 issues about clean air in Maryland and Mississippi

17 is because I'm currently affected by toxic and poor

18 air quality. Therefore, I am on a breathing machine

19 and using a Perforomist and Albuterol Sulphate to

20 help with better quality of life. I'm also using

21 oxygen every day to help with my breathing.

22 "And the answer is no. No, I am not a
228

1 smoker and I am not a drinker, and never have been,

2 but nevertheless, I suffer dearly from poor air

3 quality. So it's important to me and my friends and

4 family who have signed petitions and are speaking

5 out to hear" -- "to have our voices be heard. I

6 stand to ask you for your support to acquire cleaner

7 air and better air quality in all of our

8 environments all over America. Thank you for your

9 support in hearing my testimony."

10 So these are the stories that I get to

11 hear about people's challenges. I have family

12 members with asthma. I have a three-year-old

13 cousin, that talk about pitching a fit when she has

14 to use that breathing machine and have to take her

15 medication. Like, that's no fun for parents, and

16 it's no fun to watch.

17 So I would like to end with we've made

18 significant progress in the U.S. towards cleaner

19 air. The Clean Air Act and EPA have been integral

20 in helping create cleaner, safer communities and

21 healthier families. But your work is far from done.

22 You have everything you need to continue the
229

1 progress, so it is time to finalize a standard that

2 protects all people. Thank you.

3 MR. BUSH: Hi. My name is Seth Bush --

4 B-u-s-h. I'm an organizer with the Maryland Sierra

5 Club. And as part of my work being based in

6 Baltimore, which has some of the worst air quality,

7 particularly due to smog on the East Coast, I talk

8 to a lot of people with asthma and who live their

9 lives every day with asthma and other

10 cardiopulmonary issues or respiratory diseases.

11 And one of those people is now a good

12 friend of mine, Doris Toles. And she couldn't be

13 here today because she actually had a pretty severe

14 asthma attack, which led to pneumonia, and she was

15 in the hospital for the last few weeks of December

16 and is still -- still recovering. I wanted to read

17 some testimony that she -- she passed along to me

18 that tells a little bit of her -- of her story.

19 "My name is Doris Toles. I'm a Baltimore

20 City resident and I have Chronic Obstructive

21 Pulmonary Disease and asthma. I'm here today to

22 tell you about my experiences of respiratory
230

1 diseases, Baltimore's polluted air, and to tell you

2 why it is so critical for people like me that the

3 EPA move forward with strong, health-protective

4 limits on smog pollution.

5 "When I was two years old, I contracted

6 pneumonia and was hospitalized. A month later, I

7 had my first asthma attack. It was scary, my

8 parents told me. During my childhood, adolescence,

9 young adulthood, to present day, I struggled to

10 manage my respiratory disease. Imagine that you can

11 only breathe from one nostril through a straw.

12 Within a few minutes, that straw feels like a coffee

13 stirrer because your airways become too inflamed to

14 move air in and out of your lungs properly.

15 "As a result, your lungs become weakened

16 and damaged from the constant stress of breathing

17 and of asthma attacks. I use a device called a peak

18 flow meter that measures my ability to exhale air

19 from my lungs. For people with normal lung

20 capacity, the device measures 800 liters per minute.

21 I measure 300 on a good day. That indicates to me

22 why I become short of breath at a certain point of
231

1 exertion.

2 "Smog puts me at risk and at a

3 disadvantage because whatever I do or wherever I go,

4 I must measure and calculate my activities because

5 of the limitations put upon me from our poor air

6 environment. Code Orange and Code Red air alert

7 days are particularly worrisome because those are

8 the days when I am most likely to have an asthma

9 attack that could land me in the emergency room even

10 when I have my medication.

11 "I'm no longer able to hold a consistent

12 job because the symptoms of my disease are

13 unpredictable. Some days I feel great and others I

14 can't leave my house for fear of having an asthma

15 attack. This is a disability, and that curtails my

16 financial income. Nevertheless, I have to keep up

17 with high costs for medication, treatment and

18 hospital visits.

19 "I have a Symbicort maintenance inhaler

20 that I use twice a day every day. It lasts for a

21 month and it costs $366. I also have an Albuterol

22 emergency inhaler that I use when I can tell I'm
232

1 about to have an asthma attack, which costs almost

2 $90. Sometimes I go through a whole Albuterol

3 cannister in three weeks, depending on the intensity

4 of the bad air quality on extreme temperature days.

5 On poor air quality days having it, using it can

6 mean the difference between life and death.

7 "Then there's doctor's visits, tests and

8 evaluations. I have insurance, thank goodness, that

9 covers most of it, but not everyone has that luxury.

10 I understand that my asthma attacks are connected to

11 the concentrations of air pollutants in Baltimore's

12 environment. For many years, my doctors and

13 allergists have informed me about my exposure to

14 smog-forming emissions. I'm not only one living" --

15 "the only one living with this reality, and there

16 are many who have died because of asthma.

17 "Cleaning up pollution from the area's

18 coal-fired power plants and other smog sources helps

19 people like me stay alive. I support the proposed

20 EPA standards that will clean up the pollution that

21 makes me sick, and I support setting them at the

22 lowest allowable smog limit of 60 parts per billion.
233

1 Please do this for people like me so we too can do

2 what we can to get on with our lives."

3 And I've talked to many other people who

4 share similar testimony, and at the end of the day,

5 any little bit helps. And they'll tell you

6 firsthand that what we're doing so far isn't enough

7 and we need to do more. So thank you.

8 MR. DEMOCKER: Thank you very much for

9 your comments. Next up, Charlotte Wallace and Katie

10 Huffling. And they will be followed by William

11 Picksford, Sara Via, Rob Underwood and Alexia

12 Prochvicky (phonetic).

13 MS. WALLACE: Hello. Good afternoon. My

14 name is Charlotte Wallace -- C-h-a-r-l-o-t-t-e

15 W-a-l-l-a-c-e. I'm a former pediatric nurse of 17

16 years who transitioned to community public health

17 because I was tired of seeing children suffer with

18 diseases I feel we can prevent in society.

19 I am here on behalf of Anne Arundel

20 Medical Center in Annapolis, Maryland. We strongly

21 encourage the EPA to consider the health of our most

22 vulnerable population who carry the heaviest burden
234

1 of this decision and set the most protective

2 standard for ozone at 60 parts per billion.

3 As a pediatric nurse, I have seen

4 firsthand the severity of asthma in Maryland. I and

5 every acute care pediatric nurse and provider have

6 witnessed infants, children and adolescents

7 struggling for each breath due to an asthma attack.

8 The wheeze sound associated with asthma is actually

9 the auditory effect of air forcing its way through

10 the swollen branches of the lungs.

11 It is common to see nasals flare,

12 abdominals strain, enough muscles trying to pull in

13 oxygen with each breath. The patients are unable to

14 speak in a full sentence and are often agitated with

15 a scared look on their little faces. Unfortunately,

16 I, like many of my colleagues, know how deadly this

17 disease can be.

18 The burden of asthma is often measured in

19 terms of prevalence. According to Healthy People

20 2020, there are currently over 23 million people

21 with asthma in the U.S., including 7 million

22 children. In 2010 alone, asthma was linked to over
235

1 3,400 deaths in the United States. The burden of

2 asthma affects the individual, their families,

3 schools, workplaces, neighborhood cities and states.

4 In 2008, asthma was attributed to 14.4 million

5 missed school days in the United States.

