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2 In the Matter of: :

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3 HOUSTON OZONE RECONSIDERATION :

 PUBLIC HEARING :

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8 Houston, Texas

9 Tuesday, February 2, 2010

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12 The following pages constitute the

13 proceedings held in the above-captioned matter at

14 Houston Hilton Hobby Airport, 8181 Airport Boulevard,

15 Moody Ballroom, Houston, Texas 77061, before Tamara

16 Vinson, CSR, a Notary Public in and for the State of

17 Texas, beginning at approximately 9:33 a.m.

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1 A P P E A R A N C E S

2 PANEL MEMBERS:

3 MS. SUSAN STONE, HEID

4 MS. LYDIA WEGMAN, HEARING OFFICER

5 MR. GUY DONALDSON, EPA REGION 6

6 MR. GAUTAM SRINIVASAN, OGC

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1 C O N T E N T S

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 Opening Statement - Ms. Wegman.............. 6

3 

 Speakers:

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 Ms. Robyn Prueitt, Ph.D..................... 10

5 Mr. Nguvi Kahiha............................ 15

 Ms. Valerie Covey........................... 20

6 Ms. Susannah Fuchs.......................... 25

 Ms. Karen Derr.............................. 28

7 Mr. Ron Hayden.............................. 30

 Mr. Ted Steichen............................ 33

8 Ms. Janice Nolen for Ms. Mary Partridge..... 37

 Mr. Ryan Rittenhouse........................ 43

9 Mr. Matthew Tejada, Ph.D.................... 46

 Ms. Janice Nolen............................ 49

10 Mr. Robert Malina, Ph.D..................... 54

 Senator Mario Gallegos...................... 58

11 Ms. Brenda Ackarman-Sioson.................. 62

 Ms. Margaret Mitchell....................... 64

12 Mr. Michael Tuvim, Ph.D..................... 66

 Ms. Rebecca G. Moss......................... 69

13 Mr. George W. Batten, Jr., Ph.D............. 74

Mr. Brandt Mannchen......................... 79

14 Ms. Eva Hernandez........................... 85

 Mr. Philip Snyder........................... 89

15 Dr. Michael Honeycutt, Ph.D................. 92

 Ms. Elizabeth Hendler....................... 97

16 Mr. Kevin Bloomer........................... 101

 Ms. Wendi Hammond........................... 103

17 Mr. Neil J. Carman, Ph.D.................... 108

 Mr. Gabriel Clark-Leach..................... 111

18 Ms. Laura Blackburn......................... 114

 Mr. Dan Buda reading for Senator Wendy Davis 118

19 Mayor Annise Parker......................... 123

 Ms. Debbie Hastings......................... 126

20 Mr. Patrick McIlvain........................ 130

 Mr. Donald Cook............................. 131

21 Mr. Deron Patterson......................... 134

 Ms. Elena Craft, Ph.D....................... 138

22 Ms. Christina Wisdom........................ 142

 Senator Rodney Ellis........................ 148

23 Mr. Robert Levy............................. 153

 Mr. Jon White............................... 155

24 Mr. Thomas Weber............................ 160

 Ms. Jenifer Wilde........................... 164

25 Mr. Greg Twidal............................. 165
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1 Speakers (continued):

2 Ms. Tashiica Miles.......................... 169

 Ms. Christine Naspinski, Ph.D............... 172

3 Representative Kristi Thibaut............... 175

 Mr. Jed Anderson............................ 179

4 Mr. Walt Baum............................... 184

 Mr. Peter Bella............................. 190

5 Dr. Nancy Russell........................... 193

 Mr. Ken Flippin............................. 195

6 Mr. Rick Haigwood........................... 198

 Ms. Sharron Stewart......................... 202

7 Ms. Kate Fischer............................ 206

 Mr. Bill Crosier............................ 207

8 Ms. Stephanie Cole.......................... 211

 Ms. Nancy Murphy............................ 212

9 Mr. Jim Schermbeck.......................... 216

 Ms. Nancy Lomax............................. 223

10 Mr. Scott Johnson........................... 224

 Ms. Deborah Shafto.......................... 228

11 Mr. Lev Guter............................... 231

 Ms. Melanie Oldham.......................... 235

12 Ms. Bonnie New.............................. 240

 Ms. Rosalia Guerro-Luera.................... 244

13 Ms. Stephanie Nugent........................ 247

 Ms. Erin Hickok............................. 248

14 Mr. Shaun Bickley........................... 250

 Dr. David Marrack........................... 252

15 Ms. Donna Hoffman........................... 257

 Mr. Jim Lester.............................. 262

16 Mr. Rod Clifton............................. 265

 Mr. David Bradley........................... 267

17 Mr. Jon Boyd................................ 268

 Mr. A.J. Davis.............................. 271

18 Ms. Angelita Sanchez........................ 273

 Mr. Harold J. Farber, M.D., M.S.P.H......... 275

19 Mr. Raj Natarajan........................... 280

 Mr. Larry Stelly............................ 281

20 Ms. Anna Pierce............................. 287

 Mr. Garrett Butler.......................... 289

21 Ms. F.T. Farenthold......................... 292

 Mr. Stephen Kent............................ 293

22 Mr. Alberto Sosa............................ 299

 Ms. Scarlett Russell........................ 300

23 Mr. Michael Drab............................ 302

 Ms. Anna Fisher............................. 304

24 Mr. Joshua Malone........................... 306

 Mr. Jim Williams............................ 308

25 Ms. Bridget Jensen.......................... 310
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1 Speakers (continued):

2 Ms. Gracen Sheni............................ 313

 Mr. Phil Walk............................... 316

3 Ms. Diane Aguirre........................... 318

 Mr. Alejandro Savransky..................... 320

4 Ms. Anastasia Ozain......................... 322

 Mr. James Rine.............................. 324

5 Ms. Judy Emerson............................ 325

Mr. Art Browning............................ 327

6 Mr. Thomas Williams......................... 328

 Ms. Alyssa Ibarra........................... 329

7 Mr. Ian Davis............................... 330

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9 Closing Statement - Ms. Wegman.............. 332

10 Reporter's Certificate...................... 333

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

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3 MS. WEGMAN: Good morning. Thank you

4 very much for attending the Environmental Protection

5 Agency's public hearing on our proposal to set new

6 National Ambient Air Quality Standards, or NAAQS, for

7 ground-level ozone that are different from those that

8 we set in 2008.

9 First, I want to thank all of you for coming.

10 And those of you who had to travel, I appreciate your

11 taking the time and giving your energy to participate

12 in this public hearing. We very much appreciate your

13 being here. It's extremely important to us to hear

14 what you all have to say about our proposal.

15 My name is Lydia Wegman. I am the Director

16 of the Health and Environmental Impacts Division,

17 which is part of the Office of Air Quality Planning

18 and Standards that's part of EPA's Office of Air and

19 Radiation. And with me on the panel is Susan Stone,

20 who works with me in the Health and Environmental

21 Impacts Division; Guy Donaldson, who works in our

22 Region 6 office in Dallas; and Gautam Srinivasan, who

23 is with our Office of General Counsel in Washington,

24 D.C.

25 I'm going to be chairing today's hearing.
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1 We're here today to listen to your comments on our

2 proposal to set different primary and secondary

3 standards and it is an important opportunity for the

4 public to comment on our proposed rule. We on the

5 panel may ask questions if we want to clarify

6 something you are saying, but the chief purpose of

7 this hearing is for us to listen to your comments. We

8 are not trying to discuss or debate the proposal. We

9 want to hear what you have to say about it.

10 I want to briefly describe the proposal that

11 is the subject of today's hearing. It was published

12 in the Federal Register on January 19th, if anyone

13 hasn't found that yet. Based on the Administrator's

14 review of the science of the impacts of ozone and

15 other photochemical oxidants, we are proposing

16 different primary and secondary ozone standards than

17 those that were set in 2008. These -- the primary

18 standards are to protect public health with an

19 adequate margin of safety and the secondary standards,

20 or welfare standards, are to protect vegetation and

21 ecosystems.

22 We are proposing that the level of the

23 eight-hour primary health-based standard, which was

24 set in 2008 at a level of .075 parts per million, or

25 75 parts per billion, should instead be set at a level
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1 in the range of .060 to .070 parts per million. So

2 we're proposing to change the standard to be more

3 health protective, moving from a level of .075 parts

4 per million to a level in the range of .060 to .070

5 parts per million.

6 For the secondary, or welfare-based standard,

7 which was set in 2008 to be identical to the primary

8 health standard, we are proposing instead a new

9 cumulative, seasonal standard with a specific form

10 that is called the W126 with a level between 7 to 15

11 parts per million hours. The administrator intends to

12 sign the final notice based on this proposal by August

13 31st of this year.

14 Turning now to how the hearing will function

15 today, first we are going to be preparing a written

16 transcript of the hearing and we have our court

17 reporter here taking notes on everything that is said.

18 And she will be preparing the written transcript and

19 that will be available as part of the official record

20 of the hearing and for the rule. In addition, we are

21 accepting written comments until March 22nd, 2010.

22 And in the registration area, there is a handout if

23 you are interested in submitting written comments that

24 tells you how you can do that.

25 The way the hearing will work is that I will
9

1 call scheduled speakers to the microphone in pairs.

2 So I'll be calling two people at one time. When you

3 come forward and begin speaking, please state what

4 your name is and your affiliation, if you have one,

5 and it will also help our court reporter if you will

6 spell out your name for her. We are asking that you

7 limit your testimony to five minutes each so that we

8 have time to hear from everybody today and to please

9 remain at the microphone until both speakers in the

10 pair have finished speaking. And then after you

11 finish your testimony, one of us, the members of the

12 panel, may ask clarifying questions.

13 And each speaker's oral testimony will become

14 part of the official record. If you have a written

15 copy of your statement, please give it to the folks at

16 our registration table and we will enter the full

17 written text of your comments in the docket for you.

18 We have a timekeeping system I hope, though I

19 confess I'm not seeing it right now. Oh, there it is.

20 I hope speakers will be able to see it. We might need

21 to move that. So it's green, yellow and red lights.

22 When it's green and you start, you'll have five

23 minutes to speak. The yellow light will signal two

24 minutes left to speak and when the red light comes on,

25 we want you to wrap up your testimony, and if it goes
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1 on too long we'll ask you to stop.

2 We are prepared to stay here as late as we

3 need to to hear everybody who wants to speak today.

4 And if you do want to speak and haven't yet

5 registered, please do so. The registration table is

6 outside. We ask for your patience as we go through

7 the hearing today, and if we need to make minor

8 adjustments, we hope you will understand that.

9 So thank you, again, all for participating

10 and I think we're ready to go. Let's make sure we

11 have the timekeeping system going. So our first

12 speakers will be Robyn Prueitt and Nguvi Kahiha. I

13 hope I didn't mangle that name too badly.

14 DR. PRUEITT: Thank you for the

15 opportunity to speak here today. I am Dr. Robyn

16 Prueitt, R-O-B-Y-N P-R-U-E-I-T-T, a toxicologist at

17 Gradient, and I am speaking on behalf of the American

18 Petroleum Institute.

19 After careful analysis of EPA's rationale for

20 the proposed reconsideration of the 2008 ozone

21 standard, it is evident that the epidemiology and

22 controlled human exposure studies relied on by EPA do

23 not support a lowering of the standard. At the time

24 of the 2008 rule-making, it was clear that there were

25 many issues with these studies and those issues still
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1 remain. Because the Administrator is basing the

2 reconsideration on the scientific record from the last

3 ozone review, my comments will only include these

4 data; however, I must point out that more recent

5 studies also do not support a further lowering of the

6 standard.

7 The epidemiological evidence for short-term

8 health effects of ozone is weak and does not support

9 causality at levels below .08 ppm. The NMMAPS study

10 by Bell, et al. that EPA cites as a key study

11 supporting the relationship between premature

12 mortality and short-term exposure to ozone is an

13 example. This study reported substantial variability

14 in mortality coefficients across 95 cities and the

15 vast majority of these coefficients were not

16 statistically significant.

17 Results were inappropriately combined across

18 cities and summarized as an overall national average

19 relative risk; however, this is of limited value in

20 light of the substantial heterogeneity across cities

21 and regions. This variability should be taken into

22 account if these coefficients are going to be applied

23 to risk analyses.

24 Another issue is that the mortality

25 coefficients were based on 24-hour average ozone
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1 levels rather than the eight-hour averaging time used

2 for past and current ozone standards.

3 Confounding by particulate matter is a common

4 issue in studies of ozone health effects. Bell, et

5 al. computed estimates with and without adjustment for

6 PM10 and claimed that the overall results were robust

7 to inclusion of PM10 or PM2.5. A re-analysis of these

8 data by Smith, et al. demonstrated that when PM10 is

9 included in the model, the effect of ozone decreases

10 by 22 to 33 percent and that the ozone mortality

11 effect is statistically significant only when PM10

12 concentrations are above the median. Although the

13 Smith, et al. re-analysis was not published until

14 2009, EPA was aware of these data through public

15 comments on the 2007 proposed rule for the ozone

16 NAAQS.

17 Other examples of weak epidemiological

18 evidence are the three meta-analyses that EPA cites as

19 evidence of a robust association between short-term

20 ozone exposure and mortality. The authors of all

21 three meta-analyses stressed the high degree of

22 heterogeneity in the estimates from individual cities

23 and the fact that the results for many of the cities

24 were not statistically significant. They also

25 reported evidence of publication bias and
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1 model-selection bias, which should high-bias risk

2 estimates, yet each meta-analysis reported extremely

3 weak risks. Thus, these analyses do not provide

4 robust evidence of a causal relationship between ozone

5 and mortality at ambient exposures as EPA suggests.

6 In addition to the weak epidemiological

7 evidence for short-term effects of ozone exposure,

8 EPA's assessment of this evidence is not

9 scientifically appropriate. Risk estimates that are

10 not statistically significant are used by EPA as

11 evidence for a positive association and in the risk

12 assessment. The few statistically significant risk

13 estimates reported in mortality studies are very weak

14 and susceptible to confounding and bias.

15 EPA also ignored certain negative studies in

16 favor of those with positive results. An example of

17 this can be seen in the review of the panel studies.

18 The key studies cited by EPA reported small

19 respiratory effects but other studies of similar

20 design reporting no association between ozone exposure

21 and respiratory effects were not cited as key studies.

22 EPA also did not appropriately take into

23 consideration the flaws in the time-series and panel

24 studies, such as their use of ambient monitors as

25 surrogates of personal exposures. In addition, many
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1 of the panel studies used self-reported peak

2 expiratory flow rate measurement, which have been

3 demonstrated to be highly unreliable.

4 Controlled human exposure studies also do not

5 support an association between adverse respiratory

6 effects and ozone exposure below .08 ppm. The study

7 by Adams that EPA relied on as evidence of respiratory

8 effects associated with prolonged ozone exposure at

9 .06 ppm did not report statistically significant

10 effects. EPA's re-analysis of these data used an

11 inappropriate statistical test and concluded that a

12 small group change in respiratory function

13 attributable to two of the 30 study subjects was

14 statistically significantly different from the control

15 group. This interpretation of the Adams data is

16 scientifically inappropriate and should not be used as

17 positive evidence of respiratory effects at exposure

18 to .06 ppm ozone.

19 MS. WEGMAN: Your time is up. If you

20 can try to wrap up.

21 DR. PRUEITT: I just have my conclusion.

22 MS. WEGMAN: Okay.

23 DR. PRUEITT: In conclusion, the many

24 issues inherent to the epidemiology and human clinical

25 studies relied on by EPA as evidence for the 2008
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1 rule-making still remain in the proposed

2 reconsideration. The epidemiological evidence for

3 short-term health effects of ozone is weak,

4 methodologically flawed and not appropriately assessed

5 by EPA. Both the epidemiological and controlled human

6 exposure studies do not support an association between

7 short-term exposure to ozone and adverse effects at

8 levels below .08 ppm. Thank you.

9 MS. WEGMAN: Thank you.

10 MR. KAHIHA: Good morning. My name is

11 Nguvi Kahiha. It's spelled N-G-U-V-I, last name

12 K-A-H-I-H-A, and I am with DEKRA America.

13 As a member of the I/M industry and on behalf

14 of CITA, DEKRA America supports the new proposed

15 revision of air quality standards. We believe that

16 these new regulations are necessary to help to ensure

17 a cleaner and safer environment for our future and the

18 future of our children.

19 DEKRA has been in the inspection business for

20 almost a hundred years servicing people and the

21 environment around the world. We understand the

22 effects and consequences that ground-level ozone has

23 on people and the environment. Literature and

24 scientific research states that one of the main

25 emitters of pollutant gas such as NOx and VOCs are
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1 vehicles. As a result, the commitment of the I/M

2 industry lies not solely in making cars safer but also

3 cleaner.