6 Chronic absenteeism increases achievement

7 gaps at all levels of academic achievement, but

8 mostly for the lower socioeconomic children whose

9 pathway out of poverty is a solid education. The

10 burden of asthma also falls on society to the direct

11 costs of the healthcare system and indirect costs of

12 missed work.

13 In 2009, the estimated incremental direct

14 costs of asthma in the United States was more than

15 $53 billion a year. Asthma does not discriminate.

16 However, significant health disparities do exist in

17 particular lower socioeconomic status minority

18 populations and living in the northeast United

19 States. A study published just last week by Johns

20 Hopkins Hospital reports that the rate of asthma in

21 African American and Puerto Rican American children

22 have asthma rates almost double those of white, or
236

1 rather, European American children.

2 Asthma cannot be cured, but asthma can be

3 prevented. Healthy People 2020 has identified

4 asthma as a public health prevention priority due to

5 the national increase in the prevalence of asthma

6 since 1980. I have always wished for a magic wand

7 to reduce and prevent the suffering that I have

8 witnessed. Although I do not possess those

9 particular powers, you do.

10 Several studies cited by the EPA show an

11 association between high ozone levels and asthma.

12 The risk is greatest of asthma when children

13 exercise or play sports outside and ozone levels are

14 high. Emergency room staff, not just at Anne

15 Arundel but around our nation, witness with -- this

16 direct trend as well.

17 Infants and children are more vulnerable

18 to air pollution because their lungs are still

19 developing, making them more susceptible to damage.

20 Their intake per pound of an infant is twice that of

21 an adult. Children are often outdoors for longer

22 periods of time and play harder, increasing the
237

1 amount of polluted air they inhale. Our children

2 should be able to play outside without the risk of

3 harming their lungs.

4 Our innocent children deserve a chance to

5 live a healthy and productive life. It is up to us

6 to protect them from known harm. I, on behalf of

7 Anne Arundel Medical Center, are advocating for the

8 most productive standard -- protective standard

9 under consideration of 60 parts per billion over

10 eight hours. The EPA must apply the precautionary

11 principle to protect the health of our most

12 vulnerable population -- our children, who carry the

13 heaviest burden of this decision.

14 On behalf of all the pediatric patients

15 too little to speak for themselves, thank you for

16 your time and the opportunity to comment.

17 MS. HUFFLING: Hi. Good afternoon. My

18 name is Katie -- K-a-t-i-e -- Huffling --

19 H-u-f-f-l-i-n-g -- and I live in Mount Ranier,

20 Maryland. Thank you for the opportunity to comment

21 on this important public health issue. I'm here

22 representing the Alliance of Nurses for Healthy
238

1 Environments. We're the only national organization

2 of nurses that focuses solely on environmental

3 health.

4 We would like to express our strong

5 support for lowering the ozone standard to the most

6 protective level of 60 parts per billion. As a

7 nurse-midwife, my goal is to help women and families

8 have the healthiest pregnancies and the healthiest

9 babies possible. Unfortunately, air pollution and

10 the resultant ozone can present a challenge for

11 women and children who are especially vulnerable to

12 the negative impacts of these pollutants.

13 In the Baltimore and Washington, D.C.

14 regions, we have some of the most polluted air in

15 the country and some of the highest numbers of poor

16 air quality days in which the smog levels are so

17 high that even healthy adults may have difficulty

18 breathing when they're outside.

19 I've seen firsthand how poor air quality

20 days can have a significant effect on healthy

21 pregnant women. Many of my asthmatic patients would

22 come into my office wheezing or report increased use
239

1 of their inhalers on poor air quality days. Having

2 good control of your asthma is an essential part of

3 a healthy pregnancy, as the mother's breaths are the

4 baby's only source of oxygen.

5 We caution pregnant women to stay inside

6 on poor air quality days as exposure to air

7 pollution has been linked to poor pregnancy outcomes

8 such as low birth weight and exacerbation of asthma

9 and lung irritation. However, most women can't put

10 their lives on hold when there's a poor air quality

11 day. For most women, they have to go to work, to

12 school or come in to see me at their pre-natal

13 appointments, and especially in urban environments,

14 may rely on public transportation where they have to

15 walk to their train or stand on busy roads waiting

16 for the bus, breathing in unacceptably high levels

17 of air pollution.

18 Ozone exposure during pregnancy is linked

19 to low birth weight. Low birth weight is not just a

20 matter of a baby born being small, it's a serious

21 condition that can lead to a variety of short- and

22 long-term health impacts for that baby such as
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1 difficulty adjusting to life outside the womb and

2 greater risk of chronic diseases as an adult, such

3 as diabetes, high blood pressure and obesity.

4 Besides issues with low birth rate, we're

5 also seeing long-term changes in the lungs of

6 children whose mothers were exposed to high levels

7 of air pollution while pregnant. These changes

8 could lead to an increased risk of asthma and

9 decreased lung function in these children. Children

10 born to asthmatic mothers who are exposed to

11 increased levels of air pollution during pregnancy

12 are also at greater risk of wheezing and difficulty

13 breathing at ozone levels near or at the current

14 ozone standards.

15 Besides the burden of treatment that his

16 places on our healthcare system, we must also take

17 into account the financial burden placed on parents

18 of asthmatic children through days lost of work and

19 school, as well as the emotional toll that this

20 places on a family when managing a chronic disease.

21 In Maryland alone, where I live, the direct costs of

22 treating asthma costs almost $4 billion annually.
241

1 The EPA is mandated to protect the health

2 of Americans, and clean air is vital to healthy

3 women, babies and families. That's why the Alliance

4 of Nurses for Healthy Environments strongly supports

5 the most protective ozone standard of 60 parts per

6 billion.

7 Thank you for this opportunity to comment

8 today, and I urge the EPA to quickly make the most

9 protective ozone standards that you can. Thank you.

10 MR. DEMOCKER: Thank you for your

11 comments. All right, next up is William Pickford

12 and Sara Via, followed by Alexia Portvicky and Rob

13 Underwood. We have William Pickford.

14 MR. BICKFORD: Bickford?

15 MR. DEMOCKER: I'm sorry?

16 MR. BICKFORD: Brad Bickford.

17 MR. DEMOCKER: Could be. I have William

18 Pickford is written down, but --

19 MR. BICKFORD: You want me up?

20 MS. LANGDON: You're last name's Pickford.

21 MR. BICKFORD: Bickford.

22 MR. DEMOCKER: Okay. All right, come on
242

1 up. You said it was Brad?

2 MR. BICKFORD: Brad -- B-r-a-d.

3 MR. DEMOCKER: We will make the

4 correction. Sorry we got it wrong.

5 MR. BICKFORD: Bickford, B, as in boy,

6 i-c-k-f-o-r-d.

7 MR. DEMOCKER: All right.

8 MR. BICKFORD: You want me to start?

9 MR. DEMOCKER: Yes, please.

10 MR. BICKFORD: Okay. Thank you. Hello.

11 You already know my name. I've been a resident of

12 the District of Columbia for almost 30 years. I

13 want to thank EPA for holding these hearings, to

14 hear firsthand how smog pollution has affected the

15 citizens of this country.

16 The Clean Air Act amendment of 1970 gives

17 responsibility to the EPA to establish national

18 quality ambient air quality standards for hazardous

19 hydrocarbons for the purpose of protecting the

20 citizens of this country from hazardous air. Most

21 of these pollutants come from automobiles, trucks

22 and coal-burning power plants. Levels of 65 parts
243

1 per billion are proposed to help control these

2 pollutants, but this is not sufficient.