4 The I/M industry has rolled out very

5 effective and innovative programs to curve the output

6 of vehicle emission. For example, the I/M program in

7 the Atlanta area tests, on average, 2.3 million cars a

8 year. The projected emission reduction in 2009 for

9 metro Atlanta alone was 316 tons of carbon monoxides,

10 19 tons of VOCs and 19 tons of NOx a day. As you may

11 imagine, similar success stories can be found in many

12 other metropolitan regions where vehicle emission --

13 sorry. As you can imagine, similar success stories

14 can be found in many other metropolitan regions where

15 vehicle emissions is an ongoing health hazard to the

16 citizens of these areas.

17 Besides the conventional I/M programs to

18 reduce emissions, there are abundant other initiatives

19 to gear America to a cleaner future. These

20 initiatives include Ride-Share programs, public

21 relations campaigns to inform the public on air issues

22 and educational programs on proper vehicle

23 maintenance. The moving public may argue that some of

24 these programs are an inconvenience due to the cost

25 and time associated with emission testing. Even this
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1 argument was taken into consideration by the I/M

2 industry. Technology innovations, such as OBD-II

3 testing and other alternative programs, help reduce

4 motorist inconvenience and help to keep the costs

5 down.

6 No doubt -- no doubt the revision of the air

7 quality standards will create new challenges for

8 program administrators. One might ask how practical

9 new or adjusted programs are to meet new standards.

10 As mentioned earlier, the I/M industry has proven

11 track records on how to implement programs

12 efficiently, cost effectively and quickly. Therefore,

13 it can be argued that the industry has the competence

14 and experience to successfully tackle these new

15 challenges.

16 An example to meet new standards could be to

17 expand existing emission test programs into suburban

18 areas where the moving public heavily commutes into

19 regions with high pollution rates. Another more

20 essential example would be the integration of

21 diesel-operated heavy trucks into already existing

22 federal annual safety inspection programs. Heavy

23 trucks make up the majority of long-distance highway

24 users, driving more than 120,000 miles a year. Trucks

25 use about 14 billion gallons of gasoline, 23 billion
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1 gallons of diesel fuel annually. Heavy trucks alone,

2 excluding smaller commercial vehicles, are responsible

3 for about 3 million tons of NOx emission annually.

4 The influx of commercial vehicles in metro

5 areas cause an increase in emission pollution.

6 According to a study by Oak Ridge National Lab, about

7 25,000 trucks drive through Knoxville, Tennessee daily

8 and contribute 40 percent of NOx emission in that

9 area.

10 There are new regulations for new trucks to

11 meet certain emission standards and several states

12 have implemented annual emission inspection programs

13 to oversee and control emission output caused by

14 commercial vehicles. Nevertheless, in order to meet

15 the new standards of ground-level ozone, a nationwide

16 test program should be rolled out, and maybe in

17 combination with the FMCSA periodic safety inspection

18 program 396, 17 through 23.

19 In conclusion, the I/M industry has proven to

20 be the most effective way to reduce ground-level

21 ozone. In addition, there are significant points that

22 the proposed revision has a direct impact on the

23 economy. Firstly, metro area Atlanta alone,

24 inspection providers employ more than 2,500

25 inspection -- inspectors and the number would increase
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1 if the program is expanded into new areas. Most

2 service providers are small businesses that use the

3 program to create employment opportunities --

4 (Brief interruption.)

5 MR. KAHIHA: Most service providers are

6 small businesses that use this program to create

7 employment opportunities and economic growth.

8 I'm almost done.

9 During the State of the Union address on

10 January 27, 2010, President Barak Obama made it clear

11 how important small business success is to the U.S.

12 economy.

13 Secondly, tougher police -- policies on air

14 pollution force other industries to utilize cleaner

15 energy. Increased investment into clean energy would

16 lead to more innovation, advancement in technology and

17 a cleaner environment but also economic strength.

18 Referencing again President Obama, he stated the

19 effect on clean energy on the economy as follows --

20 MS. WEGMAN: Excuse me. Your time is

21 up.

22 MR. KAHIHA: Last sentence.

23 MS. WEGMAN: Okay.

24 MR. KAHIHA: Thank you. "Because the

25 nation that leads the clean energy economy will be the
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1 nation that leads the global economy and America must

2 be that nation."

3 On behalf of DEKRA America, CITA and the I/M

4 industry, I would like to thank you for your time.

5 MS. WEGMAN: Very good. Thank you both

6 very much. Any questions?

7 Please try to speak in a modulated way so the

8 court reporter can get your testimony.

9 Our next two speakers are Valerie Covey and

10 Susannah Fuchs. Is Ms. Fuchs here? Okay. Great.

11 Welcome.

12 MS. COVEY: I gave her a copy of mine in

13 case I talk fast.

14 MS. WEGMAN: Oh, okay. Thank you.

15 MS. COVEY: Hello. My name is Valerie

16 Covey. I'm County Commissioner, Precinct 3,

17 Williamson County.

18 Williamson County, Texas is one of the

19 fastest-growing counties in the country with a current

20 population of approximately 400,000, estimated to

21 almost triple in the next two decades. We are located

22 just north of Austin, Texas.

23 The citizens of Williamson County proactively

24 support clean air and a healthy environment.

25 Williamson County has voluntarily been an active
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1 participant in clean air force efforts, including the

2 Clean Air Coalition, Clean Air Force, Clean Air

3 Partners, Early Action Compact and an enhanced vehicle

4 inspection maintenance, I&M, program since 1993.

5 Williamson and Travis Counties are the only

6 two counties in Texas which are designated attainment

7 and voluntarily opted into the I&M program.

8 Williamson County and most of its cities have enforced

9 heavy-duty diesel anti-idling ordinances and other

10 emission-reducing measures. We were the first area in

11 Texas, again voluntarily, that entered into an MOA

12 with TCEQ on anti-idling enforce.

13 Our citizens also understand, however, that a

14 healthy, vibrant economy provides the capital for

15 measures to improve the environment, including clean

16 air. A nonattainment designation is costly to the

17 taxpayers and extremely difficult for an area to

18 provide the infrastructure and job creation needed for

19 a growing populace because the permitting requirements

20 are so onerous. Plus, decisions regarding

21 infrastructure expansion or creation are taken away

22 from local control even if funding is strictly local.

23 Williamson County has made great progress in

24 reducing ozone levels through voluntary and

25 citizen-supported measures. EPA's own reports
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1 documents this decline showing the designed value for

2 our area decreasing from 90 ppb ten years ago to 75

3 parts per billion in 2009. Immediate implementation

4 of significantly lower standards would be detrimental.

5 We ask for a gradual implementation of any reduction

6 in ozone standard to allow for more timely and

7 accurate scientific data to be evaluated.

8 Our area is the prime example of a successful

9 Early Action Compact model. It would be reasonable,

10 with the successes already mentioned, to reward those

11 areas that have been diligent to seek -- seeking to

12 voluntarily comply rather than imposing the heavy hand

13 of inflexible governmental implementation that would

14 restrict counties for many years to come. We request

15 that the successful EAC model be continued.

16 Transport ozone from current nonattainment

17 areas and from Mexico adversely affects Williamson

18 County and Travis County ozone load. Transport

19 modeling shows that 60 to 80 percent of local O3 load

20 is from non-area source transport. This means that on

21 days with elevated ozone, the background levels alone

22 exceed the proposed new primary standards. Proposed

23 rules and attainment timetables do not sufficiently

24 differentiate between transport and local source VOC

25 and NOx. We request that the Agency recognize the
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1 role of transport/background ozone in the calculations

2 and implementation of ozone standards.

3 Further, timetables for attainment unduly

4 penalize areas subject to transport/background ozone.

5 Also, the time period to regain attain -- to regain

6 attainment status begins at designation, well before a

7 conformity plan, or SIP, is even prepared, leaving

8 little time for conformity. This leads to a

9 self-fulfilling recipe for continual nonattainment and

10 long-term detrimental consequences. We request that

11 there be a transitional implementation of any

12 reduction of ozone ambient air standards.

13 We have grave concerns about the

14 decision-making process that went into the

15 reevaluation and scientific review of the 2008 data as

16 well as some of the supporting evidence, what we think

17 are inaccurate conclusions based on equivocal,

18 indeterminate and questionable reading of the data.

19 A significant part of the proposed rules are

20 set by comments like "the judgment of the

21 Administrator." Other quotations from the proposed

22 rules include "an adequate margin of safety," "an

23 unacceptable risk of harm, even if the risk is not

24 precisely identified," "increasing uncertainty

25 associated with the understanding of the likelihood of
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1 such effects at lower O3 levels." These comments

2 indicate that the decision-making process is one of

3 policy and perhaps politics, not science.

4 Thank you for the opportunity to provide

5 these comments. We also expect to provide written

6 comments during the comment period. In summary, we

7 disagree strongly with the retroactive and punitive

8 nature of the proposed standards and would request

9 that the primary standard remain at the 2008 O3 level

10 of 75 parts per billion and that the secondary O3

11 standard be identical to the primary standard.

12 We request that there be a transitional

13 implementation of any reduction of ozone ambient air

14 standards.

15 Three, through Williamson County's voluntary

16 measures, great improvements in the ozone level have

17 been achieved. We request that the successful Early

18 Action Compact model be continued.

19 And finally, consideration of transport and

20 background O3 should be a major factor in the Agency's

21 approach to areas presently in attainment. Bottom

22 line, if the ozone standards are reduced to the lower

23 end of the proposed levels, it won't matter what we do

24 locally because of the amount of impact of transport

25 and background O3. Thank you very much.
25

1 MS. WEGMAN: Thank you. I have a

2 question for you.

3 MS. COVEY: Sure. I'll try.

4 MS. WEGMAN: This may be something --

5 MS. COVEY: You know these terms much

6 better than I do.

7 MS. WEGMAN: Well, this is something you

8 may want to submit for the record. You talked

9 about -- I think you said 16 [sic] to 80 percent of

10 your ozone on some days comes from non-area source

11 background. If you can provide the supporting

12 information and how that calculation was done, we

13 would like to see that.

14 MS. COVEY: We will, and there are some

15 other folks I think speaking today. They may address

16 that also. But we definitely will in our written

17 comments. Appreciate the opportunity.

18 MS. WEGMAN: Okay. Thank you. Any

19 other questions? Okay.

20 MS. FUCHS: Thank you for the

21 opportunity to speak. I am Susannah Fuchs,

22 S-U-S-A-N-N-A-H F-U-C-H-S, with the American Lung

23 Association of the Central States.

24 The American Lung Association is the leading

25 organization working to save lives by improving lung
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1 health and preventing lung disease through our fight

2 for air. Air pollution continues to threaten the

3 lives and health of millions of people in the United

4 States despite great progress since the modern Clean

5 Air Act was first passed in 1970. The American Lung

6 Association fights relentlessly for healthy air and

7 exhorts the EPA to adopt a national air quality

8 standard for ozone that truly protects public health.

9 The standard set in 2008 under the Bush

10 Administration limits ozone levels to 75 parts per

11 billion. Overwhelming evidence shows that this

12 current standard failed to meet the requirements of

13 the law and protect public health from serious harm.

14 The American Lung Association recommends the EPA adopt

15 the most protective level in the proposed range: 60

16 ppb.

17 Ozone is a powerful respiratory irritant that

18 leads to shortness of breath, chest pain, inflammation

19 of the lung lining, wheezing and coughing, increased

20 risk of asthma attacks, need for medical treatment and

21 for hospitalization for people with lung disease, and

22 even premature death. Children who grow up in areas

23 of high ozone pollution may never develop full lung

24 capacity in adulthood.

25 Ground-level ozone is one of the nation's
27

1 most widespread air pollutants and threatens the

2 health of millions of people. Where we are meeting

3 today, the Houston-Baytown-Huntsville metropolitan

4 statistical area alone is comprised of a population of

5 over 5.7 million people that are regularly exposed to

6 unhealthy and dangerous levels of ozone. According to

7 the American Lung Association's 2009 State of the Air

8 report, 76 percent of these residents are at a

9 heightened risk of suffering potentially fatal

10 respiratory and health effects from ozone.

11 The Clean Air Act requires that air quality

12 standards must be set at levels that protect public

13 health, including that of sensitive populations, with

14 an adequate margin of safety. The people at greatest

15 risk of suffering the adverse health effects of

16 ground-level ozone include individuals with lung

17 disease, children, people who work or exercise

18 outdoors, senior citizens, those suffering from

19 cardiovascular disease and diabetes, and otherwise

20 healthy individuals who experience health effects at

21 lower levels of exposure than the average person.

22 While many suffer the greatest risk, the fact

23 remains that the serious health effects of ozone

24 pollution affect us all. According to Dr. Rogene

25 Henderson, Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee
28

1 Chair to the EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson,

2 adverse lung function effects and symptoms are

3 observed in some individuals at 60 ppb. Given that

4 clinical study participants are typically healthy

5 adults, this shows that the standard must be set lower

6 to provide the additional protection needed by all.

7 All Americans deserve to breathe clean air

8 and we are counting on EPA to deliver clean air in our

9 communities. In addition to adverse health effects

10 ranging from respiratory symptoms, lung function

11 changes, emergency department visits for respiratory

12 disease and hospital admissions, we know that

13 breathing ozone can shorten human life at levels

14 currently considered safe. Further, the study

15 entitled "Ozone and short-term mortality in 95 U.S.

16 urban communities" shows that ozone kills.

17 On behalf of the American Lung Association of

18 the Central States, I appeal to the EPA to fulfill its

19 duty to protect our health and save lives. Adopt the

20 protective standard of 60 ppb. Thank you.

21 MS. WEGMAN: Thank you. Any questions?

22 Great. Thank you both very much.

23 Our next speakers are Karen Derr and Ron

24 Hayden.

25 MS. DERR: Thank you, panel, for this
29

1 opportunity to speak. I'm Karen Derr. Karen with a

2 K, D as in David, E-R-R, and I've lived in the greater

3 Houston area since the second grade. Presently I live

4 just outside of downtown. I'm here today because I am

5 concerned about the air quality here in Houston and

6 its effects on our health.

7 This is a city with horrible health

8 statistics. My own parents both came here in the

9 1950s. My mother died of -- at 72 from Parkinson's.

10 No one in her family had ever had Parkinson's before

11 and her family can be traced back to the Texas

12 Republic so we know her family history. Parkinson's

13 is a disease that's known to be caused by one of two

14 things: Either genetic or environmental conditions.

15 You can see why I'm worried about our health.

16 After 45 years of living here, I am now

17 experiencing symptoms of asthma. Please, I'm asking

18 you to go forward with setting the primary standard at

19 the more protective limit of 60 parts per billion.

20 Those of us who live here know sometimes you can cut

21 the smog with a knife. Sometimes it burns in the back

22 of your throat when you go outside in the morning.

23 The lower limit will do the most to protect our

24 health, especially for people suffering from illnesses

25 like asthma who live on the city's east and southeast
30

1 sides.

2 I sell residential real estate for a living.

3 I see the effect poor air quality has on our economy

4 here in Houston. Families who come here on job

5 interviews and house-hunting trips often choose

6 opportunities in cities with better air quality

7 instead of Houston. Residential relocation

8 professionals will tell you that measures to improve

9 our air quality, like lowering both the primary and

10 secondary standards to lessen the impact of smog, will

11 strengthen Houston's economy in the long run. Thank

12 you.

13 MS. WEGMAN: Thank you.

14 MR. HAYDEN: My name is Ron Hayden,

15 H-A-Y-D-E-N. I am the Global Warming Chair of the

16 Houston Group Sierra Club. I am here today to support

17 the EPA. Others will talk about the benefits of new

18 proposed ozone standards regarding health and clean

19 air. My concern is the effects of industrial

20 greenhouse gases on the atmosphere and the devastating

21 effect on the global climate.

22 Climate change is not a Democrat idea or a

23 liberal idea. It's not a political agenda. It is not

24 a theory. It is a fact. In the past 650,000 years,

25 the atmosphere has never contained more than 300 parts
31

1 per million of CO2. Today we are at 390 parts per

2 million, the excess CO2 put up there by humans and by

3 the burning of fossil fuels. That CO2 is rising at

4 the rate of 2 parts per million per year. If we

5 continue at this rate, we will be at 570 parts per

6 million by the year 2100.

7 We think we are making progress; however, our

8 CO2 emissions on a global scale are increasing instead

9 of decreasing in spite of our efforts to go green. We

10 are still on a global business-as-usual path. We need

11 to be under 350 parts per million to have a stable

12 climate. That steady rising line of the Keeling Curve

13 needs to flatten out and begin to descend.

14 A recent peer-reviewed climate report

15 submitted by Ronald Prinn of MIT and the Center for

16 Global Change Science, a major climate lab with global

17 credibility, said that a business-as-usual scenario

18 will almost certainly cause the global temperature to

19 rise by 5.2 degrees Celsius by the year 2100 and could

20 be as much as 7.4 degrees Celsius. 5.2 degrees will

21 mean an ice-free planet and sea levels 40 feet to 200

22 feet higher than they are today. 7.4 degrees will

23 mean the end of most of humanity on this planet. -

24 This is just one climate model. There are

25 many others. The warming might not be as bad as
32

1 predicted but it might be worse. Can humanity afford

2 this gamble? By eliminating fossil fuel usage, we

3 will save the earth as we know it from destruction.