3 I grew up in this area. I used to play

4 soccer, softball, and on track. I have never

5 smoked. Now I don't even have the breathing power

6 to fill my lungs with oxygen for bursts of energy,

7 to sprint or chase balls. Over the years, living in

8 Washington, the air has gotten progressively harder

9 to breathe. I sometimes feel like a fish out of

10 water.

11 Air pollution from coal still goes on in

12 our nation's capital. The Capitol Power Plant,

13 located in a densely populated area on Capitol Hill,

14 still burns coal and a biomass called black liquor.

15 It pumps tons of carbon into the Washington

16 atmosphere. Breathing this polluted air now for

17 over 30 years, I developed a slight case of asthma.

18 Here's my ADVAIR inhaler, unfortunately, which I

19 have to use to participate in strenuous activities

20 or cold weather.

21 This condition can lead to heart problems,

22 as my heart has to pump harder to get fresh oxygen
244

1 to my brain, as well as other people with this

2 condition. I recall President Obama saying he's

3 concerned about the kind of environment he's going

4 to leave for his daughters. My first grandchild was

5 born two months ago, and I worry about the quality

6 of air he is going to breathe.

7 So I'd like to strongly recommend that

8 smog standards be set at a minimum of 60 parts per

9 billion or lower. This country can achieve this

10 despite protests from profit-minded selfish members

11 of our society. There are several concrete steps

12 that can be taken to significantly decrease energy

13 pollutants.

14 First, by supporting and funding solar

15 energy, which will end the need for smog pollutants

16 from coal as an energy source. On my District home

17 roof, I have 28 panels -- solar panels, and I am

18 producing pollution free endless electric energy.

19 Let me repeat that: Pollution free, endless

20 electric energy.

21 Thanks to federal and city grants, these

22 panels, after seven years, are completely paid for.
245

1 Just think how much cheaper the air we breathe could

2 be from an endless power source. Coal companies

3 claim that they will lose jobs if less coal is

4 produced, but this is not true. Thousands of safer,

5 new jobs will be created for coal miners with the

6 solar industry.

7 It is a fact that the solar industry now

8 employs more people than coal mining companies do,

9 and its job growth is increasing 20 times faster

10 than any other energy industry. Congress and our

11 cities and states should actually continue to fund

12 and increase tax rebates for solar energy.

13 Second, EPA should continue to advocate

14 for and require the automobile industry to develop

15 vehicles with lower emissions and better mileage.

16 The technology is there, but we are not moving fast

17 enough. There needs to be a repetitious push and

18 education for the American public about the benefits

19 of lower emissions.

20 And I would love to see the EPA take a

21 stronger stand and begin a national education

22 program about the benefits of healthier and
246

1 pollution-free transportation by riding bicycles.

2 Let's not forget about the contribution of trees and

3 plants in controlling smog pollutants. Our green

4 friends have sorted thousands of tons of carbon

5 dioxide and other pollutants every day.

6 A study of the journal of "Environmental

7 Pollution" found that trees save the U.S. economy an

8 estimated $7 billion a year in medical costs from

9 respiratory illness. The EPA could give out grants

10 to plant thousands of trees every year. Hopefully

11 the EPA will live up to its Clean Air Act mandate of

12 cleaning the air we breathe and challenging selfish,

13 greed-motivated interests. The Environmental

14 Protection Agency must continue educating all

15 Americans about the seriousness of smog pollution

16 and global warming. Thank you.

17 MS. VIA: I'm Sara Via -- S-a-r-a V-i-a.

18 I'm a professor of biology at University of

19 Maryland, and I also represent Physicians for Social

20 Responsibility.

21 I strongly support the proposed ozone rule

22 and encourage you to implement the stronger of the
247

1 possibilities, the 60 part per billion standard. As

2 Catherine Thomasson said just a couple of minutes

3 ago, there is no safe level for ozone, so we need to

4 reduce it as far as we possibly can when we have the

5 opportunity to make a new regulation.

6 Because ground level ozone results from an

7 interaction between nitrous oxide compounds, or NOx,

8 and volatile organic compounds, controlling ozone

9 requires reducing these two categories of air

10 pollutants. The EPA Clean Power Plan is a huge step

11 towards reducing NOx and ozone while also curbing

12 CO2 and a host of other toxic air pollutants as

13 significant co-benefits.

14 Nitrous oxide compounds have severe

15 adverse health impacts on health that go beyond

16 increasing ground level ozone. Nitrous oxide itself

17 is directly hazardous, and NOx also contributes to

18 the small particulate matter, PM2.5, that can carry

19 toxic air pollutants directly into the blood stream.

20 Ozone's a major contributor, as you have

21 been hearing, to the recent increase in asthma among

22 Marylanders, particularly children. It's also well
248

1 documented that ozone, nitrous oxide, and PM2.5 from

2 coal-fired power plant emissions contribute to a

3 variety of other life-threatening respiratory and

4 cardiovascular illnesses.

5 In Baltimore alone, mortality rates from

6 toxic air pollution cited in a study last year, or

7 two years ago, from MIT, correspond to the causation

8 of approximately 800 extra deaths per year. This is

9 800 of your friends and neighbors in Baltimore could

10 die each year from toxic air pollution. This is an

11 avoidable tragedy and allowing it to continue is

12 really unacceptable.

13 The illness and death caused by NOx and

14 ozone pollution cause tremendous personal suffering

15 every single year that toxic air pollution is not

16 reduced. Baltimore has the worst air quality on the

17 East Coast, and as you know, was the only urban area

18 in the east cited by the EPA as being in moderate

19 non-attainment, which doesn't sound that bad, but it

20 really is pretty bad.

21 So -- and D.C. is close behind with high

22 levels of pollutants as well. In fact, 86 percent
249

1 of Marylanders experience unsafe air every day.

2 Now, Maryland, as of a week ago, is moving backwards

3 because our new governor, Larry Hogan, has blocked a

4 carefully crafted NOx rule that was scheduled to be

5 implemented quite soon as one of his first official

6 acts. So we need very strong federal regulations

7 because we can't always depend on state governments.

8 We need everyone working towards this goal.

9 Air pollution-related illnesses are

10 expensive. They burden the U.S. healthcare system

11 and every year they reduce the time children are in

12 school and cause worker productivity to decline

13 because of missed work days. These social and

14 economic costs have real impacts on our economy and

15 should be considered by those who make the argument

16 that controlling ozone is an economic burden.

17 Unfortunately, the problems caused by NOx

18 and ozone don't stop with its health impacts. Ozone

19 is toxic to plants. It limits photosynthesis. It

20 reduces crop yield and compromises the growth and

21 health of forests.

22 I live in Howard County, which is about 20
250

1 miles west of Baltimore, and I've lived there for 17

2 years and it never occurred to me that the air

3 quality there was bad, right, because the wind blows

4 from the west. We're west of the bad air region.

5 No, Howard County is in that bad air region. This

6 summer, I went out in my garden and I noticed

7 bronze-colored spots on my bean plants and found out

8 that that is ozone damage, and there are those beans

9 in my yard dying, and finally it's coming home to me

10 that this is also my air that is contaminated, along

11 with the other 86 percent of Marylanders.

12 The various new standards for toxic air

13 pollutants that EPA is crafting under the Clean Air

14 Act are synergistic. When we clean up emissions

15 from these antiquated coal-fired power plants, we

16 reduce NOx, ozone and the dangerous PM2.5, as well

17 as eliminating the emissions of the 80 or so other

18 poisonous compounds that are emitted from these

19 plants.

20 The renewable portfolio standards adopted

21 in many states add to the synergy because toxic

22 emissions from power plants are particularly high on
251

1 the peak load days because that's when the older and

2 more highly emitting power plants tend to be fired

3 up. Fortunately, solar is at its best on the hot

4 and sunny peak load days that are most problematic

5 for ozone production. It's already been documented

6 that solar has saved the grid on peak load days in

7 California and other places, allowing utilities to

8 refrain from putting the highest polluting power

9 plants online.

10 Given the rapidly accelerating pace of

11 solar installations, solar rescue on peak load days

12 will soon be commonplace, making the remaining

13 outmoded and high emitting coal-fired power plants

14 even more obsolete than they are now.

15 Thank you very much.

16 MR. DEMOCKER: Alexia Portvicky and Rob

17 Underwood, followed by Bob Dinneen and Elizabeth

18 DeBord. You could speak to the folks at the

19 registration desk. That would be great. Thanks.

20 Do we have Alexia Portvicky and Rob

21 Underwood? Oh, we got Rob. No Alexia? Okay. You

22 have the mic to yourself.
252

1 MR. UNDERWOOD: All right. Hello. Good

2 afternoon. My name is Rob Underwood. I'm director

3 of government relations for the Petroleum Marketers

4 Association of America. We basically represent all

5 the gas station owners across the country, the

6 tanker trucks that you see on interstate highways.

7 They're all small businesses. They have a contract

8 with the major oil companies to sell that particular

9 brand of gasoline, but pretty much -- 98 percent of

10 the gas stations out there are independently owned

11 by small businesses. They're not owned by the

12 majors. So when you go pull up at a Chevron

13 station, it's not by owned by a major oil company.

14 But here, of course, today I'm talking

15 about the ozone standards and how it will impact

16 gasoline prices, so it's a little bit more of a

17 twist than what we've heard before. I'm talking

18 more of the economic side and how, if we do move to

19 a lower ozone standard, how it will impact small

20 business owners and consumers and, of course, gas

21 prices.

22 First off, let me just say that supplying
253

1 cleaner gasoline and diesel, they're getting

2 cleaner. We've got better equipment, cleaner cars,

3 trucks, buses that lead to cleaner air. Emissions

4 have significantly been reduced.

5 We've embraced ultra low sulfur diesel on

6 road. That's 15 parts per million. We've embraced

7 that, as well as now we're pushing for a UOST

8 mandate for heating oil to lower the sulfur dioxide

9 emissions there as well, moving down to 15 ppm for

10 heating oil, embraced with a 20 percent bio-diesel

11 blend. We are big supporters of that. So just we

12 want to -- we want to provide a cleaner product, but

13 we want to make sure that, you know, we don't

14 increase these prices enough to where it gets too

15 out of control and hurts the consumer's pocketbook.

16 We've -- we're a little concerned about

17 this new proposed standard because, of course, it

18 will put an unfair economic burden on small business

19 petroleum marketers and consumers. We believe that

20 this 75 parts per billion ozone standard is working,

21 but, of course, it hasn't been fully implemented

22 yet. Therefore, we're asking that you -- until at
254

1 least -- or EPA should leave the current standard in

2 place until at least 85 percent of the counties in

3 non-attainment status can comply.

4 The economic consequences for a new lower

5 ozone standard would be severe, create bottlenecks

6 and chaos in the gasoline marketplace. And I'll go

7 into a little bit of detail there. When you have

8 the first two common areas where you can reduce

9 ozone emissions, of course, they require full meta

10 gasoline or a lower re-vapor pressure field. Of

11 course, that comes with higher gas prices. It costs

12 more to make, and because of that and what they're

13 currently proposing right now, we're looking at

14 around 200 counties nationwide that will be having

15 to have these lower RBP standards or reformulated

16 gasoline.

17 But, of course, before the RFG and the

18 lower RBP mandates were adopted during the

19 mid-1990s, the logistics of fuel distribution were

20 relatively simple. Gasoline was fungal. When one

21 area of the country was experiencing a higher

22 demand, it was easy to redirect more gasoline from
255

1 another area to meet it. With the mandate to push

2 for RFG and lower RBP fuel, we now have over 30

3 boutique fuels in the United States.

4 Requiring these multiple types of gasoline

5 based on geographic location and by season has all

6 but eliminated the fungibility of gasoline in the

7 United States today. The logistics of fuel

8 distribution has become a nightmare for petroleum

9 marketers, particularly when a refinery, a terminal

10 or pipeline goes offline for service or due to

11 extreme weather events.

12 Sometimes marketers are forced to travel

13 over 100 -- 100 miles to pick up RFG or lower

14 RBP-specific product when conventional fuel is more

15 readily available. Furthermore, petroleum marketers

16 in non-attainment areas are placed at a competitive

17 disadvantage -- competitive disadvantage to

18 competitors outside the areas due to supply

19 problems, particularly in September when hurricane

20 season is at its height.

21 Prices in non-attainment areas can

22 fluctuate significantly higher than the prices in
256

1 the nearby counties that are in attainment.

2 Retailers often get blamed for these high prices in

3 non-attainment areas, but we have no control over

4 that. The State of North Carolina is a perfect

5 example. Recently -- actually, May 2014, EPA

6 determined that North Carolina's Triad and Triangle

7 Counties no longer needed 7 -- 7.8 pound field to

8 meet ozone standards and eliminated it.

9 They moved the region basically to the one

10 standard that all the other counties and the

11 surrounding areas were complying with, which, of

12 course, was 9-pound gasoline, the conventional

13 gasoline out there in most areas of the country.

14 And, of course, the North Carolina Department of

15 Energy and Natural Resources estimated that the

16 relaxation of the rule resulted in cost savings of

17 about 7 cents per gallon from June 1st to September

18 15th, for a total savings of more than $18 million

19 for the region. And, of course, that goes back into

20 the pocketbook of the consumer.

21 In summary, the plan to revise the federal

22 ozone standards will only cause higher gasoline
257

1 prices and job losses to impacted areas without a

2 clear -- without a clear benefit to the public. PMA

3 urges the EPA not pursue lower ozone standards until

4 85 percent more of the counties actually can comply

5 with the current standard. Thank you.

6 MR. DEMOCKER: Thank you for your

7 comments.

8 (Pause)

9 MR. DEMOCKER: Okay. Bob -- Bob Dinneen

10 and Elizabeth DeBord, followed by Linda Plemons and

11 Anne Mellinger-Birdsong. And after those four,

12 we're going to take a 10-minute break.

13 Okay, Bob Dinneen.

14 MR. DINNEEN: Thank you. I'm Bob Dinneen

15 with the Renewable Fuels Association. We represent

16 the U.S. ethanol industry. My comments today are

17 going to be uncharacteristically brief, but perhaps

18 a breath of fresh air, because I represent an

19 industry that does in fact support the ozone rule,

20 and we encourage EPA to promulgate it as it's been

21 proposed.

22 We think more communities are going to be
258

1 benefiting from cleaner air. That just makes all

2 the more sense. While most of the focus may be on

3 stationary source emissions, we believe significant

4 progress toward meeting the new ozone standard can

5 be gained by communities adopting reformulated

6 gasoline. It's a proven program with a track record

7 of success and I believe can help to address some of

8 the cost concerns that Mr. Underwood just testified

9 to because reformulated gasoline has proven to be

10 extraordinarily cost effective.