4 We will clean the air. We will have healthier people

5 and we will generate millions of new green energy

6 jobs.

7 The worst-case scenarios may not take effect

8 for 30 years or 40 years, but one thing is certain:

9 Each year will be worse than the last and some years

10 will be catastrophic. If America takes dramatic

11 action now, we can save future generations.

12 My purpose in testifying here is to support

13 the EPA. It seems improbable that Congress will enact

14 any meaningful climate legislation before the next

15 election cycle and even then it will probably be

16 inadequate to meet the demands of Mother Nature. You

17 cannot bargain with Mother Nature, you cannot bail out

18 Mother Nature. She does not care about our jobs, our

19 economy, our people or anything about us. It is pure

20 physics. If humans continue to put more CO2 in the

21 atmosphere than the earth can absorb, she is going to

22 rain down misery on the planet like nothing we have

23 ever experienced in human history. We owe it to our

24 children and grandchildren and future generations to

25 stop this global suicide.
33

1 Fossil fuels must be reduced and eliminated

2 within the next 50 years. Coal should be eliminated

3 within the next 20 years. Coal-fired electric

4 utilities are by far the largest emitter of CO2. They

5 need to all be shut down. We need to get on with the

6 job of building alternative energy sources. Wind,

7 solar, geothermal and even fourth-generation nuclear

8 power can fill the gap. The EPA should enforce a

9 Clean Air Act and a Clean Water Act vigorously.

10 If we continue to let special interests and a

11 spineless Congress determine our future, then God help

12 us all. We need a robust grass-roots movement to

13 pressure Congress to enact energy policy legislation

14 that will solve the problem based on science and not

15 on politics. In the meantime, the EPA is the only

16 tool we have to reduce fossil fuel emissions. Thank

17 you.

18 MS. WEGMAN: Thank you. Thank you both

19 very much.

20 My next speakers are Ted Steichen and Ryan

21 Rittenhouse. Is Mr. Rittenhouse here?

22 Let's see. John Stalling, would you like to

23 come forward?

24 MR. STEICHEN: Good morning. My name is

25 Ted Steichen, S-T-E-I-C-H-E-N, and I'm a policy
34

1 advisor with the American Petroleum Institute. Good

2 morning, Lydia and panel. Appreciate seeing you

3 today.

4 As you know, the API is the primary trade

5 association for the oil and gas industry and we've

6 been involved with the NAAQS issue for a long time.

7 There's really three points that I wanted to talk

8 about today. One, I wanted to talk about the role

9 that the oil and gas industry has had to clean the

10 air. I'd like to just highlight what Dr. Prueitt said

11 about the fact that the science is not conclusive.

12 And third I want to talk a little bit about the

13 impacts of this potential rule.

14 First of all, in the years since 1970, as

15 have been spoken by other folks here, the air quality

16 has improved quite a bit, and I want to pick out one

17 example where the refining industry has had a very

18 large part of that. Since about 2004, cleaner fuels,

19 specifically sulfur fuels, sulfur that has been

20 removed from diesel, is allowing for new cleaner

21 trucks and buses and other vehicles to utilize that

22 cleaner fuel in order to operate catalysts and systems

23 that they have on board. And we believe by 2030, the

24 amount of emissions from those fleets of diesel

25 vehicles will be decreased by 90 percent. So it's
35

1 going to be equivalent of taking nine out of ten of

2 those vehicles off the road, again, through cleaner

3 fuels.

4 Again, I just wanted to identify that, you

5 know, Dr. Prueitt, I think, laid out pretty well her

6 analysis of what's happened with the science on the

7 ozone standard. And specifically, there's been a lot

8 of discussion about the 2002, 2006 Adam study, and I

9 think she brought out very clearly that, one, in that

10 study they were testing people in a clinical

11 environment against filtered air, in other words, air

12 that contained no ozone, and they were seeing results

13 that were conclusive that there was some kind of

14 effect around .08 part per million and then it's

15 debatable as to whether or not there was any effect at

16 .06.

17 Dr. Prueitt again talked a little bit about

18 the statistics. There's a number of different

19 published papers that are already in the docket that

20 identify that there is no consensus that those

21 clinical tests of a very small number of subjects

22 actually identify that there is an issue at .06.

23 Okay. Moving on to my third point, I want to

24 talk about what the impact of this is. And again, if

25 we look at the science, we do not see that there's a
36

1 consummate benefit here, and so now we're looking at

2 what the impacts are. And if we look at .06 part per

3 million, the EPA identified which monitors in the

4 country would exceed that level, and basically all the

5 monitors -- not all, but most. And those monitors

6 that would exceed .06 include a site in rural Kansas

7 and areas in the wilderness in the west. And the

8 reason that we don't show the entire country not

9 meeting the .06 is because we don't have monitors in

10 all of the country. So if we did, we would find that

11 most small towns and rural areas would not meet this

12 new ozone standard. So what's a problem today in our

13 major metropolitan areas, which is being worked

14 heavily by our state and local agencies to improve air

15 quality, will now become an issue that will exist

16 throughout the nation.

17 Why is that important? Well, first of all,

18 it points out this conversation about what the

19 background level is. If there are these kind of

20 levels in places where there are, frankly, very few

21 cars and certainly not any specific industry, where is

22 it coming from? And part of it is coming from

23 transport and part of it is coming from naturally

24 occurring ozone. Sometimes it comes down from the

25 stratosphere. There's other issues, but this also
37

1 points to when the testing is done.

2 MS. WEGMAN: Mr. Steichen, your time is

3 up.

4 MR. STEICHEN: Okay. I'm sorry.

5 MS. WEGMAN: That's okay.

6 MR. STEICHEN: My lights weren't

7 working.

8 MS. WEGMAN: Yes, I can see that.

9 MR. STEICHEN: So in summary, this

10 proposal lacks scientific justification for the

11 reasons outlined by Dr. Prueitt, and the variability

12 and uncertainty provide ample justification for the

13 Administrator to adopt a policy not to tighten the

14 ozone standard. This reconsideration is obviously a

15 political and not a scientific act. Job losses, less

16 domestic oil and gas production and energy security

17 will result from this proposal without a clear

18 scientific basis for selecting a different numeric

19 standard. The ozone standard need not be changed now.

20 We urge the Administrator not to pursue this proposal.

21 MS. WEGMAN: Thank you.

22 MS. NOLEN: Thank you. Just to be

23 clear, my name is Janice Nolen. That's J-A-N-I-C-E

24 N-O-L-E-N. At this point, I'm reading testimony that

25 was provided by Mary Partridge, our Chair of the Board
38

1 for this time. She is unable to be here because of a

2 medical emergency, so I'm just reading her testimony.

3 "Good morning. My name is Mary Partridge and

4 I Chair the National Board of Directors for the

5 American Lung Association. I began volunteering for

6 the Lung Association 30 years ago here in Houston.

7 Thank you for the opportunity to share the position of

8 the Lung Association on EPA's proposed national air

9 quality standards on ozone.

10 "The American Lung Association saves lives

11 through the prevention of lung disease and the

12 promotion of lung health. We are committed to the

13 fight for healthy air. Key to that fight has been our

14 work to support stronger national air quality

15 standards. We recognize the critical role these

16 standards play, that they quite literally drive the

17 work that we do as a nation to clean up pollution.

18 "Fighting for clean air, for healthy air, is

19 central to our mission. We are pleased that EPA is

20 reconsidering the recommendations of expert

21 scientists, including EPA's own Clean Air Scientific

22 Advisory Committee, as well as national public health

23 and medical societies, for a much stronger ozone

24 standard.

25 "The American Lung Association calls on EPA
39

1 to adopt a primary national air quality standard for

2 ozone of 60 parts per billion. The Clean Air Act

3 requires EPA to set a standard that protects public

4 health with an adequate margin of safety. But what

5 does that mean, really, to protect public health with

6 a margin of safety? How should EPA provide that

7 protection?

8 "First, it means that EPA should follow the

9 advice of distinguished air pollution experts who form

10 the Agency's own Clean Air Advisory Committee -- Clean

11 Air Scientific Advisory Committee. They gave

12 unprecedented unanimous support for a standard within

13 the range you are considering. These experts reviewed

14 over 1,700 studies. They saw clear evidence of harm

15 that ozone can do to children, older people, people

16 who exercise or work outdoors, people with lung

17 diseases like asthma and chronic bronchitis. They

18 looked at studies that tracked ozone pollution in

19 scores of cities around the nation and found that the

20 ozone levels needed to be much, much lower. They

21 looked at clinical laboratory studies and found that

22 even healthy adults could be harmed if they breathed

23 ozone at concentrations much, much lower than the 2008

24 standard.

25 "To project public health, EPA must set the
40

1 standard no higher than the range these experts

2 recommended. Secondly, EPA should set the most

3 protective level within that range. The Clean Air Act

4 recognizes the limits of science. We cannot know

5 everything about harm from pollution from the tests we

6 do. Researchers cannot test children or people with

7 serious asthma in a lab. The risk for them is too

8 great. That's why the Act requires that EPA include a

9 margin of safety in the standard to provide an extra

10 layer of protection for those who need this the most.

11 "EPA has studies" -- "evidence from a

12 clinical study that found that this pollutant harmed

13 the lungs of healthy adults who breathed ozone at

14 levels well within the range you're considering.

15 Clinical studies are the gold standard of testing. If

16 healthy adults need more protection from ozone within

17 this range, then children and others absolutely need a

18 stronger standard. That's why the American Lung

19 Association and groups like the American Medical

20 Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics, the

21 American Thoracic Society and the American Public

22 Health Association urged you to set the standard at 60

23 parts per billion.

24 "Ozone pollution poses health risks for

25 infants, children, teenagers, seniors, and people with
41

1 asthma and other lung diseases. For these people,

2 smog-polluted air means more breathing problems,

3 aggravated asthma, fear-filled trips to the emergency

4 room and even admission to the hospital. For children

5 growing up breathing high levels of ozone routinely in

6 the summer may mean that their lungs do not develop to

7 their full function, a risk that can affect their

8 health for the rest of their lives. For some

9 individuals ozone means premature death.

10 "The science is clear, the law is clear. EPA

11 has a legal requirement to set the standard where it

12 protects the health of the public, including

13 vulnerable people like a number of my own family

14 members, with a margin of safety. Part-way there is

15 not good enough. A stronger stand is essential to

16 protect public health.

17 "EPA estimates that by setting that standard

18 at 60 parts per billion, that will reduce the number

19 of emergency room and hospital visits by 21,000 each

20 year in the future, will cut the number of days missed

21 from school because of asthma attacks by 2.1 million

22 annually, and most critically it will save from 4,000

23 to 12,000 lives each year.

24 "On behalf of the American Lung Association,

25 I urge you to adopt a substantially stronger ozone
42

1 standard of 60 parts per billion. Quite literally,

2 the health of members of my family and my former

3 neighbors here in Houston depend on you. Thank you

4 again for your consideration."

5 MS. WEGMAN: Thank you both very much

6 for your testimony. I do want to just make one

7 statement. This has come up a couple of times about

8 this being a political decision or a policy decision.

9 This is a science policy decision. The Administrator

10 looks at the science and our proposal lays out the

11 science behind the Administrator's proposed decision,

12 but it is also her judgment. The Clean Air Act

13 specifically gives her the authority to make the

14 judgment interpreting the science before her. So I

15 just wanted to clarify that point.

16 Okay. Thank you both.

17 Is Mr. Rittenhouse here, Ryan Rittenhouse?

18 MR. RITTENHOUSE: Yes.

19 MS. WEGMAN: Okay. Great. And then

20 Matthew Tejada.

21 And I do just want to make one announcement.

22 If you haven't signed in at the front desk, we'd

23 appreciate it if you would do so. Certainly if you

24 want to speak, it's important that you register, but

25 even if you're not going to speak, it will be very
43

1 helpful for our records to have a log of everyone

2 who's come today. So if you aren't going to speak but

3 would sign in, we would still appreciate it if you

4 would sign in at the front desk. Thank you. Okay.

5 MR. RITTENHOUSE: My name is Ryan

6 Rittenhouse. That's spelled R-I-T --

7 (Brief interruption.)

8 MR. RITTENHOUSE: My name is Ryan

9 Rittenhouse. My last name is spelled R-I-T-T-E-N

10 house. And I would like to thank you all for allowing

11 us to provide these comments to you today. I am with

12 Public Citizen, Incorporated. We are a national

13 nonprofit and consumer interest organization. We

14 focus mostly on environmental issues here in Texas. I

15 work out of the Austin office.

16 So today I would like to applaud the EPA for

17 taking such an aggressive stance on attainment issues.

18 We would say you could go even further and, like the

19 American Lung Association just said, even make a

20 stricter standard. We definitely would be behind

21 that. This is a very important issue and there's a

22 lot of people's welfare and livelihoods at stake here.

23 And not only that, but the EPA -- we would

24 like the EPA to go further, and not just on this issue

25 but with all issues. Right now there are 12 coal
44

1 plants proposed here in Texas and coal plants are one

2 of the largest individual sources of nitrogen oxides

3 and other toxic air pollutants in existence. And TCEQ

4 is failing in its job to protect the environment and

5 to protect the public health of Texans.

6 Now, we already have 17 coal plants in Texas.

7 That's more than any other state in the country by far

8 and they're talking about adding 12 more at a time

9 when over this past year energy demand has gone down

10 in the state of Texas. So there's absolutely no need

11 for these new sources of pollution. Just insane.

12 So please, go ahead, come here, come to

13 Texas, do TCEQ's job for them since they can't seem to

14 do it for themselves. The Perry-appointed

15 commissioners are -- seem to be more preoccupied with

16 ensuring that the large corporate companies that run

17 these coal plants are allowed to get away with

18 polluting instead of protecting the health and -- of

19 Texans and the environment, which is what we're

20 supposed to be doing. So please, do whatever you can,

21 do whatever -- for example, they're -- only 75 miles

22 away, as the crow flies, the White Stallion coal plant

23 is proposed in Bay City in Matagorda County. That is

24 going to be the largest individual source of pollution

25 in the county. It will contribute to nonattainment
45

1 here in Houston, and you can stop that plant. You

2 have the power to come in and stop that.

3 And it's not just ozone attainment, it's many

4 issues the coal plants affect, but I won't go into

5 those because we're here to talk about ozone. So

6 please come here, do whatever it takes to stop White

7 Stallion and these other coal plants that are proposed

8 throughout the state.

9 There's a number of other things. For

10 instance, CO2 emissions aren't even regulated by the

11 TECQ. They said they would do it, but they're not

12 doing it. They won't even accept a company's own

13 voluntary CO2 reductions. They won't put it in their

14 permit. And we've been wrestling with them over this

15 for many years. So please, give us a hand down here.

16 Also, there are other existing and proposed

17 coal plants bordering all of the nonattainment areas

18 in Texas or the areas that could go into nonattainment

19 because of this new rule. So this is one of the

20 biggest issues regarding this, is these new coal

21 plants, because TCEQ is also not looking at the

22 combined effect of these plants. They won't look at

23 the combined effect of these new plants with the

24 existing plants. They won't look at the combined

25 effect of all the plants together. They won't do any
46

1 of that.

2 So please, do what's right, stop this new

3 coal rush in Texas. It's completely unnecessary and

4 it will only result in killing more people. Thank

5 you.

6 MS. WEGMAN: Thank you.

7 MR. TEJADA: My name is Matthew Tejada.

8 I'm the executive director of the Galveston-Houston

9 Association for Smog Prevention and Mothers For Clean

10 Air. We are Houston's leading health and clean air

11 advocacy nonprofit. I am neither a lawyer nor a

12 scientist nor a medical doctor, but I am very pleased

13 that you, Ms. Wegman, just reminded all of us that we

14 are here to set a science-based policy to protect our

15 health.

16 We've heard a lot so far today about the

17 impacts of background and transport. I think it is

18 actually good that we are considering a science-based

19 policy because of the problem of background and

20 transport, especially for an area such as Houston.

21 Because Houston has been waging this battle, we can

22 debate about how seriously it's been waging that

23 battle, but it has been waging this battle fairly

24 alone for many decades and we need a standard that

25 will actually force us to start looking at the fact
47

1 that a lot of the pollution that is in the Houston

2 area is coming in or is being re-circulated from other

3 parts of the state and other parts of other states.

4 We will never have clean air in a place such

5 as Houston that really protects human health if we

6 continue under the illusion that Houston's air is only

7 Houston's air and that Houston's air doesn't go to

8 other communities outside of our region and that our

9 communities do not receive air from other regions that

10 are not yet controlled for ozone. That is one reason

11 why I think we should follow the science and set a

12 policy to protect public health that includes

13 controlling ozone for most of the major sources, just

14 like Ryan just mentioned, from a proposed coal-fired

15 power plant that would never be built in our region so

16 it is going to be built several miles outside of our

17 region. That should never happen if we actually want

18 to protect public health and if we ever think we're

19 going to have a chance to reach an ozone standard

20 which actually protects public health from ozone.

21 From my perspective, that is really -- that's

22 really my sincerest hope, is that we set a standard

23 that forces us to start thinking outside of the box.

24 There's a lot of things that we've done in Texas that

25 have helped to lower our ozone numbers, but for
48

1 everything that we have done I would say there's

2 probably another thing that we have not done over our

3 history. And that's not just for point sources,

4 that's for mobile sources, it is for offroad sources.

5 And if you look at the recent modeling, we're going to

6 need a whole bunch of new solutions for area sources.

7 These are all going to be a problem, not just for

8 Houston but for almost any major metropolitan area in

9 the state of Texas or across the United States.

10 And we've heard today that we need more time

11 to figure things out, to have a transition period, and

12 I'd say that is exactly the wrong way to go. We need

13 a goal to work towards. Setting this standard and

14 setting a strong standard is exactly the sort of goal

15 we need to start looking at the options we have

16 previously passed over for whatever reason, political

17 or otherwise, and we need a goal that is strong enough

18 to stimulate Houston, which is home to most of the big

19 brains in this country who have the know-how to figure

20 out how to clean up the air, to actually get us to

21 start thinking of new ways to clean up our air.

22 This standard, wherever it's set within your

23 range, I think is entirely achievable if we actually

24 start to use those big brains and if we start to look

25 at air quality in reality and start looking at all of
49

1 the sources of air quality not just in the Houston

2 region and not just in the State of Texas but across

3 the country. I'm hoping that this new standard will

4 actually force us to start regulating air pollution

5 and trying to protect public health in a cohesive,

6 broad manner across our entire country, and that's why

7 I think you should set as strong a standard as you

8 can. Thank you.

9 MS. WEGMAN: Thank you both. Thank you.

10 Our next speaker will be Janice Nolen. And

11 we don't have the next couple of speakers after her,

12 so after Ms. Nolen speaks we'll take a short

13 five-minute break.

14 MS. NOLEN: Thank you, Lydia. This time

15 it's actually me speaking.

16 My name is Janice Nolen. I serve as the

17 Assistant Vice President for National Policy and

18 Advocacy of the American Lung Association in

19 Washington, D.C. Thank you again for the opportunity

20 to comment on the ozone national air quality standard.

21 First, please let Administrator Jackson know

22 that we applaud her willingness to reconsider the

23 ozone standard. The Lung Association took legal

24 action in 2008 to get this review because we did not

25 want another five or ten-year delay. Her welcome
50

1 decision gives the Agency the opportunity to act now

2 to improve the health of millions and save the lives

3 of thousands of people.

4 The Lung Association urges EPA to adopt the

5 most protective level under review: 60 parts per

6 billion. We understand fully how important this

7 decision is. The national air quality standard on

8 ozone is one of the most important decisions she will

9 make as Administrator.

10 Some may question why the standard needs to

11 be lowered at all. After all, didn't EPA just tighten

12 the standard in 2008? You will no doubt hear

13 arguments that EPA is just moving the goal post

14 presumably just before the clean air football goes

15 sailing over the top. Or as reports often ask me,

16 when is the Lung Association going to be satisfied?

17 When is the air clean enough?

18 My answer is simple: The air will be clean

19 enough when it does not make people sick. Right now

20 it kills them. With this action, EPA has the

21 opportunity to use basic, old-fashioned, highly

22 effective measures that actually improve health by

23 changing behaviors.

24 The current head of the Office of Management

25 and Budget, Cass Sunstein, wrote a recent bestseller
51

1 called Nudge. In it, Mr. Sunstein argues for using

2 creative measures to change behavior. He and his

3 coauthor Richard Thaler cite examples of policy

4 changes that then drove behaviors that provided a

5 welcome outcome.

6 Without intending to agree with all of

7 Mr. Sunstein's conclusions, I would argue that the

8 national air quality standard is such a nudge.

9 Setting the standard does not dictate many behaviors.

10 Instead, it drives communities, states, businesses and

11 the federal government to find ways to reach that

12 goal. Yes, the standard is not voluntary, but many

13 nudges are not. As a tool, the standard has proven

14 its power. We have 40 years of history showing its

15 effectiveness in saving lives and in preventing

16 dangerous health endpoints like asthma attacks,

17 emergency room visits and hospital admissions.

18 If EPA sets the standard at 60 parts per

19 billion, that action will set in motion a change of

20 nudges -- a chain of nudges that will have

21 far-reaching benefits for millions of Americans. Your

22 office produced conservative estimates of the impact

23 the standard will have on health endpoints in ten

24 years. They are especially conservative as they do

25 not include impacts on the millions who live in large
52

1 parts of California. Thanks to the changes nudged in

2 place by the 60-part-per-billion standard, children

3 will have 58,000 fewer asthma attacks each year.

4 Because they had better health, children with asthma

5 would attend 2.1 million more days of school each

6 year. Emergency medical people will have 21,000 fewer

7 children or adults who cannot breathe to rush to the

8 emergency room or the hospital.

9 One of the best examples of the power of this

10 nudge is in the estimate that lowering the ozone

11 standard to 60 parts per billion will help prevent

12 over 5,800 heart attacks annually. Now, EPA is not

13 saying that ozone causes heart attacks, but the tools

14 to cut ozone will clean up particulate matter as well.

15 Cutting particulate matter prevents heart attacks.

16 That's a nudge effect if I ever heard one.

17 Finally, the greatest impact will be saving

18 12,000 lives each year. Ozone does kill. But as with

19 heart attacks, many of those lives will be saved by

20 using tools that reduce particulate matter as well as

21 ozone precursors.

22 Why do we support 60 parts per billion?

23 Because the law requires that EPA set the standard

24 where it protects health with a margin of safety. EPA

25 has evidence from a study that show harm to healthy
53

1 adults breathing 60 parts per billion of ozone. If a

2 level of 60 parts per billion cannot protect healthy

3 adults from harm, how could any higher level meet the

4 test to protect seniors, children or people with

5 asthma or chronic bronchitis?

6 If you need a more compelling reason, think

7 of it as the best available nudge. Where else in the

8 work of the federal government can simply saying yes

9 to the lowest number prevent so much harm, protect so

10 many people and save so many lives.

11 Thank you for this opportunity to comment.

12 MS. WEGMAN: Thank you, Janice. Any

13 questions? Okay. Very good. Thank you.

14 All right. We'll take a five-minute break.

15 (Break.)

16 MS. WEGMAN: We are providing audio

17 streaming of this -- it's actually not streaming.

18 It's an audio recording of today's hearing. And what

19 we're doing is we're recording it and then every

20 couple of hours, we take a break so that we can post

21 the audio streaming. So there is a two-hour delay.

22 But all of this testimony is going to be available in

23 audio form from our Web site, if you want to hear

24 yourself again or hear other people.

25 So just a couple of reminders. If you have
54

1 any written testimony, please drop it off at our

2 registration desk or give it to our court reporter.

3 Please do not speak too quickly for our court reporter

4 so she can get down what you say. And please do spell

5 your name when you come up for our court reporter.

6 So our next two speakers are State Senator

7 Mario Gallegos and Robert Malina.

8 SENATOR GALLEGOS: It's pronounced

9 Gallegos.

10 MS. WEGMAN: My apologies, Senator

11 Gallegos.

12 SENATOR GALLEGOS: I'd rather Mr. Malina

13 start.

14 MS. WEGMAN: All right. You can have it

15 that way.

16 MR. MALINA: Do I have to press this

17 button?

18 MS. WEGMAN: You do, and you have to

19 hold it down.

20 MR. MALINA: Yes. May name is Robert

21 Malina, M-A-L-I-N-A. It's a good Polish name. Means

22 frambuesa.

23 I am a retired professor. I spent most of my

24 career studying the growth, health, and physical

25 activity in children and in fact co-chaired the CDC
55

1 panel that wrote the most recent recommendation of

2 American children back in 2005. And I also currently

3 am involved with a collaborative project studying the

4 physical growth of youngsters living in a copper basin

5 in southwestern Poland looking at the consequences of

6 lead on their growth and physical development.

7 Nevertheless, I'm here on behalf of the No

8 Coal Coalition of Matagorda County and we support the

9 proposed new ozone ambient air standard recommended by

10 the EPA. The rationale is simple: Common sense.

11 Ozone is potentially detrimental to the health of the

12 population and the environment. Coal-fired power

13 plants are a major contributor of nitrogen oxide to

14 the environment. Though the new proposed plants are

15 advertised as clean, this is a relative concept. They

16 are clean relative to all the plants, but they still

17 emit pollutants on a continuous basis.

18 Closer to home, Matagorda County, we are the

19 proposed site for the White Stallion coal and pet

20 coke-fired power plant. We have heard reports of the

21 estimated emissions of pollutants. Of course, these

22 are only estimates. We are informed that the smoke

23 stacks will have monitors. Who monitors the monitors?

24 Presumably Lyondell and Oxea-Celenese, both of whom

25 are located in the county, have monitors, yet both
56

1 companies were listed by the EPA as in non-compliance

2 with environmental requirements for clean air and

3 water and hazardous waste, reported toxic waste

4 releases into the environment within the past three

5 years. The same is true of our neighbor to the east,

6 Phillips 66 Company Sweeny Complex.

7 Wind and water do not stop at geopolitical

8 boundaries. Moreover, of relevance to Houston

9 residents and given the prevailing wind patterns, it

10 is likely that many of the pollutants emitted by the

11 White Stallion plant will make their way to the

12 Houston metropolitan complex and perhaps move the

13 region into nonattainment.

14 Of course, there are no government-regulated

15 monitors in Matagorda County. They are typically

16 located in larger industrial and metropolitan centers.

17 Background monitoring in Matagorda County has

18 apparently never been done. Why? Cost. We are too

19 rural, we are too small in number and too removed from

20 major urban centers to count, contrary to what our

21 local politicians and state representatives say. It

22 appears that they are willing to compromise the health

23 of the population and the environment for the sake of

24 local economic development; at most, 150 jobs after

25 construction is completed, if it's ever completed.
57

1 Hence, it is imperative that the EPA exert

2 its authority and put into place new ozone standards

3 that will improve the quality of the air we breathe.

4 Of relevance in Matagorda County, the lung cancer rate

5 in the county was 28 to 60 percent higher than state

6 averages between 2000 and 2004, the last year for

7 which I could find statistics.

8 The situation is the same for asthma. Texas

9 already has many coal-fired power plants. Among Texas

10 youth under 18 years of age, 61 of every 1,000 who

11 live within a 30-mile radius of a coal-fired power

12 plant have asthma.

13 We heard critical comments on epidemiological

14 science and many questions about the database. The

15 criticisms focused primarily on methods and

16 statistical significance, which is a relative concept,

17 not on the underlying health problems. You tell that

18 to a mother whose child has asthma. You tell that to

19 a teacher whose children cannot go outside to exercise

20 in a time period when we want our youngsters to be

21 physically more active.

22 From a public health perspective, it is

23 cheaper in the long run to prevent disease, and

24 reducing ozone will do that, as already mentioned by

25 many before me. It is cheaper to prevent disease than
58

1 to prevent -- than to treat it. And of course, we all

2 know our healthcare system is already overtaxed.

3 Need I say more? The answer is simple. We

4 need to stop the proliferation of new coal power

5 plants and improve the quality of our ambient air. We

6 strongly recommend and support the proposed EPA

7 standards for the sake of the health of our population

8 and environment. Thank you for your time.

9 MS. WEGMAN: Thank you.

10 Senator Gallegos?

11 SENATOR GALLEGOS: Thank you. I am sure

12 when Mr. Malina mentioned politicians and state reps,

13 he wasn't talking about me. But let me say good

14 morning. And my name is State Senator -- well, I am

15 State Senator Mario Gallegos. It's spelled M-A-R-I-O.

16 It's Gallegos, G-A-L-L-E-G-O-S, and I represent where

17 you're sitting right now. It's called Senate District

18 6, which includes a large portion of Harris County.

19 First, I'd like to thank the EPA for holding

20 the hearing in my district today. I know that many of

21 my constituents and many Houstonians are concerned

22 about the quality of our air and appreciate having the

23 opportunity to participate today. I'm here to testify

24 in favor of the proposed changes to the ozone

25 standard.
59

1 We here in Houston have had our fair share of

2 air quality challenges, and ozone and smog have been a

3 long major issue in the Houston area. Asthma and

4 other respiratory problems are prevalent throughout my

5 senatorial district and the Houston region. Through

6 hard work and collaboration of stakeholders across the

7 region, our area has been reduced -- has seen reduced

8 smog and ozone over the past several years, however,

9 we cannot afford to rest on our laurels when there is

10 so much work left to do. The fact is ozone is still a

11 major problem and threatens the health and quality of

12 life of millions of people, not only in Houston but

13 across the nation.

14 Some who oppose the proposed changes will

15 argue that EPA has created a moving target just when

16 we get close to attainment and the EPA adopts a

17 stricture standard. However, I argue that this is

18 exactly the kind of push we need to continue to

19 improve our air. I am proud of the progress the

20 Houston region has made towards mitigating smog, but

21 we still have a lot of work to do.

22 As State Senator for this region and as a

23 Houston resident, I enthusiastically support the

24 proposed ozone standards and I believe they are

25 necessary to continue our progress against ozone and
60

1 smog and make our health -- and make it healthier for

2 our people across Houston, Texas, and the nation.

3 And on a -- those are my prepared remarks,

4 but I just want to tell you that I have -- every

5 session have proposed several pieces of legislation

6 dealing not only with ozone and smog but air

7 monitoring across my district. I was born and raised

8 here for 59 years, was born and raised right at the

9 mouth of the Houston ship channel, so I know

10 everything that goes on there.

11 I could have provided a better setting than

12 this -- than this hotel. We could have been at

13 Hartman Park where you had your hearing last time.

14 You could have seen and smelled what we're talking

15 about today, and that would have a better -- not only

16 for the folks that are here, but for -- also for the

17 news media that's here. I mean, you can just walk

18 outside and just take a big deep breath and smell

19 everything that's coming out of those towers.

20 But I am serious about this situation. I

21 mean, I was -- like I said, 59 years here in Houston,

22 Texas and born and raised right there at the turning

23 basin of the Houston ship channel. I know when stuff

24 comes in, what stuff comes out. I know what they're

25 unloading and what they're not because I've smelled it
61

1 for 59 years. And I just tell you that, you know,

2 hopefully that these proposed changes in the ozone

3 and -- that help especially Houston -- I know a lot of

4 it is not industry, a lot of it is the automobiles and

5 everything else that, you know, emits emissions into

6 our air, but we got -- you know, we have to start

7 somewhere.

8 And those of us that are -- really want to

9 see clean air, like a lot of people in this room, you

10 know, look for changes and, you know, I am kind of

11 glad that the EPA is starting to come out and kind of

12 open their eyes, when you can't see through the smog,

13 and propose these types of changes. But with that,

14 I'll answer any questions. And thank you very much.

15 MS. WEGMAN: Well, thank you both very

16 much. I have just one question, actually, for both of

17 you. We've proposed a range of 60 to 70 parts per

18 billion and I just wondered if either of you has any

19 view on where within that range it makes more sense to

20 set the standard.

21 MR. MALINA: From the perspective of the

22 health of the children, the lower the better. It's

23 very, very simple. They're the next generation.

24 They're the ones that will be paying for it, both

25 tax-wise and health-wise.
62

1 MS. WEGMAN: Thank you.

2 SENATOR GALLEGOS: That was Robert

3 Malina who just made those comments. And I agree with

4 Mr. Malina and I think that -- you know, and I'm a

5 realist. I see both sides of this and there's

6 industry on the other side, but you can't work if you

7 can't breathe. And you know, I'm saying that a lot of

8 the industry hires my folks, hires my constituents,

9 but they also got to breathe and -- in order to work.

10 So -- and I've seen so many of them with asthma. And

11 the ones that testified at the Hartman -- at the

12 Hartman Park had a lot of -- you know, they had --

13 they brought their oxygen tanks and then stuff like

14 that, but it's a reality in my district and across the

15 city and across this country. Thank you.

16 MS. WEGMAN: Thank you. Thank you both.

17 Our next two speakers are Brenda -- Brenda

18 Ackarman and Margaret Mitchell.

19 MS. ACKARMAN-SIOSON: Good morning. My

20 name is Brenda Ackarman-Sioson and Brenda is easy.

21 (Brief interruption.)

22 MS. ACKARMAN-SIOSON: Okay. My name is

23 Brenda Ackarman-Sioson, and that last name is

24 A-C-K-A-R-M-A-N hyphen S-I-O-S-O-N, and that's not the

25 first time I've had to spell that.
63

1 I'm testifying here today in three

2 capacities: One -- and they're all related, though.

3 One as a representative of Gordon-Darby, Incorporated,

4 the current database provider for the State of Texas

5 and other states' I/M programs. And that's inspection

6 and maintenance programs. One as a private citizen

7 who does get my car inspected and emissions-tested

8 every year, all four cars. That's not a good thing.