11 Ethanol, when added to gasoline, will help

12 to reduce exhaust emissions from carbon monoxide,

13 hydrocarbons that will form ozone particulates, and

14 air toxics. It is a stone-cold winter. Over the

15 last five years, ethanol has been between 60 cents

16 and 80 cents cheaper than gasoline, so if this

17 program can result in more ethanol, more biofuels

18 being added to gasoline, displacing petroleum, we

19 think the consumer is going to be far better off.

20 But this rule also gives the agency an

21 opportunity to address an important issue for

22 conventional gasoline markets. Simply put, the
259

1 agency should repeat the one-pound waiver for 10

2 percent ethanol blends. The RBP waiver was granted

3 to ethanol by EPA in 1988 using statutory authority.

4 It was provided because gasoline marketers were

5 unable to secure the specially tailored sub-RBP

6 blend stocks necessary to market ethanol fuels.

7 At the time, EPA also concluded that air

8 quality would not be compromised because reductions

9 in exhaust-type of carbons and carbon monoxide

10 provided an offset to the increase of vapored

11 emissions attributable to the higher volatility of

12 ethanol blends. Today, however, 10 percent ethanol

13 blends are ubiquitous in the U.S. motor fuel market.

14 Indeed, refineries regularly produce and ship

15 sub-octane blend stocks through the pipeline knowing

16 that the products will be blended with ethanol,

17 adding the additional octane necessary before

18 reaching the consumer.

19 Refineries could just as easily ship sub

20 RBP blend stocks and eliminate whatever increased

21 evaporative VOC emissions result from blending

22 ethanol, thus the reduced hydrocarbon, carbon
260

1 monoxide and toxic emissions benefits of ethanol

2 would be enhanced and consumers could breathe

3 easier.

4 For the record, I'd like to submit a

5 series of letters that we have sent to EPA over the

6 past several years on this issue that get far deeper

7 into the weeds than this brief statement has. But I

8 do think it would be a missed opportunity if EPA

9 doesn't take the option of reducing -- eliminating

10 the volatility waiver for 10 percent blends in this

11 rule. It will improve the tools available to states

12 looking to reduce ozone pollution from

13 transportation sources. Thank you.

14 MR. DEMOCKER: Thank you. And again,

15 written material that you want to convey to the

16 docket go to the staff at the registration desk.

17 MR. DINNEEN: Will do.

18 MR. DEMOCKER: Great. Thanks.

19 MS. DEBORD: Hi. I'm Elizabeth DeBord. I

20 came here today from Charleston, West Virginia. And

21 I'm in the accounting industry, so the speaking part

22 is really not my forte, so this -- this is big for
261

1 me. But I want to thank you for the opportunity to

2 come here and speak today.

3 I'm here today as a small business woman

4 and mother of one regarding lowering the EPA --

5 regarding the EPA's proposed -- to lower the ozone

6 standard. I'm proud to call -- I'm sorry. Sorry.

7 MS. LANGDON: You're okay.

8 MS. DEBORD: I'm very proud to call West

9 Virginia home. Our state is known for its beautiful

10 mountains, rolling hills, outdoor recreational

11 activities. Although I moved around quite a bit as

12 a child, I chose to settle and establish a life for

13 myself and my son in Charleston. I double majored

14 in biology and chemistry as an undergrad, and then

15 switched gears and obtained a graduate degree in

16 accounting. So my mind is very focused on culling

17 through facts and figures to make a decision.

18 When I first read about the ozone

19 standards and the EPA's desire to lower the

20 standard, I actually ignored it and I didn't think

21 it would affect me. After all, I have an

22 11-year-old son who's healthy. He's outdoors most
262

1 of the time, and I never thought this would impact

2 me.

3 That is until I started to read about the

4 potential impacts of lowering the standard and its

5 far reaching effects. And to be honest, it's a

6 little scary. As a single mother, I only have my

7 income and my health insurance coverage to support

8 me, and more importantly, my son. West Virginia is

9 blessed with clean air today.

10 I've reviewed the EPA data and all of our

11 counties are currently in attainment of the 75 parts

12 per billion standard. Now, I've read that the

13 current standard is protective of public health, and

14 I agree with that assessment. I've looked at maps

15 of the areas that would be in non-attainment if the

16 standard were lowered to 65 parts per billion and

17 saw that not only would Charleston be in

18 non-attainment, but so would several counties in our

19 area.

20 If it were lowered to 60, the entire

21 state, with the exception of two counties, would be

22 in non-attainment. I've read about the consequences
263

1 of it being in non-attainment, and I realize that it

2 could severely impact our economy. The problem with

3 a lower ozone standard is the fact that it would

4 have repercussions across the economy from large

5 businesses to small businesses and individuals like

6 me.

7 In West Virginia in particular, it could

8 have a profound impact on our coal, manufacturing,

9 oil and natural gas industries and other businesses

10 along the supply chain. This regulation, among

11 others, could cause job losses, as those industries

12 will either face cost increases to install new

13 equipment or worse, halt the operations altogether.

14 The losses and cost increases could have a ripple

15 effect to all the interconnected western union

16 businesses which may be faced with increased costs

17 and worse, layoffs.

18 As an accountant who supports small

19 business, a single mother and sole -- sole wage

20 earner and healthcare provider for my son, this is a

21 major concern for me. I don't only speak for

22 myself, but for also many other mothers and fathers
264

1 in my area who would be impacted by the standard.

2 There are many children who suffer from

3 health-related issues, and if the mothers and

4 fathers lose their jobs because of this, the health

5 insurance would also be gone. So I ask you today to

6 please reconsider lowering the standard, to keep the

7 current standard at 75 parts per billion, and I want

8 to thank you for your time and listening to my

9 testimony today. It was terrible, but thank you.

10 MR. DEMOCKER: All right. Thank you very

11 much. And just for the benefit of the court

12 reporter, I just want to make sure it's D-i-n-e-e-n,

13 correct?

14 MR. DINNEEN: Two Ns and two Es.

15 MR. DEMOCKER: Two Ns and two Es. Okay.

16 And Elizabeth DeBord -- D-e-B-o-r-d?

17 MS. DEBORD: Yes, sir.

18 MR. DEMOCKER: Okay. All right. Great.

19 Thank you very much.

20 MR. DINNEEN: Thank you.

21 MR. DEMOCKER: All right. And the last

22 two before our 10-minute break are Linda Plemons and
265

1 Anne Mellinger-Birdsong. Ms. Plemons.

2 MS. PLEMONS BUECHLER: Good afternoon.

3 MR. DEMOCKER: If you could pull the mic

4 -- at least point it toward you. It's kind of a

5 directional mic, so, that's great. Thank you.

6 MS. PLEMONS BUECHLER: For the record, my

7 name is Linda Plemons Buechler, and I appreciate the

8 opportunity to speak to you today regarding the

9 proposed ozone standard. I'm a single mother of a

10 son who's a freshman at West Virginia University,

11 home of the Mountaineers. I'm proud to say he just

12 made the Dean's List.

13 I'm currently a sales executive with a

14 printing company in Charleston, West Virginia, and

15 prior to that I've held the position of executive

16 director of the Independent Insurance Agents, the

17 Soft Drink Association, the Hotel-Motel Association,

18 the West Virginia Safety Council, and the Nurses

19 Association.

20 As a single mom and a leader with the

21 associations, I have long advocated for issues that

22 I feel are important. And lowering the curtain --
266

1 current ozone standard is one of them. I'm also

2 proud to call West Virginia my home. I've lived

3 there my whole life. I love West Virginia because

4 both my son and I are outdoor -- avid outdoorsmen.

5 We ski, bike, whitewater raft. I would never

6 consider the areas where we ski, hike, fish to have

7 poor air quality.

8 Then I read about the governor's desire to

9 lower the current ozone standard of 75 parts per

10 billion, and I saw the map of West Virginia if the

11 standard were lowered to 65 per billion, or worse,

12 to 60 per billion. I was surprised by the number of

13 locations of the areas that -- around in our area

14 that would be out of the attainment at 65 parts per

15 billion, and then even more surprised at the areas

16 that would be considered out of attainment at 60

17 parts per billion. Many areas were what I consider

18 absolutely pristine. How could you possibly reduce

19 the ozone levels in these areas?

20 I was not surprised, however, to learn

21 that the entire State of West Virginia today is

22 meeting the current standard of 75 parts per
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1 billion. To me, this level is indicative of healthy

2 air, and if all areas of the country were able to

3 attain this standard, we could be protective of

4 public health.

5 Then I read about the potential widespread

6 impacts if the standard were lowered, and I felt

7 that I had to come here to testify. The National

8 Association of Manufacturers, a group with whom I'm

9 well acquainted and respect, has indicated that the

10 lowering of these standards could be the costliest

11 regulation in history, and I can see their point. I

12 know that business in multiple sectors across West

13 Virginia have already invested in pollution control

14 measures to meet not just existing ozone standards,

15 but other government regulations to keep our

16 environment clean.

17 Even the printing company that I work with

18 has put controls in place. My concern is that if

19 further regulations are put into place, then these

20 businesses will have to invest even more in

21 controls. For large corporations, those investments

22 will trickle down into higher costs for everyone,
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1 and for many small businesses, such as the printers

2 and the bakers and the auto-body shops, farmers and

3 others.

4 Those investments may be prohibitively

5 expensive. Thus, at that point, what will we do?

6 Higher costs and job cuts, those are major concerns

7 for me. I'm a single mom. My son still has three

8 more years of college. I need to save for

9 retirement and I'm the sole source of healthcare

10 insurance.

11 I'm fortunate that I'm currently healthy

12 and very proud to say I'm 63. What about those

13 families who could also be placed with layoffs and

14 healthcare coverage and have loved ones with

15 critical healthcare issues? These are great risks

16 for American families for a standard which I do not

17 believe needs to be changed at this time. My heart

18 breaks to hear of people who are suffering from

19 chronic respiratory problems, especially when it

20 involves those are at least able to help themselves.

21 I do believe that clean air is a benefit.

22 My question is, is 75 parts per billion really
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1 unhealthy and do we really need to lower the ozone

2 standard when its negative impact is so widespread?

3 What if the lower ozone standard unintentionally

4 ends up actually hurting those individuals that it's

5 intended to help? I stand here today to ask you to

6 reconsider lowering the ozone standard at this time,

7 and to please keep it at the current standard.

8 Our economy is recovering. Areas across

9 the country are in attainment of 75 parts per

10 billion. Even our president in his State of the

11 Union speech sounds optimistic about our future. I

12 echo his sentiments. I appreciate this opportunity

13 to speak to you today on something I believe. Thank

14 you.

15 MR. DEMOCKER: Maybe you could spell your

16 name for the court reporter. That would be great.

17 Yours is P-l-e-m-o-n-s; is that right?

18 MS. PLEMONS BUECHLER: Yes.

19 MR. DEMOCKER: Okay. Great. Thank you.

20 MS. MELLINGER-BIRDSONG: Hi. My name is

21 Anne Mellinger-Birdsong. M-e-l-l-i-n-g-e-r dash

22 B-i-r-d-s-o-n-g. I am a pediatrician with a
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1 Master's in Public Health. I've worked at city,

2 state and federal health agencies, a Native American

3 health center, and I'm on the leadership board of

4 Mothers and Others for Clean Air, a program of the

5 American Lung Association of the Southeast.

6 I am also the mother of two children. I'm

7 speaking today as a pediatrician and as a parent in

8 support of lowering the ozone standard. In fact, I

9 would support a more protective standard of 60 parts

10 per billion as recommended by the CASAC in June. I

11 will start off speaking as a parent. We live in

12 Atlanta. Every summer we have numerous code orange

13 days, often several code red days, and sometimes a

14 code purple day, usually due to ozone.

15 On each of these days, I have to warn my

16 children not to play outside in the afternoon or

17 evening. We have to decide about going to the pool

18 or not, which seems nice on a hot day, but you can't

19 do it if there's ozone and you're breathing a lot

20 swimming. I have to decide whether to let our

21 children -- our teenager go to afternoon or evening

22 sports practice and breathe air that is harmful. I
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1 have to think about working with the school or

2 sports club about the harmful effects of ozone and

3 suggest that perhaps they should shift their

4 practice times to times of the day that are

5 healthier.

6 I will now move to the scientific part of

7 my testimony. I support the proposed new standard,

8 which is better than the previous standard of 75

9 parts per billion. In fact, I would support an even

10 lower standard, which would be much better for

11 childrens' health.

12 Ozone is a respiratory irritant. As noted

13 in the AAP policy statement on air pollution, it

14 causes respiratory symptoms in children and infants,

15 increased asthma attacks, increased emergency

16 visits, increased hospitalizations and school

17 absenteeism. Also, children are more vulnerable

18 than adults to air pollution because they breathe

19 more air for their body weight. They spend more

20 time outside, and when they are outside, they are

21 more active.

22 All children are vulnerable to the effects
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1 of ozone, and especially children with asthma or

2 other respiratory diseases. Children do not choose

3 where they live, where they go to school, where

4 their playgrounds or located, or whether the air

5 they breathe has harmful levels of ozone. They

6 depend on the adults in their lives to make these

7 decisions. We as parents and as a society are the

8 ones who make these decisions for them. Therefore,

9 we have the duty to set standards that protect all

10 children.

11 I can't in five minutes review the many

12 studies of ozone that have been conducted, so I'll

13 highlight some of the ones that were from Atlanta.

14 Peel and co-authors found that for every 25 part per

15 billion increase in ozone, there was a two and a

16 half percent increase in emergency visits for

17 respiratory symptoms. This effect persisted in

18 multi-pollutant models.

19 Tolbert and co-authors found an

20 association between pediatric asthma emergency

21 visits and ozone in both single and multi-pollutant

22 models. They also found a dose response effect
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1 which provides compelling evidence of causation.

2 Friedman and co-authors, in a study about the

3 effects of traffic changes during the '96 Olympics

4 in Atlanta, found that traffic counts decreased by

5 22 percent, one-hour peak ozone decreased by 28

6 percent; pediatric asthma events decreased by 11

7 percent for emergency visits, by 19 percent in the

8 hospital discharge database, and by 40 percent in

9 the Medicaid claims database. The number of

10 non-asthma events in the same databases remained the

11 same during the Olympics, showing that the reduction

12 was specifically for asthma and that reducing ozone

13 does indeed help.