9 Right? And then also as a 14-year member of the I/M

10 industry. I've worked in state government as well as

11 in the private sector in the I/M industry.

12 In all capacities, I'm in support of the

13 EPA's implementation of the strictest standards

14 related to ground-level ozone. The data from our I/M

15 programs across the country does support the

16 effectiveness of the programs in reducing harmful

17 emissions for motor vehicles. And additionally, the

18 technology used to test most of the vehicles today is

19 relatively unobtrusive and it's convenient for the

20 motorists. So -- and additionally, it's also more --

21 gotten very much so cost-effective. So I think it's

22 very little to ask of states and citizens, motorists

23 in particular, to get their cars tested so that they

24 can do their share for cleaner air.

25 I will end by saying this is a very
64

1 complicated issue, however, I have respect for what

2 the EPA is doing. There are no two nonattainment

3 areas that are alike. And with that said, I encourage

4 the EPA to consider these differences when setting the

5 standards, but most importantly or more importantly

6 when implementing and enforcing those standards. We

7 do owe it to our children to act responsibly as

8 always. Thank you.

9 MS. WEGMAN: Thank you.

10 MS. MITCHELL: Hi. My name is Margaret

11 Mitchell and I haven't really prepared my remarks so

12 I'm just going to go off the cuff. And I am here to

13 ask when the EPA will not only set standards but when

14 will the EPA enforce the standards? The day that the

15 eight-hour ozone standard was implemented was the day

16 that we had the ozone that the one-hour standard

17 completely failed but that was the day that the

18 one-hour standard was no longer relevant. The

19 six-hour -- the new standard is better, however, it

20 still does not regulate the spikes of ozone which are

21 a different type of damage. Chronic versus spiked

22 ozone are both dangerous.

23 And then secondly, not only do we need to

24 actually enforce the ozone standards, Texas is in a

25 unique position because of our petrochemical
65

1 industrial complex and many of the laws and the tools

2 that regulators are given by EPA across the board

3 don't really help Houston. And one of the examples is

4 benzene. The majority of the country, benzene is a

5 global source. However, Houston is different in that

6 we have such a large industrial complex that the

7 majority of our benzene is actually from point

8 sources.

9 Now, I don't -- I researched that two years

10 ago and I don't know what the latest standing, but I

11 just know that the latest commissioner of our

12 Environmental Quality Commission says that we can't do

13 anything about benzene because we don't have the

14 tools. So not only do we need to enforce

15 health-related standards, we need to give our

16 regulators the tools by which to enforce the

17 standards.

18 And the science is continually showing that

19 the history of emissions that we have is completely

20 inaccurate. We are getting so many emissions that

21 have never been monitored or measured. The whole

22 upset issue is just a disgrace. And I beg -- I beg

23 the EPA to finally give Houston the tools that it

24 needs to solve our ozone problem.

25 Our ozone problem is not a threat. It is a
66

1 reality. Children are being damaged every single day,

2 and just because we haven't had the same ozone

3 recently is because we haven't had 55, 60 days in a

4 row of a hundred degrees. Luckily, in the last two or

5 three years we've had very mild temperatures, but if

6 we go into another weather cycle where we get the more

7 usual sustained hot days, the ozone is going to shoot

8 up again. So I ask the EPA to look at Houston, to

9 look at our situation, and help us. Thank you.

10 MS. WEGMAN: Thank you both very much

11 for your testimony. Thank you.

12 Our next two speakers are Michael Tuvim and

13 Rebecca Moss.

14 Good morning.

15 DR. TUVIM: Good morning. My name is

16 Michael Tuvim, T-U-V-I-M. I am an associate professor

17 of pulmonary medicine at M.D. Anderson Cancer Center.

18 I'm not a physician. I'm a scientist. I do work with

19 lung disease models, although I'm not an ozone

20 professional I'd say. I studied available data and

21 mostly what I know about it comes from published

22 research. I am grateful to the esteemed panel for the

23 opportunity to testify.

24 And I'm very pleased that EPA is taking a

25 step towards cleaner air by proposing to strengthen
67

1 the national air quality standard for ozone consistent

2 with what independent scientists conclude is

3 necessary. I think it's well known that ozone is a

4 powerful pollutant that can damage our lungs and

5 airways causing health effects ranging from coughing

6 and wheezing to asthma attacks and even premature

7 deaths. Certain groups of population, like pregnant

8 women, children, teenage, senior citizens, and people

9 with lung disease are particularly vulnerable to the

10 health effects of ozone.

11 And new epidemiological and clinical studies

12 show the health impact of breathing ozone at levels

13 lower than the current ambient quality standard. In

14 fact, clinical studies of otherwise healthy adults

15 have found decreased lung function, increased

16 respiratory systems [sic], inflammation, increased

17 susceptibility to respiratory infection at or below

18 the current standards of 75 -- .075 parts per million.

19 Specifically, I found published research,

20 which in the rigorous model elevation, found that even

21 at 60 such characteristics as forced vital capacity

22 and forced expiratory volume measurably decreased

23 after six hours exposure in healthy volunteers. I

24 have a references in my statement here.

25 And of course, the effects of ozone are much
68

1 more pronounced in individuals with lung disease,

2 particularly in asthmatics. Here in Harris County, in

3 2009 we had 140 days with high ozone. And by high, I

4 mean, you know, all the sort of those orange ozone

5 days, red and purple, whatever is high. Here we have

6 about 4 million people living, and in those various

7 groups of risk, like women, senior citizen, diabetes

8 and so forth, we can safely lump more than a million

9 people. So those groups are not -- not some fringe,

10 small buckets of population. It affects the majority

11 of people.

12 And in 2007, the independent Clean Air

13 Scientific Advisory Committee reviewed a summary of

14 scientific research and concluded that an ozone

15 standard greater than .070 parts per million is not

16 adequate. As -- under the Clean Air Act, air quality

17 standards must be set at levels that protect public

18 health, including that of sensitive populations.

19 Indeed, the Supreme Court has ruled that EPA may not

20 consider other factors, such as economic cost, when

21 setting ambient air quality standards. As a result,

22 the Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee

23 recommended setting a new ozone standard at the range

24 of 0.60 [sic] to 70 parts per million. And as I said,

25 the research states that even at 60, you can measure
69

1 the effect, although mild.

2 And when crafting 2008 standards, EPA

3 unfortunately disregarded and misrepresented

4 scientific recommendations from Clean Air Scientific

5 Advisory Committee and from EPA's own scientists. The

6 standard was set at an arbitrary level that was

7 inconsistent with the scientific consensus. The

8 standards ensured that the millions of Americans who

9 live in communities with ozone concentration at the

10 high end of the allowable range continued to breathe

11 toxic and polluted air. And unfortunately this -- oh,

12 my time is up. That's it.

13 MS. WEGMAN: You can finish your

14 sentence if you'd like.

15 DR. TUVIM: Well, I hope that EPA will

16 basically listen to the scientists, you know, with all

17 the relying professionals in our everyday activities,

18 you know, car mechanics or air scientists. We have to

19 go by what people who know most about the subject tell

20 us. That's my personal approach. Thank you.

21 MS. WEGMAN: Thank you, Dr. Tuvim. And

22 if you do have references to the things you've said,

23 that would be very, very helpful.

24 Ms. Moss?

25 MS. MOSS: Hi, my name is Rebecca Moss,
70

1 R-E-B-E-C-C-A M-O-S-S, and I am here representing the

2 Texas Association of Manufacturers.

3 I am going to start off by giving you some

4 information about Texas manufacturers and the

5 manufacturing sector. The Texas Association of

6 Manufacturers represents more than 450 large and small

7 Texas manufacturers covering every manufacturing

8 sector and employing more than 800,000 Texans. In

9 2008, Texas remained the top exporting state in the

10 nation for the seventh year in a row according to the

11 U.S. Commerce Department report. When the final

12 numbers are tallied, we expect to keep this ranking

13 for 2009.

14 Manufacturing contributes over $96 billion

15 annually to the Texas economy. Every one dollar in

16 manufactured goods generates an additional dollar and

17 43 cents in economic activity, more than any other

18 sector. Manufacturing contributes one-third of all

19 corporate taxes collected by state and local

20 governments. Manufacturers employed approximately

21 892,000 Texans in 2008 with an average compensation of

22 $63,000, the highest in the private executor. Not

23 only does manufacturing create jobs directly,

24 depending on the manufactured product, between two and

25 a half and 17 indirect jobs are created for every one
71

1 manufacturing job.

2 I am here today because TAM opposes the EPA's

3 eight-hour proposed ozone standard. TAM's core policy

4 principles promote quality jobs for Texans in a

5 positive environment for Texas manufacturers. One

6 such core principle is to promote a regulatory

7 environment that is fair, transparent, science-based

8 and predictable. TAM cannot support the proposed

9 eight-hour ozone standard because it runs afoul of

10 this core principle for many reasons.

11 The current air quality standard is improving

12 air quality, and since 1997, when the EPA established

13 a primary eight-hour ozone standard, there have been

14 no significant scientific developments justifying this

15 dramatically lower standard.

16 While the scientific rationale for the EPA's

17 proposal is unclear, the consequences of this proposal

18 are concrete. First, the EPA's proposal will undo

19 state utility plans that were created to efficiently

20 and cost-effectively reduce emissions. If the

21 standard is adopted, the power sector cannot protect

22 the diversity of fuels used for electric generation in

23 Texas or the cost of electricity for consumers. As

24 the number one consumer of energy, manufacturers will

25 be hit the hardest by this consequence and forced to
72

1 move operations overseas where energy prices are not

2 at the mercy of an increasingly unpredictable

3 regulatory scheme.

4 In addition to higher energy prices,

5 manufacturers small and large will be adversely

6 impacted when hundreds of counties become

7 nonattainment under the proposed standard. In

8 addition to having state and local officials seek

9 emission cuts for manufacturers, new and modified

10 sources in a nonattainment area must offset their

11 emissions. This will discourage economic investment

12 and development in Texas and throughout the United

13 States, further exporting tax dollars and jobs

14 overseas.

15 The final consequence I will address regards

16 the proposed standard and current background ozone

17 concentrations. In many areas in Texas, background

18 ozone standards are higher than the standard set in

19 the EPA's current proposal. The climate, vegetation

20 and landscape of eastern Texas naturally -- sorry --

21 naturally contribute a significant percentage of the

22 background ozone in the state. To compound these

23 natural features, mobile source emissions in Texas'

24 numerous urban areas contribute overwhelmingly to

25 ozone precursor emissions. This fact is further
73

1 exacerbated by our shared border with Mexico and

2 foreign mobile source emissions, emissions which Texas

3 has no authority to control.

4 Even if manufacturers control all the

5 emissions they can, other sources, whether natural or

6 mobile, foreign or domestic, are uncontrollable but

7 negatively impact operations under the attainably low

8 proposed standard.

9 In conclusion, I'd like to point to the great

10 strides in air quality that have been made under the

11 current Texas air permitting program. Ambient

12 concentrations of ozone and other criteria pollutants

13 have been significantly reduced. Fuel-fired electric

14 generation units have -- are already subject to

15 extensive state and federal regulation which has

16 dramatically reduced NOx emissions. Industry has

17 worked diligently to meet the current standard and is

18 continuing to work with regional government, citizens

19 and the business community to improve air quality in

20 Texas. Mandating that emissions be reduced to this

21 lower and likely unattainable level will cripple

22 industry at a time when other factors are already

23 forcing American jobs overseas.

24 As manufacturers, we make the things you use,

25 from pharmaceuticals to airplanes and gasoline. If
74

1 you want these things to continue to be made in

2 America, please carefully consider the consequences of

3 the costly proposal such as the one before you today.

4 Thank you very much.

5 MS. WEGMAN: Thank you. I just want to

6 state for the record that, as I think you're probably

7 aware, cost actually can't be taken into account in

8 the setting of the standards. The things you talk

9 about are largely implementation questions that are

10 not related to the setting of the standards. To the

11 extent you have any scientific, you know, information

12 you want to provide for the record, please do, as well

13 as information about the background points you made.

14 MS. MOSS: Okay.

15 MS. WEGMAN: That would be very helpful.

16 MS. MOSS: Thank you.

17 MS. WEGMAN: Thank you both very much.

18 Our next speakers are George Batten and

19 Brandt Mannchen. And I believe, Dr. Batten, you have

20 a PowerPoint presentation. Is that correct?

21 DR. BATTEN: Yes. My name is George

22 Batten. That's George as in George Washington and

23 Batten, B-A-T-T-E-N, as in batten down the hatches.

24 Some of my credentials appear in the written

25 comments that I'm supplying and so I'll omit them
75

1 except to say that I consider myself a knowledgeable

2 citizen and I have a little education in atmospheric

3 physics and chemistry, but I am not an atmospheric

4 expert.

5 I'm a native Houstonian who's been in

6 residence here for all except one of my 72 years.

7 That's long enough that I remember my father showing

8 me the Big Dipper and the Little Dipper on clear

9 summer night skies from our yard in the Montrose area.

10 Usually that's not possible now. I also remember

11 ground-level ozone so concentrated that a red sun at

12 noon could be seen near my office at the University of

13 Houston prompting me to add a line to the well-known

14 sailor's weather rhyme: Red sun at night, sailor's

15 delight. Red sun in the morning, sailor's take

16 warning. Red sun at noon, lungs gone too soon.

17 Those times are gone and the ground-level

18 atmosphere is a little better now, but Houstonians

19 still suffer from ozone produced by sunlight acting on

20 ozone precursors from many sources, especially from

21 vehicles and local chemical plants. As the rhyme

22 indicates, long-term exposure to ground-level ozone

23 causes much damage to lungs, making breathing more

24 difficult and reducing life expectancy.

25 Too often when action is needed and a few
76

1 people oppose it, one hears the cry of jobs, jobs,

2 jobs. In this case, however, one can look at

3 EPA-posted data about ozone and see the thousands of

4 person days lost because of it. Economically, the

5 person days lost are equivalent to jobs lost. That

6 and the also posted high mortality and morbidity due

7 to ozone lead me to urge the EPA to, one, strengthen

8 the eight-hour primary ozone standard to no more than

9 65 parts per million -- I'm sorry, 65 parts per

10 billion. And that's in my written comment, but I

11 actually would like to see it at 60 parts per billion.

12 And two, to establish the seasonal secondary standard

13 close to the low end of the proposed range, that is,

14 near 7 ppm hours.

15 The EPA's statistical arguments are needed

16 but not easily understood by the average citizen, so I

17 want to conclude by something that will make the

18 effect of ozone obvious. Perhaps you've wondered, as

19 I did years ago, why in some cities, Houston in

20 particular, rubber bands around boxes and document

21 stacks become weak, then break, then become a gooey

22 mess. In his autobiography, the late physicist

23 Richard Feynman mentions, without explanation, that

24 rubber bands last longer in New Mexico than they do in

25 Los Angeles. The cause is ozone, which breaks rubber
77

1 molecules.

2 I am going to need a slide now. I don't

3 know, is there a -- is that the --

4 MS. WEGMAN: Let me see what we can do.

5 We can get our tech people here.

6 DR. BATTEN: Okay. The first slide

7 shows an ozone sensor that anyone with a hammer can

8 make. It's probably a good Cub Scout project. It's a

9 little bit hard for you to see, I think, but I'll

10 point out here it has two rubber bands. This rubber

11 band -- this rubber band right here is exposed to the

12 air. This one up here is covered with kitchen

13 plastic. It's got a couple of pieces of cellophane

14 tape around it just to hold it in place.

15 I hung this sensor behind my house.

16 Am I supposed to push this to the next slide

17 or something? Oh, there it is.

18 The bottom here is the north side of the

19 house -- or not the north side, the eaves of the

20 house. So the sunlight is coming in from -- or the

21 skylight is coming in that side so this is protected

22 from skylight. It's not really essential, it turns

23 out. But I hung it there a week ago Friday, left it

24 there for -- until Sunday, took it out and looked at

25 the two rubber bands that are there.
78

1 Push the right button here in a minute.

2 Maybe. Well, it's essential that I show you the next

3 one.

4 MS. WEGMAN: Let's see if we can get

5 some help.

6 DR. BATTEN: Just got to know where the

7 button is.

8 This is the control rubber band which was

9 covered in plastic. You will notice that it has a

10 rather smooth edge to it. This is a photomicrograph

11 that I -- I'm not a very good photomicrographer, but I

12 hope that shows up a little bit. Remember that this

13 was left up for a week in the winter when we don't

14 have very much ozone.

15 I just turned it off.

16 MS. WEGMAN: If you can just wrap up

17 with your last slide.

18 DR. BATTEN: Get one more slide up here.

19 MS. WEGMAN: Yeah.

20 DR. BATTEN: Okay. You see what happens

21 to this. This is caused by the ozone attacking the

22 rubber there. That's only after a week at this -- the

23 ozone level was only about 40 parts per -- less than

24 40 parts per billion at this time. Thank you.