14 In summary, there is clear evidence that

15 the current eight-hour standard is inadequate to

16 protect public health and that reducing ozone

17 exposure provides clear health benefits. The CASAC

18 recommended an ozone level of 60 to 70 parts per

19 billion, pointing out that the standard of 60

20 provides the best level of protection as required

21 under the Clean Air Act.

22 Please adopt the lowest ozone standard
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1 possible to provide the greatest protection for all

2 children. Thank you.

3 MR. DEMOCKER: Thank you. Well, we

4 appreciate both your comments. We also appreciate

5 everyone's patience while we take a 10-minute break.

6 And when we come back, we'll have Collin Rees, Rev.

7 Cizik, Lolita Mancheno-Smoak, and Doug Aus.

8 So we'll be back in 10 minutes. Thank

9 you.

10 (A brief recess was taken.)

11 MR. DEMOCKER: Sorry for the delay in

12 getting started again. We've actually just worked

13 out logistics. So after these four speakers, we're

14 going to merge the two hearings rooms, and if you're

15 scheduled to speak here, you'll now be speaking over

16 there. But we'll make sure your cards get in the

17 cue for the -- for the hearing over there in the

18 other room.

19 Here we have Collin Rees and Rev. Cizik,

20 followed by Lolita Mancheno-Smoak and Doug Aus. So

21 if we can have Rev. Cizik and Collin Rees we will

22 reconvene. And please remember to spell your name
275

1 for the benefit of the court reporter.

2 Okay. Do we know which one you are?

3 REV. CIZIK: Good afternoon. My name is

4 Richard Cizik. That's spelled C-i-z-i-k. I speak

5 today in my capacity as the president of a national

6 non-profit called New Evangelical Partnership for

7 the Common Good, as an ordained evangelical

8 minister, and as having served as VP of governmental

9 affairs of the National Association of Evangelical

10 for 10 years, and as a citizen activist from the

11 Commonwealth of Virginia.

12 Most importantly though, I speak as a

13 father of a son, John, now 21, a 6-foot-5 healthy

14 young man with a bright future. Eight years ago,

15 however, he was diagnosed with severe asthma. On

16 one occasion before we really understand what was

17 happening, he awoke one morning unable to breathe.

18 "Dad, Mom, I can't breathe." It's the kind of

19 frightening experience a parent never forgets.

20 Fortunately, we got him to the doctor and in the

21 exam that would both diagnose his actual condition

22 and prescribe the medicine and inhaler that he still
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1 needs on bad air days.

2 So as a father and minister and citizen,

3 I'm here to urge you to reduce the ozone pollution

4 standards which produce thousands of cases of asthma

5 and other respiratory illness. And we know from the

6 annual state of the air report by the American Lung

7 Association that this area that I live in, the

8 Washington/Baltimore area, ranks eighth among 277

9 metropolitan areas in the U.S. for the highest ozone

10 days. So this is real.

11 Let me also say, I'm here to make three

12 points. The first is this EPA mandate. Let's look

13 at it. It's to set a vision for a healthy American

14 society. And with the standards that are to be

15 announced in October 2015, the EPA has the

16 opportunity to protect millions of Americans from

17 dirty air and unnecessary illness.

18 Look, the smog pollution standard, which

19 is set and enforced by the EPA as the federal

20 benchmark, was last updated in 2008. And as I

21 understand it, that year the Bush Administration

22 rejected the recommendations of professionals,
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1 expert scientists, medical health people and others

2 who warned that the then current 75 parts per

3 billion was insufficient to protect public health.

4 This was back in 2008, and since then, scientists

5 have only confirmed, as I just heard previously

6 stated by a pediatrician who cited many studies to

7 produce evidence, that to adequately protect public

8 health, the smog standards should be set no higher

9 than 60 ppb. This is what I believe.

10 So EPA's role in our society is to set

11 that vision, and I believe you're doing that.

12 Number two, a vision without a strategy is what I

13 call a hallucination, and we are not hallucinating

14 about these problems, real problems, nor about the

15 solutions. I just happen to think that all the

16 evidence testified to the fact that a 60 ppb as the

17 standard is consistent with protecting public

18 health, and if it is set according to the evidence I

19 read, roughly 1.8 million asthma attacks, 1.9

20 million missed school days, and 6,400 premature

21 deaths could be saved.

22 And so secondly, strategy. Really
278

1 important. You'd be violating your agency mandate

2 if you didn't do this. Leadership is about breaking

3 old paradigms, seeing where we are stuck and

4 providing ways to get unstuck. I happen to believe

5 that we cannot count on our elected public officials

6 on Capitol Hill to solve these problems. Common

7 good must trump special interests. It's really

8 important.

9 And so finally, let me say on the tactics,

10 if the first is vision and the second is the

11 strategy, tactics -- the EPA should act boldly in

12 the face of opposition. We once had to ask

13 ourselves as a nation whether a company could only

14 remain profitable by releasing toxic chemicals

15 should be allowed to exist. We answered no. We

16 once had to ask ourselves would a company could only

17 remain profitable by employing child labor should be

18 allowed to exist. We said no. We once had to ask

19 ourselves whether a company could only remain

20 profitable by paying women too little, pushing

21 workers too hard or maintaining a dangerous

22 workforce, and we answered no.
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1 And so, here we are today. Do we as a

2 society agree that the most vulnerable members, that

3 is children and the elderly, should get sick and

4 possibly die so polluters can remain more

5 profitable? Absolutely not. But that is exactly,

6 if you read between the lines as I do, at least, in

7 my opinion, what the opposition has said. So let's

8 be clear about the consequences of corporate

9 takeover of our democracy. It affects every aspect

10 of our lives, the water we drink, not least of all,

11 the air we breathe.

12 So in conclusion, let me simply say that

13 if want to know -- if politicians want to know which

14 way the wind is blowing, it's our responsibility to

15 change the direction of the wind. And it looks like

16 right now on Capitol Hill the wind is blowing the

17 wrong direction. But do not believe it. Do not

18 concede it. You and what you are doing, by vision,

19 strategy and tactics, is what is right, and I simply

20 say, take this action. Do not -- do not be

21 deterred. Press on.

22 And I simply, lastly want to say that what
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1 you and your administrator, Gina McCarthy, are doing

2 is now important. It's not just medically

3 important. It's not just scientifically important.

4 But it is morally important, morally important,

5 because you're talking about matters most deeply

6 felt by all of us Americans, our very lives. So

7 thank you very much.

8 MR. DEMOCKER: Thank you. All right, last

9 two speakers before we adjourn this session and

10 consolidate it into the other hearing room are Doug

11 Aus and Lolita Mancheno-Smoak, and I hope I've

12 pronounced that right.

13 MR. AUS: Yes.

14 MR. DEMOCKER: Any written materials go to

15 the staff at the registration desk.

16 MR. AUS: Okay.

17 MR. DEMOCKER: Just make sure that they

18 get it entered. You can deliver it after your

19 comments.

20 MR. AUS: Okay.

21 MR. DEMOCKER: By order of the card,

22 you're up next.
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1 MR. AUS: My name is Doug Aus. I'm an

2 asthma sufferer from Towson, Maryland. I brought my

3 asthma inhaler with me today. About two and a half

4 years ago, I worked in the summer in downtown

5 Baltimore where I was exposed to dirty air every

6 day. While I was there, I experienced shortness of

7 breath from asthma due to the bad air. I had a very

8 painful breathing test administered by a specialist,

9 a personal physician in Baltimore.