25 MS. WEGMAN: Thank you.
79

1 Just one question I wanted to be clear

2 on. You said in your written testimony you were

3 supporting a level of 65 parts per billion but in your

4 oral testimony you were supporting 60? Is that --

5 MR. BATTEN: Actually, what I said was

6 in the written document it says no more than 65 parts

7 per billion.

8 MS. WEGMAN: Thank you for the

9 clarification.

10 Mr. Mannchen?

11 MR. MANNCHEN: My name is Brandt

12 Mannchen, B-R-A-N-D-T M-A-N-N-C-H-E-N, and I'm the air

13 quality chair for the Houston Regional Group of the

14 Sierra Club.

15 I have two issues I'd like to talk about

16 today. The first issue can be summed up by saying

17 who, after all, speaks for forests, nature and

18 wilderness. This regards the secondary standard for

19 ozone and we prefer the lower end, the 7 ppm level,

20 but we'd also like to bring up the concern is whether

21 this standard is understandable to the normal person.

22 After all, what EPA is proposing is a

23 cumulative, seasonal standard expressed as an annual

24 index of the sum of weighted hourly concentrations

25 cumulated over 12 hours per day, 8:00 a.m. to 8:00
80

1 p.m., during the consecutive three-month period within

2 the ozone season with a maximum index value set at a

3 level within the range of 7 to 15 parts per million

4 hours.

5 No offense, but that is incomprehensible to

6 the average person and we -- we want a standard that's

7 close to 7 ppm but maybe in a different format so that

8 people can actually understand it.

9 The reason we support a stronger secondary

10 standard in part is because of climate change, which

11 could drive higher ozone standards, and we already

12 have stressed ecosystems and vegetation, and so this

13 would cause even additional stress to these

14 ecosystems. Vegetation is more sensitive to ozone

15 than humans are. Vegetation serves as the canary in

16 the coal mine with regard to ozone, climate change,

17 and human health and welfare.

18 Also, we would like to suggest that we need

19 air monitors in our state parks, national parks and

20 refuges and forests. We would suggest Sam Houston

21 National Forest near -- and a monitor near Little Lake

22 Creek Wilderness area, which is not a Class I

23 wilderness area but it's a beautiful area nonetheless.

24 Trinity River National Wildlife Refuge, Big Thicket

25 National Preserve, San Bernard National Wildlife
81

1 Refuge where the beautiful Columbia bottomland

2 vegetation exists. And these areas are downwind of

3 the Houston area and so they would provide a good idea

4 of what sort of damage is being done or damage is not

5 being done because of the ozone.

6 If these areas don't work out, you might try

7 some of the state parks, like Stephen F. Austin or

8 Huntsville State Park or some of the local nature

9 parks.

10 In wilderness, the standard is untrammeled

11 and you must preserve natural conditions, and with a

12 more stringent national ambient air quality standard

13 we will have less trammeling and more natural

14 conditions in wilderness and also benefit other

15 natural areas.

16 The second thing I'd like to speak about is

17 there are those who say that a stronger ozone standard

18 is not achievable. Those people are wrong. All it

19 takes is a will and there will be multiple ways to

20 achieve the standard. We need to do what is best for

21 the health of the public and not someone's desire to

22 make money.

23 One area where you can do a whole lot is

24 upsets. It seems to me that probably 95 percent of

25 the upsets, when you look at the reasons why they have
82

1 upsets, which are emissions that are sort of like

2 "whoops," are caused either by human area [sic],

3 equipment malfunction or poor maintenance or poor

4 design, and those are preventable. So most upsets are

5 preventable.

6 And we have weak enforcement and our

7 enforcement here is so weak that the Sierra Club has

8 been forced to sue Shell, for instance, and have an

9 agreement to reduce upsets. We also have sued Chevron

10 and we're in negotiations with Chevron about reducing

11 their upsets. And there may be other companies that

12 we go in the same direction. Because citizens'

13 lawsuits, unfortunately, down here are what is

14 required to get some of these companies to clean up.

15 It is disheartening to hear the Governor of

16 Texas speak out against clean air and the proposal to

17 strengthen the ozone standard which protects public

18 health and welfare. Governor Perry says that such an

19 effort will kill jobs, but he does not say that ozone

20 kills and hurts people. This is not leadership.

21 Apologists for polluters are not leaders but service

22 of polluters.

23 It is disheartening that the Texas Commission

24 on Environmental Quality states, "We've been very

25 active in getting all the low-hanging fruit. We're
83

1 really running into a brick wall." After 40 years,

2 TCEQ should be going after more than low-hanging

3 fruit. If this is the best TCEQ can do, then we need

4 EPA to assume responsibility for the preparation and

5 implementation of the state implementation plan. A

6 defeatist attitude does not lead to clean air.

7 This is the same TCEQ who three years ago

8 said you could shut down the Houston ship channel and

9 it wouldn't make a difference for attaining the ozone

10 standard and yet just last year they said we have

11 attained the standard of .08 parts per million and

12 therefore we're doing really well and patted

13 themselves on the back.

14 TCEQ needs to be pushed very hard to do its

15 job, which is the protection of the public health and

16 welfare. TCEQ's job is not to process permits for

17 polluters as fast as possible.

18 I have two sentences.

19 It is not to make excuses for pollution and

20 it is not to fail to enforce the law against

21 polluters. The Sierra Club hopes that the TCEQ and

22 Governor get the message and begin an honest effort to

23 reduce emissions which cause ozone. Nothing less will

24 do. This is a matter of life and breath. Thank you.

25 MS. WEGMAN: Thank you. I actually have
84

1 two questions for you. One is about the secondary

2 standard. And you don't have to answer it now, but if

3 you have thoughts on how to create what you would find

4 to be a more comprehensible secondary standard, we

5 would be interested in it. We work to try to develop

6 one that we think will be protective of public

7 welfare, but we would be very interested in your

8 comments on that.

9 And I wondered if you could say just a little

10 bit more about climate change and ozone, the points

11 you were making about climate change. Just say a

12 little bit more about what you were thinking about --

13 MR. MANNCHEN: Sure. Depending on --

14 and again, the modeling isn't perfect, but it suggests

15 that in many areas we are going to have more heat,

16 hotter periods of time, maybe longer periods of

17 drought. If we, in fact, have that and we have more

18 of that kind of weather in the Houston area or even in

19 the state of Texas because of trans-boundary air

20 pollution problems within the state and from areas

21 outside the state, as Matthew Tejada mentioned, for

22 gas, then we could very well be producing more ozone.

23 And if we produce more ozone and because vegetation is

24 more sensitive to ozone, then we could have more

25 vegetation damage as -- and I am just not worried
85

1 about vegetation but the ecosystems of the entire

2 forest, the entire prairie, whatever that vegetative

3 ecosystem is and all the animals that respond to it

4 and are dependent on it.

5 And as far as the secondary standard, in my

6 view, it was much easier when the secondary standard

7 was stated in form of ppm. That was much more

8 understandable for me to explain to my members and

9 also to members of the general public. But when you

10 start going into multiple months cumulative whatever,

11 it just gets kind of lost on the public as to what

12 you're really trying to do.

13 And I know it's difficult for you and I know

14 this new standard is supposed to somehow make it more

15 protective and more representative of what's happening

16 to vegetation in ecosystems, but somehow it also needs

17 to be comprehensible by the general public. Thank

18 you.

19 MS. WEGMAN: Thank you. Corroboration.

20 Our next two speakers are Eva Hernandez and

21 Philip Snyder.

22 MS. HERNANDEZ: Hello. My name is Eva

23 Hernandez and I'm the regional representative with

24 Sierra Club.

25 MS. WEGMAN: You have to hold down -- at
86

1 the bottom it says push.

2 MS. HERNANDEZ: Right there?

3 MS. WEGMAN: That's it. Thank you.

4 MS. HERNANDEZ: So I'll repeat that. My

5 name is Eva Hernandez and I work statewide here in

6 Texas with the Sierra Club, which is a national

7 organization. Brandt also just spoke.

8 So first I'd like to start by saying on

9 behalf of Sierra Club, we're in support of the

10 strongest revised ozone standard of 60 parts per

11 billion. We really are at an energy crossroads here

12 in Texas. Coal-fired power plants are one of the

13 heaviest single sources of pollution in the state and

14 Texas has the opportunity to move towards a clean

15 energy future right now.

16 Smog-forming ozone is caused by nitrogen

17 oxides which are emitted by large industrial sources,

18 such as coal-fired power plants, cement kilns,

19 refineries, chemical plants and also from smaller

20 numerous sources, such as vehicular emissions and

21 construction, offroad construction equipment.

22 Coal-fired power plants, however, are the largest

23 industrial source of pollution in the state. Existing

24 coal plants in Texas emit 112,852 tons of nitrogen

25 oxides, which form smog, which makes people
87

1 susceptible to lung tissue damage and reduces lung

2 function.

3 There are 12 new proposed coal plants in the

4 State of Texas and in various stages of permitting.

5 From the coal plants that are currently being pursued

6 that are not yet permitted, if they were to be

7 permitted they would emit 12,855 tons per year of

8 nitrogen oxide. For those coal plants that have been

9 recently permitted and are in various stages of

10 construction around the state, they would emit 16,804

11 tons per year of nitrogen oxide, which, again, is what

12 causes ozone pollution.

13 Texas cannot build new coal plants and

14 achieve health standards. To meet these new standards

15 and protect our health, we also need to shut down some

16 of the old really -- really dirty coal plants. Texas

17 coal plants also have a negative impact on air quality

18 in surrounding states. So that's a concern we implore

19 the EPA to take into consideration, the impact of coal

20 plants in Texas on other states, including Oklahoma

21 and Arkansas.

22 The best way for urban areas to meet the new

23 ozone standard is to reduce major emission sources of

24 ozone, including existing and new coal plants, and to

25 reduce vehicular emissions through smarter
88

1 transportation solutions. All sectors, government,

2 business, residential, everyone will need to be

3 involved in this process.

4 One of the newly proposed coal plants that

5 would have a major impact on air quality in the region

6 is the newly proposed White Stallion coal plant in Bay

7 City. On behalf of Sierra Club, we ask that the EPA

8 step in and halt the permitting of the White Stallion

9 coal plant because of the health impacts on the

10 community and Texans. We also ask that the EPA step

11 in and halt the permitting and construction of the

12 remaining 11 coal-fired power plants that are in

13 various stages of permitting and construction because

14 of these health reasons.

15 The Texas Commission on Environmental

16 Quality, TCEQ, supervised by the EPA has been

17 responsible for creating plans and tracking progress

18 to reduce emissions in Texas. Unfortunately, Texas

19 asthma rates have almost doubled in the past ten

20 years. So Texas state legislators, medical

21 communities, Sierra Club, and our environmental

22 partners are calling on the EPA to seize this

23 important opportunity to halt the permitting or

24 construction of any new coal plants in the state until

25 the TCEQ does its job and enforces the Federal Clean
89

1 Air Act.

2 And in order for cities cross Texas,

3 including Houston, to reach attainment levels, we also

4 have to phase out existing dirty coal plants. It's

5 really time to invest in renewable energy and energy

6 efficiency in Texas. We have the incredible energy

7 resources here for wind and solar. We have people and

8 industries with the know-how to create energy

9 efficiency. So we have a lot of potential here in

10 Texas for clean energy.

11 And so just to reiterate, on behalf of Sierra

12 Club, we support the strongest proposed revised

13 standards for the ozone. Thank you.

14 MS. WEGMAN: Thank you.

15 MS. HERNANDEZ: And I also have with me

16 to deliver, there are over 200 handwritten comments

17 that were collected over two days by our partners at

18 the Texas Campaign for the Environment. So I will

19 leave those with you today.

20 MS. WEGMAN: Very good. Thank you.

21 MR. SNYDER: Hi. My name is Philip

22 Snyder. That's Philip with one L, S-N-Y-D-E-R, among

23 the very many variations of how to spell Snyder. I

24 speak for the Green Party of Texas. May I resume?

25 MS. WEGMAN: Yes, you may.
90

1 MR. SNYDER: And I worked for a local

2 air pollution agency for 23 years. For most of that

3 time, I was in charge of the air quality analysis

4 section. Manmade ozone results basically from

5 precursors nitrogen oxides and volatile organic

6 compounds. Some of these compounds are much more

7 volatile than others, to paraphrase George Orwell. In

8 most cities, transportation provides most of the NOx

9 and the VOCs. However, in Houston, a lot more NOx

10 than usual comes from industry and the VOCs, the

11 volatile ones, the really volatile ones, come almost

12 exclusively from East Harris County, AKA the ship

13 channel.

14 Where does it start from? Well, Mr. Mannchen

15 went into upsets. Again, maintenance is a major

16 issue. Cooling towers, most people don't think of

17 cooling towers as a source of VOCs, but those pipes

18 are carrying hot volatile products and inevitably they

19 leak, and when they do and go unchecked for weeks on

20 end, you get significant emissions of VOCs.

21 The same is true of cleaning out barges.

22 Some of what they carry in tank trucks, some of what

23 they carry when you clean them out, where are the

24 fumes to go? That's right. Into the air.

25 Transportation is another major source of
91

1 VOCs, but they are not terribly volatile. If they

2 were, Dallas would have the same kind of ozone problem

3 that Houston does.

4 Okay. Ozone levels in Houston have gotten an

5 awful lot better over the last few years, especially

6 once industries started providing halfway honest

7 emission inventories. Transportation is cleaner than

8 it used to be and for some reason there are fewer

9 inversions which meteorologically help smog. I'm not

10 going to get into that. There's not the time. Okay.

11 Keep trying to improve vehicle emissions and,

12 in particular, let's get some serious maintenance

13 being done along the ship channel. They're going to

14 have to spend a lot more money on maintenance. This

15 will, of course, reduce corporate profits. That's too

16 bad. Public health and safety comes first and profits

17 come second. And I might add that the new standard of

18 60 ppb especially is approaching the normal Houston

19 ozone even on days when there are no leaks, there are

20 no upsets, nothing. I mean, I watched ozone form over

21 the city for more than 20 years and believe me, 60,

22 70, 80 ppb, even on good days is normal. To get to 60

23 and keep it there is going to need serious changes in

24 the way people live in this city. And I'm not sure

25 anyone is really ready for that. I've got -- there
92

1 are other Green Party people ready to speak on just

2 what those lifestyle changes will have to be. Thank

3 you. Any questions?

4 MS. WEGMAN: I just wondered if you or

5 the Green Party has a position on what level we should

6 set between 60 and 70?

7 MR. SNYDER: I would say 60.

8 MS. WEGMAN: Okay.

9 MR. SNYDER: I mean, you might as well

10 shoot for it. You know, you might conceivably get to

11 70 in the next few years, but 60 is definitely the

12 goal to shoot for.

13 MS. WEGMAN: Okay. Thank you both very

14 much.

15 Our next two speakers are Elizabeth Hendler

16 and Michael Honeycutt.

17 DR. HONEYCUTT: As EPA re-examines the

18 ozone NAAQS --

19 MS. WEGMAN: I'm sorry. Would you mind

20 introducing yourself for the court reporter?

21 DR. HONEYCUTT: Okay. Michael

22 Honeycutt, M-I-C-H-A-E-L H-O-N-E-Y-C-U-T-T.

23 As EPA re-examines the ozone NAAQS, I,

24 Dr. Michael Honeycutt, director of the toxicology

25 division, would like to offer the following comments
93

1 on behalf of the Texas Commission on Environmental

2 Quality.

3 In developing the range for the new standard,

4 EPA did not consider personal exposure to ozone. It

5 is a scientific fact that outdoor ozone levels are not

6 indicative of the ozone levels that people actually

7 breathe. You do not have to take the word of the TCEQ

8 on this. EPA's own CASAC ozone review panel wrote the

9 following to EPA in a letter dated June 5, 2006.

10 And I quote, The Ozone Staff Paper should

11 consider the problem of exposure measurement error in

12 ozone mortality time-series studies. It is known that

13 personal exposure to ozone is not reflected

14 adequately, and sometime not at all, by ozone

15 concentrations measured at central monitoring sites.

16 Therefore, it seems unlikely that the observed

17 associations between short-term ozone concentrations

18 and daily mortality are due solely to ozone itself.

19 What this means is that the epidemiology

20 studies used by EPA to set the health-based ozone

21 standard are not scientifically rigorous enough to be

22 used as the basis for this important policy decision.

23 These studies are based on the supposition that the

24 majority of people breathe outside air eight to 24

25 hours each day while the scientific data clearly show
94

1 this is not the case.

2 Many time-series studies have used patient

3 medical records instead of patient history to monitor

4 exposure and assess health effects. Similar to

5 ambient monitoring data, patient medical records are

6 inadequate indices to associate ozone exposure and

7 health effects. EPA also used clinical studies

8 published by Dr. William Adams as the basis for

9 lowering the .08 part per million standard. EPA

10 reanalyzed Dr. Adams' data inappropriately, as pointed

11 out by Dr. Adams himself in his comments to EPA.

12 We hear anecdotally that hospital visits for

13 asthma rise when ozone levels rise, but hospital

14 admissions data show this is not the case. Texas

15 inpatient hospital discharge data on number of

16 hospital visits for asthma between 1999 and 2001

17 actually show that fewer children in Texas visit the

18 hospital for asthma during peak summer ozone season as

19 compared to wintertime. Results from four-year air

20 quality study conducted by Texas A&M University and

21 Driscoll Children's Hospital indicate hospital

22 admissions to be weakly correlated with ambient daily

23 maximum ozone levels. The Kaiser Permanente report

24 and the Gauderman study in 2004 found no increased

25 hospital admissions in elderly patients and health
95

1 effects in children due to ozone levels -- or due to

2 ozone alone.

3 Texas has spent significant state resources

4 through multimillion dollar field studies on examining

5 transport and background of ozone precursors. The

6 results of these studies confirm that background ozone

7 and interstate transport are major factors in ambient

8 ozone levels. We know that as the standard is

9 lowered, transport and background will represent

10 greater percentages of the problems for Texas cities.

11 The ozone standard proposal states that "EPA

12 recognizes the need in our CAIR replacement effort to

13 address the reconsidered ozone standard, and we are

14 currently assessing our options for the best way to

15 accomplish this." We believe it will be extremely

16 challenging for EPA to promulgate the replacement

17 program in a timely manner or without legal

18 challenges.

19 Some Texas areas may have to achieve the

20 standard in as little as three to six years before

21 control strategies can take effect. Considering the

22 magnitude of background ozone, we question if the

23 necessary technology exists to reduce ozone precursors

24 on sources within the State's control in such a short

25 time period. Your very own proposal acknowledges that
96

1 "benefits from federal engine standards increase

2 modestly each year." In fact, within five to six

3 years, mobile NOx emissions will start to increase

4 unless vehicle standards are tightened further.

5 There is no indication from EPA of any

6 studies to evaluate the social impact of tighter

7 regulations. Texans and the EPA have both seen that

8 programs that mandate changes to personal lifestyles

9 were rejected. We witnessed it with the centralized

10 Vehicle Inspection and Maintenance program and the

11 Employee Trip Reduction program. They proved to be

12 unacceptable to the public. EPA has failed to

13 thoroughly examine the probability that individual

14 citizens will simply choose to not comply with

15 inconvenient or onerous rules.

16 In conclusion, a policy decision this

17 important must be made not just by using good science,

18 but understanding its limitations and using that

19 science correctly. The exposure estimates in the

20 epidemiology studies used to justify lowering the

21 ozone standard do not account for personal exposure to

22 ozone and are therefore faulty, as noted by EPA's own

23 CASAC. EPA needs to address personal exposure before

24 they implement such a costly and unobtainable

25 standard. Thank you.
97

1 MS. WEGMAN: I actually have one

2 question. I don't know if anyone else does. I just

3 want to make sure what you were saying, Dr. Honeycutt,

4 about the patient records. Did you say that they were

5 not adequate? Did I understand that correctly?

6 DR. HONEYCUTT: That's correct. Patient

7 medical records as opposed to patient histories.

8 MS. WEGMAN: Okay. Thank you.

9 MS. HENDLER: Good morning. My name is

10 Elizabeth Hendler. That's H-E-N-D-L-E-R, and I am a

11 project manager for the 8-Hour Ozone SIP Coalition.

12 The 8-Hour Coalition is comprised of members from the

13 energy industry with the common interest of achieving

14 the goals of clean air and a strong economy for Texas.

15 The Coalition's refining, petrochemical and electric

16 utility members have been strong supporters of clean

17 air improvements.

18 The Coalition opposes the EPA's decision to

19 re-propose the final 2008 ozone NAAQS. We raised

20 questions about uncertainties in the science, costs,

21 and impacts on state implementation efforts in the

22 2008 NAAQS revision process. Our questions remain

23 unanswered, and the current proposal to set a new

24 lower NAAQS magnifies the uncertainties and the

25 potential for adverse impacts.
98

1 In 1997, EPA set a new eight-hour standard

2 concluding that it protected the public health and

3 provided an adequate margin of safety. Since that

4 time, air quality in Houston and around the United

5 States has improved dramatically, despite increased

6 population and economic growth.

7 The list of recent air quality

8 accomplishments in the Houston-Galveston-Brazoria

9 region is impressive. The most noticeable of these is

10 that our region attained the 1997 ozone NAAQS in 2009

11 based on the most recent three years of monitored

12 data.

13 Reducing ozone while providing a better

14 quality of life for citizens is not an accident. It's

15 the result of the thorough application of science,

16 data, targeted reductions, and actions by citizens,

17 business and government. These initiatives were

18 significant. Industry sources were required to reduce

19 highly reactive volatile organic compounds by more

20 than 64 percent and nitrogen oxides by 80 percent over

21 the past decade. There are few remaining ozone

22 precursor reductions available in Houston at any cost.

23 The 2008 NAAQS revision process raised many

24 serious questions. Still remaining are questions

25 about the underlying health and risk science,
99

1 cost/benefit analyses, how to treat naturally

2 occurring background levels of ozone and international

3 transport, impacts to existing state and local

4 regulatory efforts, and impacts on the national energy

5 supply.

6 During the previous ozone NAAQS review, EPA

7 found that there was no bright line health effects

8 threshold at which to set the level of the standard

9 and concluded, based on policy judgments, that the

10 .08 ppm max standard level would protect public health

11 and provide an adequate margin of safety. The 2008

12 NAAQS review provided no new evidence to assist EPA

13 with establishing that bright line. EPA has not

14 brought forward additional new data or health studies

15 that clarify the uncertainties raised in the 2008

16 assessment.

17 We continue to question the adequacy of the

18 Regulatory Impacts Analysis, or RIA, that accompanied

19 the 2008 NAAQS revision for two reasons. First, the

20 report ignores the costs associated with the economic

21 impacts of regulations beyond immediate control costs.

22 It does not consider unemployment effects or the cost

23 of business relocation. Second, the 2008 RIA does not

24 calculate the effect of the proposed NAAQS revision on

25 the national energy supply, yet elsewhere in the same
100

1 report, EPA assumes correctly that new and expensive

2 controls will be imposed on the energy industry in

3 Houston. The public must have a better tool that

4 considers all costs and benefits.

5 The questions raised in the previous NAAQS

6 revision process have not been answered in the current

7 proposal. In fact, the current proposal magnifies the

8 uncertainties and adverse impacts. EPA's RIA modeling

9 suggests that to achieve the proposed 60 to 70 ppb

10 range would require elimination of nearly all Houston

11 area emissions, both stationary and mobile sources,

12 yet, EPA does not identify any control strategies

13 capable of such a reduction. In essence, EPA is

14 suggesting that Houston close up shop in order to

15 progress from the 1997 standard to a new standard.

16 In addition, recent scientific evidence

17 points to the large and increasing role of

18 international transport of ozone and its precursors.

19 A new lower NAAQS in which internationally transported

20 ozone represents a significant contribution means that

21 even sweeping new national rules would not be enough

22 to reduce ozone levels to help areas achieve

23 attainment.

24 The mission of the 8-Hour Ozone SIP Coalition

25 is to assure that air quality decisions are based on
101

1 the best scientific data and result in rules that are

2 effective in addressing air quality issues while

3 achieving the goals of clean air and a strong economy.

4 Rather than proceed with this proposal to lower the

5 NAAQS, we encourage EPA to focus its efforts on the

6 implementation aspects of the current standard and to

7 work to better resolve uncertainties in the science

8 and costs in preparation for the next Clean Air Act

9 mandated review of the ozone NAAQS in 2013. We look

10 forward to continuing to work with EPA to achieve

11 those goals.

12 MS. WEGMAN: Thank you. As I've asked

13 others before, if you have information on background

14 in specific, that would be helpful.

15 MS. HENDLER: We'll be submitting that

16 in our written testimony. Thank you.

17 MS. WEGMAN: Thank you. Our next two

18 speakers are Kevin Bloom [sic] and Wendi Hammond.

19 MR. BLOOMER: It's still good morning.

20 My name is Kevin Bloomer, B-L-O-O-M-E-R. I'm an

21 employee at Westlake Chemical Corporation. We're a

22 manufacturer of commodity chemicals, polyethylene,

23 polyvinyl chloride resins principally. We've got

24 plants in -- chemical plants in four different cities

25 across the United States that will be potentially
102

1 impacted by this rule.

2 This new lower standard is of concern to me

3 and my company because of the fact that -- it's been

4 pointed out, I think, that -- by other people that are

5 better at epidemiology -- I can say it but I don't

6 have a good background in it. Dr. Honeycutt with the

7 TCEQ, who's also a former employer of mine, worked on

8 this NAAQS SIP standard in -- for ozone way back in

9 the early '90s. And Guy Donaldson with Region 6 was a

10 coworker at EPA at the time on that. We have some

11 background in the area and -- as well as Dr. Prueitt,

12 who earlier spoke as a representative of API. They

13 point out issues that EPA has with coming up with a

14 lower standard which is a range, and I have some

15 concerns over that because if there is a lower

16 standard that is needed, why is EPA proposing a range,

17 then, for this new lower ozone NAAQS standard?

18 If EPA goes forward with this, and I

19 certainly hope that y'all don't, because of the

20 scientific problems shown by the rule. I do wish that

21 y'all consider other factors that impact the ozone in

22 our area, and that is, transports, one of them. It's

23 mobile sources as well. And as others have said

24 before and as monitor data has shown, the ozone level

25 in Houston is and has been getting better since I
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1 started working on the issue back in 1992. So we are

2 making progress and I think you need to recognize the

3 fact that things that have been done are making the

4 air cleaner for the citizens of Houston and for the

5 rest of the country.

6 So I appreciate your time this morning and if

7 there are any questions, please -- please feel free.

8 Thank you.

9 MS. WEGMAN: I just want to note that we

10 are proposing a range in order to take public comment

11 on whether it should be higher or lower, middle end of

12 the range. So we're trying to, you know, decide where

13 to wind up within that range, just to answer that

14 question.

15 MS. HAMMOND: Hello. My name is Wendi

16 Hammond, W-E-N-D-I H-A-M-M-O-N-D. I am an attorney

17 that represents nonprofit groups throughout the State

18 of Texas on air issues. I am here today on behalf of

19 the SEED Coalition and Kids 4 Clean Air.

20 We support the lowest standard, .060, to be

21 adopted as far as the ozone NAAQ standard. It can be

22 achieved. Now, while there has been a lot of

23 improvement in clean air, it has not been as

24 significant as the data suggests. For example, when

25 you actually look at the numbers for the monitoring
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1 system in the state of Texas, you will find out that

2 what happens is the extreme circumstances -- the way

3 that the NAAQS is written out, it is supposed to allow

4 for extreme circumstances to be taken into account in

5 case there is an unusual spike in the ozone, actually,

6 is too favorable because it does not take into account

7 unusual lows. For examples, in 2007, for the

8 Dallas-Fort Worth area we had an extremely wet summer

9 and we did not hit triple-digit numbers, which is

10 usually occurring very early in the summertime, until

11 the middle of August. The same thing happened in '09.

12 We had extremely wet area even in the Houston area and

13 the Austin and the Dallas-Fort Worth areas.

14 What has happened is in the Houston area it

15 actually would have, the monitors for that year,

16 reached the current NAAQS standard but as soon as we

17 take into account and take away these extreme

18 standards and -- events -- excuse me, extreme events,

19 what happens is we actually show spikes of the ozone

20 under the normal circumstances that occur under

21 average hot days during the summer in the state of

22 Texas. And in fact, in Houston, even though they

23 attain the eight-hour standard, the monitors showed

24 violation of the old one-hour standard.

25 And that's significant when they actually
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1 start talking about how the eight-hour standard works.

2 No, it doesn't, because the one-hour standard needs to

3 actually come back. And that is a problem with the

4 form that is going to be adopted.

5 Using the form beforehand under the one-hour

6 standard, you could actually have a violation in one

7 year of three highs and therefore you were able to

8 start implementing solutions immediately and as

9 quickly as possible. Under the new eight-hour

10 standard, you have to actually take the average of the

11 three years fourth highest, therefore, the public must

12 be exposed to poor air pollution for at least three

13 years before they even can declare that there is a

14 problem. After that, the implementation alone can

15 take a year to two years just to even get it to

16 declare as a nonattainment area and then you're

17 dealing with potential litigation after that. And so

18 the time frame under the eight-hour standard actually

19 takes too long for the public health.

20 You have to find a standard that can be

21 actually identified quicker. And if the .06 is it,

22 just make it to where it's not necessarily the fourth

23 highest day of a three-hour -- three-day -- three-year

24 average because the public needs assistance much

25 quicker, especially in areas like the state of Texas,
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1 when you just heard the Texas Commission on

2 Environmental Quality give comment that the air

3 pollution and the science is inaccurate, which isn't

4 the case.

5 The science is clear. They -- especially for

6 people with respiratory illnesses and children, and I,

7 for one, when I was a kid did stay outside for eight

8 hours a day during the summertime, which is the

9 typical ozone season. And we're actually dealing with

10 an obesity epidemic for children. We want them

11 outdoors. Band practice happens during the summertime

12 ozone seasons. Football practices, soccer

13 tournaments, all of those things where the children

14 are exposed, and so we do have to look at what the

15 health needs are for the children as well, as well as

16 other people with respiratory illnesses and the

17 elderly. They too cannot be shut-ins. They have to

18 be allowed to go outside. We're trying to be very

19 active adults in the world, and kids, and we need to

20 be able to make it so they can do so.

21 One of the problems also is the monitoring

22 system for the rural areas. We have got to get more

23 monitors in rural areas and you have to actually look

24 at what the ratio is. For example, under the EPA

25 standard, it actually took citizens from Navarro
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1 County to push their own government to get a monitor

2 in the area because they were concerned about power

3 plants in the Freestone area, which was upwind of

4 their area. Freestone County has now done that as

5 well. Those counties have -- the population is less

6 than what EPA standards require for monitor placement,

7 but there is major industry in that area that is

8 blowing and contributing to not only to those rural

9 areas but also downwind nonattainment areas in the

10 Dallas-Fort Worth area.

11 Transport is an issue. If you actually

12 reduce the standard to .06, you are actually going to

13 bring in much more of an area under the control so

14 that we can look for solutions. Your own reasonable

15 further progress allows for the State to take

16 advantage of sources that are 250 kilometers from the

17 actual nonattainment area. And the State of Texas

18 actually took advantage of that, but when we are in

19 the permitting process they don't. And therefore,

20 under this, we need to as well. Thank you for your

21 time and I'll submit written questions by the March

22 deadline.

23 MS. WEGMAN: Okay. Very good. Thank

24 you both for your comments.

25 Our next two speakers are Neil Carman and
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1 Gabriel Clark-Leach.

2 DR. CARMAN: My name is Neil Carman.

3 MS. WEGMAN: Dr. Carman, if you can

4 press the button on the speaker and hold it while you

5 talk. I'm sorry, but you have to hold it.

6 DR. CARMAN: Thank you. My name is Neil

7 Carman. I am the Clean Air Program Director for the

8 Lone Star Chapter of the Sierra Club representing over

9 25,000 members in the state of Texas who want clean

10 air. I'm here to support the EPA's efforts to tighten

11 the ozone standard to 60 parts per billion averaged

12 over eight hours.

13 I'm also here as a runner, a marathon runner,

14 representing many athletes who try to run in Texas

15 cities, and the smog and the high ozone levels cause a

16 lot of respiratory problems when you're out running

17 for one, two or three hours. Marathon runners are

18 often out there even for more than three hours, four

19 and five hours. So runners have a serious issue in

20 trying to train and compete in cities with high ozone

21 levels.

22 This is very important that the EPA tighten

23 the ozone standard because we know that the current

24 standard does not adequately protect public health.

25 There were -- you've heard some comments from some of
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1 the previous speakers about the current standards and

2 the way the EPA had evaluated it does not consider

3 personal exposure. One of the problems with the way

4 we monitor ozone today is there's many gaps. There's

5 areas where there's no ozone monitoring at all, and so

6 I'm here to support EPA's efforts to provide funding

7 for more ozone monitors to cover areas where we have

8 significant gaps in Houston and Dallas and many other

9 cities. That's a very important way to get more ozone

10 evidence about what the personal exposures might be to

11 people who are outside, whether they're children or

12 runners or whatever.

13 This standard is very important for Texas

14 because we have the largest industrial base in the

15 United States in terms of industrial factories and in

16 terms of industrial air pollution, including volatile

17 organic compounds and nitrogen oxides. Texas leads

18 the nation in the amount of industrial air pollution,

19 specially from some of the plants like coal-fired

20 power plants and other sources.

21 One of the big problems, though, with the way

22 we've been regulating ozone is we only look at it in

23 terms of these nonattainment areas where they violate

24 the standard. We need a regional approach to be

25 considered in evaluating ways to address ozone
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1 problems because a lot of sources are outside the

2 nonattainment areas. And obviously we've made

3 tremendous progress in Texas in areas like Houston,

4 Beaumont, Port Arthur, Dallas-Fort Worth, but there is

5 a lot of transported pollution coming in from other

6 areas and so we've done a very poor job of regulating

7 regional transport of these large sources outside.