10 Since my asthma flared up in the summer,

11 it is likely due in part to smog pollution from

12 coal-fired power plants. Maryland has three coal

13 plants on the Chesapeake Bay, and only one of these,

14 the Brandon Shores plant in Anne Arundel County, has

15 modern pollution controls that prevent the emissions

16 from these plants from mixing with sunlight to form

17 smog.

18 The Crane and Wagner plants do not have

19 these controls and emit smog and foreign pollution

20 that often drips into Baltimore, which is the main

21 economic center of Maryland, as it has several

22 hundred thousand daytime workers, over 2.5 million
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1 metropolitan residents, and draws many thousands of

2 visitors every year.

3 As 10 percent of American children miss

4 school due to asthma, it is easy for me to see that

5 asthma-related costs alone in the Baltimore area are

6 likely in the range of 50 to 100 million dollars

7 annually. Asthma-related costs include, but are not

8 limited to, missed days from school or work,

9 doctor's visits, and prescriptions from medicine or

10 inhalers. These costs are for both -- for both

11 children and adult sufferers of asthma.

12 This seems to be one thing slowing down

13 economic growth in Baltimore, a city where the

14 biggest construction projects over the past 10 years

15 have been hospital expansions. Maryland's new

16 governor, Larry Hogan, delayed implementation of

17 stricter smog rules within the state. He may forget

18 them altogether.

19 When states do not act, the Environmental

20 Protection Agency must to protect people's health

21 from industrial pollutants. Therefore, the current

22 maximum allowable standard of 75 parts per billion
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1 of smog is too high and should be lowered to 60

2 parts per billion. This would force utilities to

3 clean up the dirtiest coal plants and retire them.

4 MR. DEMOCKER: And your last name is

5 spelled A-u-s; is that correct?

6 MR. AUS: Yes.

7 MR. DEMOCKER: Thank you. All right,

8 again, written materials can go to the staff at the

9 registration desk.

10 MR. AUS: Okay.

11 MR. DEMOCKER: And they will get it into

12 the docket. Thank you. All right.

13 DR. MANCHENO-SMOAK: Good afternoon.

14 Thank you for allowing me to speak to you today

15 about the EPA's proposal to lower the ozone

16 standard. My name is Dr. Lolita Mancheno-Smoak,

17 spelled L-o-l-i-t-a M-a-n-c-h-e-n-o -- hyphen --

18 Smoak -- S-m-o-a-k.

19 I have over 30 years of work experience in

20 manufacturing information technology, human

21 resources, quality and program management, and I was

22 once -- held a position of deputy chief of staff for
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1 information services for the special inspector

2 general for Iraq reconstruction. I've held various

3 executive positions at the United States Postal

4 Service and in private sector, and I'm also faculty

5 at the University of Phoenix.

6 Most importantly, I am a wife, a

7 grandmother, a daughter, a small business owner, and

8 a strong advocate for the Hispanic community within

9 Northern Virginia. And I come to you with this

10 combined experience to speak on behalf of the ozone

11 standards. I'm very sensitive to public health

12 concerns, with a father that suffers from pulmonary

13 disease. I moved him from the Bronx to Northern

14 Virginia, both to provide a healthier environment,

15 to be closer to him, so I can care for him.

16 Having grown up in New York City myself, I

17 understand the impact of air quality on health, but

18 also realize that there are other factors that

19 contribute to pulmonary respiratory problems. This

20 does not diminish the concerns of other families

21 that are experiencing problems similar to my

22 father's, because I witness the fear of losing the
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1 breath of life daily. It is not easy.

2 However, through my years of experience

3 working in the public and private sector

4 domestically and internationally, I also believe

5 that we must have a balanced approach when setting

6 public policy, because the effects of these policies

7 are widespread and long lasting. I'm here today as

8 a Virginian and a member of the Hispanic community

9 to ask that EPA take other perspectives into account

10 before lowering the current ozone standards from 75

11 parts per billion.

12 I believe the current 75 parts per billion

13 standard is working and should not be changed. It

14 is important that Americans be able to live in areas

15 where they are able to breathe clean air, and EPA

16 set a standard of 75 parts per billion in 2008 that

17 is providing just that. I live in Northern

18 Virginia, which is meeting the standard, even though

19 marginally.

20 I look at my father, who moved from the

21 Bronx, where ozone levels are much higher than this

22 area, and it has helped him. Grant it, there are
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1 many other factors that impact his respiratory

2 problems. But cleaner air has made a positive

3 impact. Articles I have read have also concurred

4 that this current standard is protective of public

5 health, so I question why it needs to be lowered and

6 am concerned about the impact if it is lowered.

7 Former Virginia Lt. Gov. Bill Bolling

8 recently published an op-ed that described the

9 potential impact of lowering the ozone standards in

10 Virginia. He cites a recent study from NERA

11 Economic Consulting that estimates, and I quote,

12 "New ozone regulations could cost Virginia billions

13 of dollars in gross state product between 2017 and

14 2040, and cost the loss of tens of thousands of jobs

15 a year."

16 That's tens of thousands of jobs at a time

17 where Virginia is just beginning to see the economic

18 losses directly attributable to sequestration. This

19 past Tuesday, Norfolk Southern announced it was

20 closing its Roanoke office with an expected job loss

21 of 500 to that area. These jobs used to support

22 coal industry jobs until EPA regulations cooked --
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1 kicked into full effect. And in Northern Virginia,

2 we're still struggling to recover from a national

3 recession and federal budget cuts. Thus, a federal

4 policy that could cause further economic harm, such

5 as these lower standards, would only add insult to

6 injury.

7 I have read the views of the Hispanic

8 community is disproportionally impacted by ozones

9 since they may live in urban settings. However, I

10 believe the Hispanic community is at

11 disproportionally greater risk if the ozone level

12 were lowered because they work in industries that

13 could be impacted the most -- agriculture,

14 manufacturing, oil and natural gas development,

15 construction, et cetera, as well as the small

16 businesses along the supply chain. They could

17 further suffer from increased costs and job losses,

18 with job losses, the elimination of healthcare

19 coverage.

20 I ask you today to please keep the current

21 ozone standard and not further reduce it. The

22 unintended repercussions are far reaching to
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1 families in Northern Virginia, Virginia, to the

2 Hispanic community and Americans across the nation.

3 Thank you again for the privilege of

4 speaking with you.

5 MR. DEMOCKER: All right. Thank you for

6 your comments. On behalf of myself, my fellow

7 panelists in the agency, thank you for coming today.

8 If you expected to speak and have not yet had the

9 opportunity, we are consolidating over into the

10 other hearing room, so you just want to touch base

11 with the staff at the registration desk to make sure

12 that you're in the cue. If you want to speak but

13 haven't yet registered, again, also please see the

14 staff at the registration desk.

15 And with that, this session is adjourned,

16 and thank you very much.

17 (Whereupon, at 4:19 p.m., the hearing was

18 adjourned.)

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1 CERTIFICATE OF NOTARY PUBLIC

2 I, JENNIFER M. O'CONNOR, hereby certify that I

3 am a Notary Public of the District of Columbia; that

4 in pursuance of my duties as such, I attended the

5 proceedings in the foregoing matter and reported all

6 of the proceedings and testimony taken therein; and

7 that the foregoing is a full, true and correct

8 transcript of the proceedings for which I reported.

9

10 __________________________________________

 Jennifer M. O'Connor

11 Notary Public in and for the

 District of Columbia

12 My Commission Expires on February 14, 2015

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