8 I want to point out that in Texas, if the

9 standard was set at 70 parts per billion for eight

10 hours, there's at least 18 million Texans, that's

11 about 75 percent of the population, that currently

12 basically have dirty air. If you take the standard

13 down to 60 parts per billion, which is what I

14 recommend for eight hours, we're looking at over 20

15 million Texans, over 80 percent of the population

16 which has -- is breathing dirty air in the summertime.

17 So I'm very strongly advocating that EPA set

18 the standard at 60 parts per billion for eight hours

19 because I think the science clearly supports we need a

20 standard set at 60 parts per billion.

21 We know ozone is a highly toxic gas and it's

22 formed in the air on warm summer days from manmade

23 pollution. We do need to clean up vehicles and other

24 transportation sources, so I am not just complaining

25 here about industrial factories. But anyway, I
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1 applaud EPA's efforts and I want to finally say that

2 this effort to lower -- tighten the ozone standard is

3 clear evidence that the Clean Air Act works as

4 Congress adopted it, passed it nearly four decades

5 ago, and I applaud EPA's efforts for proposing this

6 revision to the existing ozone standard. Thank you.

7 MS. WEGMAN: Thank you.

8 MR. CLARK-LEACH: Good afternoon. My

9 name is Gabriel Clark-Leach. That's C-L-A-R-K hyphen

10 L-E-A-C-H. I'm here on behalf of the Environmental

11 Integrity Project.

12 The Environmental Integrity Project would

13 like to thank the EPA for this opportunity to comment

14 on the proposed revisions to the primary and secondary

15 NAAQS for ozone. The Environmental Integrity Project

16 is a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization that promotes

17 the strong enforcement of existing federal and state

18 anti-pollution laws and works to prevent the political

19 and -- political interference with those laws.

20 The critical focus of the Clean Air Act from

21 the beginning has been the protection and enhancement

22 of the quality of the nation's air resources so as to

23 promote the public health and welfare and the

24 productive capacity of its population. There are many

25 who believe that this goal is beyond our grasp or that
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1 the benefits of clean air are outweighed by the costs

2 of attainment. While the EIP, Environmental Integrity

3 Project, believes that these people are mistaken, that

4 their consideration of both the costs and benefits of

5 clean air are too narrowly calculated, it is not

6 necessary to meet their arguments today on this forum.

7 It is unnecessary because these arguments are

8 irrelevant to EPA's charge under Section 109(b) of the

9 Clean Air Act to set primary ozone standards at a

10 level requisite to protect public health and public

11 welfare and secondary standards requisite to protect

12 public wealth [sic] from any known or anticipated

13 adverse effects associated with the presence of ozone

14 in ambient air.

15 As Justice Scalia observed in his majority

16 opinion for the Supreme Court in Whitman v. American

17 Trucking Associations, the text of 109(b), interpreted

18 in its statutory and historical context with

19 appreciation for its importance to the Clean Air Act

20 as a whole, unambiguously bars the consideration of

21 costs from the NAAQS-setting process, and thus ended

22 the matter for the Supreme Court as well as the EPA.

23 In 2008, the EPA set a revised primary NAAQS

24 standard for ozone above the range that had been

25 unanimously recommended by the Clean Air Scientific
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1 Advisory Committee of EPA's Science Advisory Board.

2 In setting these standards -- the standard, the EPA

3 failed to justify its departure from the

4 well-supported recommendation of its own experts,

5 which were echoed by medical experts and public health

6 organizations nationwide. In so doing, EPA failed to

7 meet the statutory charge under Section 109 of the

8 Clean Air Act. The proposed primary standards that

9 are the subject of the public comment hearing today

10 will rectify this mistake.

11 Though the adoption of this reasonable

12 standard will be met by strong opposition from

13 powerful interests, EPA must not founder from its

14 responsibility to protect the quality of our nation's

15 air and the health and welfare of its people. While

16 the voices of those who disproportionately bear the

17 cost of air pollution, the elderly, the young, the

18 sick, the poor, are often unheard in proceedings such

19 as this, their needs must not be ignored. Thus the

20 Environmental Integrity Project supports EPA's

21 decision to reconsider the ozone NAAQS in light of

22 overwhelming scientific evidence that the primary

23 standards set in 2008 does not adequately protect the

24 public health and welfare, and encourages the EPA to

25 finalize standards consistent with the recommendations
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1 of its own experts. Thank you.

2 MS. WEGMAN: Mr. Clark-Leach, do you

3 have any recommendation within the range that we

4 proposed and -- any thoughts on that?

5 MR. CLARK-LEACH: Consistent with the

6 recommendations of public health organizations like

7 the American Lung Association and information in

8 studies EPA considered, we recommend the lowest

9 proposed standard of 60 parts per billion.

10 MS. WEGMAN: Okay. Thank you. Thank

11 you both very much.

12 Our next two speakers are Laura Blackburn and

13 Dan Buda.

14 MS. BLACKBURN: My name is Laura

15 Blackburn, L-A-U-R-A B-L-A-C-K-B-U-R-N, and I am

16 representing the League of Women Voters of Texas as

17 well as League of Women Voters of Houston.

18 According to EPA's report of counties

19 violating the primary ground-level ozone standard 2006

20 to 2008, Texas shares with California some of the

21 highest out-of-compliance three-year averages. And as

22 I am sure you know, Houston and Los Angeles compete

23 with each other as to which has the highest level of

24 ground-level ozone. This is not a contest we like to

25 win.
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1 After viewing the proposed rule which the

2 Administrator has presented, we agree with her in many

3 areas. Certainly EPA should take the advice of their

4 Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee with regard to

5 the lower and upper limits of the standard.

6 We applaud the Administrator, contrary to

7 others today, for reviewing the Adams 2006 study and

8 the conclusion that controlled human studies are the

9 most certain evidence of adverse health effects. The

10 fact that the Adams studies report a greater than 10

11 percent decrement in lung function in 7 to 20 percent

12 of healthy adults among people with -- indicates a

13 much greater level among people with lung disease. We

14 are particularly concerned about children with asthma.

15 We would encourage the administrator,

16 however, to give further credence to those studies

17 that show health effects not only at .06 parts per

18 million but below that. Some studies indicate that

19 there are morbidity and mortality effects at below

20 0.25 [sic] to 0.35 [sic] parts per million, i.e., the

21 Bell studies of 2006 and the Burnett study of 1997.

22 While you will be happy to know that the League of

23 Women Voters of Texas does not recommend a standard

24 below background levels, we do think that this

25 evidence strongly suggests that a .06 part per million
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1 standard would not only protect the public health but

2 offer an adequate margin of safety.

3 And now I have a question to ask. Many

4 people have mentioned background today and I've

5 noticed that they view it in a different perspective

6 than I do typically. As a scientist, background means

7 naturally occurring and what I hear today is that

8 background means to some people that which comes over

9 from the next county. And I would like EPA to speak

10 to what background really means to them.

11 MS. WEGMAN: I'll take a crack at that.

12 If others want to jump in, they can. We actually have

13 a way of calculating the background or estimating the

14 background which we used in this review, and I will

15 remind folks this is a reconsideration of our March

16 2008 standard so we're using the record from that

17 review. And when we did the risk assessment for that

18 standard, we used a background of 15 to 35 parts per

19 billion ozone. So that's 15 to 35 parts per billion

20 that we assume when we did the risk assessment. The

21 Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee was aware of

22 that when they made their recommendations to set a

23 standard at 60 to 70 parts per billion.

24 Our definition of background is different yet

25 again from what you mentioned or what some others
117

1 think. We use a term called policy relevant

2 background, which includes natural background and it

3 also includes some international influences. But we

4 do not consider Mexico and Canada because of the

5 agreements that are in place with them and the

6 expectation that they, through those agreements, will

7 be controlling their emissions. So we have a specific

8 definition of that background that we use when we do

9 these analyses and that is what we used when we did

10 the March 2008 review.

11 MS. BLACKBURN: Thank you. Do you know

12 if that is required of states to use the same

13 procedure?

14 MS. WEGMAN: That is a -- not required

15 of states that I am aware of. That's an analysis that

16 we did. It's a term we use, as I said, policy

17 relevant background when we do our standard reviews,

18 our ambient air quality standard reviews. But there's

19 no requirements that the states follow that specific

20 approach.

21 MS. BLACKBURN: What a shame. We also

22 applaud the Administrator for recommending a new

23 secondary standard and we do support that standard.

24 Thank you.

25 MS. WEGMAN: Thank you.
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1 MR. BUDA: My name is Dan Buda. I am

2 legislative director for State Senator Wendy Davis and

3 I'm here on behalf of her today.

4 On behalf of Senator Davis, I want to start

5 out by saying thank you for holding these hearings on

6 such an important issue. It's very important to

7 Senator Davis as well as to residents of her district

8 in North Texas and the DFW metroplex.

9 As North Texas continues to struggle with

10 nonattainment, Senator Davis welcomes any help in

11 addressing ways to bring down ozone-causing emissions

12 from all sources. As I'm sure you're aware, the DFW

13 metroplex is home to a large number of pollution

14 sources. A large pollution -- a large population,

15 excuse me, brings with it vehicular emissions and

16 congestion from automobile and truck traffic, coupled

17 with a lack of resources to resolve that in the

18 foreseeable future as well as a significant amount of

19 business and industry.

20 The gas drilling in the Barnett Shale is

21 continually increasing with over 12,000 wells drilled

22 since 2004 and an additional 3,500 permitted. The

23 cluster of cement plants in Midlothian, just south of

24 Dallas, is home to the largest concentration of cement

25 kilns in the nation. Add in the area's power
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1 generation plants and there's an extremely dense and

2 complex web of emissions and pollutant sources.

3 Furthermore, winds in the DFW area are typically blown

4 southeast to northwest, sending emissions from

5 Midlothian cement kilns and Dallas traffic over

6 Tarrant County and Fort Worth, where they bake in the

7 sun, producing massive quantities of ozone.

8 As the DFW region works toward a new state

9 implementation plan for 2011, due to the failure of

10 its 2007 SIP as well as a second SIP due at the end of

11 2013 to address new emission standards, we must look

12 at the cumulative effects of all these different

13 emission sources and how ozone-forming emissions,

14 including nitrous oxides, carbon monoxide and volatile

15 organic compounds from all sources can be reduced to

16 try and bring the area back into attainment so as not

17 to risk the health of our community nor the loss of

18 federal highway funds which are sorely needed in

19 Texas.

20 Senator Davis urges EPA to continue to

21 research and test best available control technologies

22 and is happy to see the recent agreement between EPA

23 and LaFarge to install a selective catalytic reduction

24 system in one of their Illinois cement kilns. She is

25 optimistic that the technology will prove successful
120

1 and looks forward to the prospect of that technology

2 making its way to Texas to significantly reduce the

3 air toxics emissions from our Midlothian cement kilns

4 and others around the state.

5 As EPA continues to study the issue and

6 implement policies and regulations, Senator Davis

7 urges you toward the .06 parts per million standard

8 for ozone. From the EPA's own Office of Air Quality

9 Planning and Standards, estimates of the number of

10 adverse health effects avoided in 2020 by this new

11 standard are substantial: 8.1 million fewer days of

12 people having to restrict activities, 2.5 million

13 fewer missed days of work and school, 111,000 fewer

14 incidents of upper and lower respiratory symptoms, and

15 58,000 fewer cases of aggravated asthma.

16 Compelling health concerns beg for

17 implementation of the .06 standard. A recent study

18 from the Community-Wide Children's Health Assessment

19 and Planning Survey sponsored by Cook Children's

20 Hospital found that one in four children in North

21 Texas ages eight and nine has asthma. This 25 percent

22 incidence of asthma is significantly higher than the

23 state average for five to nine-year-olds at 7.1

24 percent and the national average of 9.4 percent. The

25 prevalence of asthma is also abnormally high in North
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1 Texas 10 to 14-year-olds with 20 percent diagnosed.

2 On top of that, the study also shows a correlation

3 between asthma and the H1N1 flu. While 8 percent of

4 all Americans have been diagnosed with asthma, 32

5 percent of patients hospitalized with the H1N1 flu

6 have asthma.

7 We encourage the continued work of EPA and

8 also stress the importance of its cooperation with

9 TCEQ and the Texas Railroad Commission, particularly

10 with regard to emission studies and the appropriate

11 pollution control methods in the Barnett Shale, to

12 monitor, study and implement policies and standards

13 that will improve the lives and health of North Texas

14 residents. EPA must work closely with state agencies

15 to ensure that all state and federal requirements are

16 being met. This is vital to ensure that best

17 practices in the areas of pollution reduction are

18 being used to both protect both Texans' health and

19 facilitate the continued but healthy growth of the

20 region's economy.

21 EPA should also coordinate efforts with local

22 and regional groups, including environmental groups,

23 cities, counties, and industry organizations to

24 develop solutions that cut emissions across all types

25 of pollution sources, which is the only way to
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1 successfully lower emissions to achieve attainment.

2 And if Senator Davis' office can be of any further

3 assistance, do not hesitate to contact us.

4 I would like to say in closing on a personal

5 note, prior to working for Senator Davis I actually

6 worked for Senator Gallegos, who testified here

7 earlier, and I made numerous trips to this area. And

8 as I'm remembering from that, as I feel today, I've

9 been in this town for about two and a half hours and

10 I'm already clearing my throat, my eyes and lungs are

11 already burning. So there's something going on here

12 that I don't get in Austin, so -- but thank you.

13 MS. WEGMAN: Thank you.

14 MS. STONE: Are you going to submit the

15 information from the Cook Children's Hospital?

16 MR. BUDA: Yes, we'll submit that with

17 the written comments.

18 MS. STONE: Thank you.

19 MS. WEGMAN: Yes, having those

20 statistics -- the basis for those statistics will be

21 helpful.

22 MR. BUDA: Will do.

23 MS. WEGMAN: Okay. Great. Thank you

24 both very much.

25 All right. Next speakers are Mayor Annise
123

1 Parker and Debbie Hastings.

2 MAYOR PARKER: I'm Annise Parker, Mayor

3 of the City of Houston, A-N-N-I-S-E.

4 MS. WEGMAN: Mayor Parker, I hate to do

5 this, but you need to push down on this lower button

6 and hold it.

7 MAYOR PARKER: The entire time?

8 MS. WEGMAN: I'm afraid so.

9 MAYOR PARKER: All right. I'm Annise

10 Parker. And for the court reporter, A-N-N-I-S-E,

11 Mayor of the City of Houston, and my comments will be

12 brief today. They don't address every issue in the

13 proposal or rule-making. I know that the EPA has

14 proposed a secondary standard to protect the

15 environment. I won't address that. Instead, my

16 comments focus on the primary standard designed to

17 protect public health and including our most

18 vulnerable populations, children, people with asthma

19 and older adults.

20 The City of Houston supports the

21 recommendation of the Clean Air Act Science Advisory

22 Committee and the proposal of EPA to set a primary

23 ozone standard in the range of 60 to 70 parts per

24 billion. This standard will be protective of human

25 health, the criterion established in the Clean Air
124

1 Act.

2 There is no doubt it would be a significant

3 challenge for Houston to meet the lower standard so

4 the amount of lead time and our ability to achieve

5 regional coordination is significant to us, but we do

6 want to be on record in supporting a goal that will

7 protect our citizens and that is based on real

8 science.

9 Houston has a -- has higher elevated levels

10 of a number of pollutants, including ozone and several

11 air toxics. We also have a very large population and

12 one of the highest vehicle miles traveled, or VMTs, in

13 the country. We're proud of the fact that we have the

14 largest petrochemical and refining complex in the

15 country at our doorstep, but these factors do create a

16 tough air pollution situation, especially when coupled

17 with our very high background level of ozone.

18 One of the reasons we're supporting EPA's

19 proposal today is that this standard will also help us

20 address other air toxics issues that we have,

21 something we've been particularly focused upon. Air

22 toxics are also VOCs and these chemicals are regulated

23 to meet the ozone standards. We have been aggressive

24 in trying to reduce the levels of butadiene in Houston

25 and some other air toxics. We believe that the higher
125

1 standards -- or the lower standards, I should say,

2 will help us in that effort.

3 We have made great strides in reducing our

4 air pollution here in the Houston area although we

5 have not met the current ozone standard. Mobile

6 sources of pollution can only be regulated by the EPA

7 and these sources, cars, trucks, buses, motorcycles,

8 construction equipment, air crafts, trains,

9 locomotives, marine vessels, all impact our area and

10 they account for a significant portion of the

11 pollution that causes our ozone here locally.

12 As pointed out in the Federal Register

13 notice, the EPA has taken action to regulate most of

14 these sources, and in fact, in the last few years much

15 of the improvement in air quality in Houston is the

16 result of these actions. We can only ask you to keep

17 it up, especially if the EPA adopts the most ambitious

18 of the proposed standards. We recognize that

19 achieving good air quality and protecting the air for

20 our citizens, giving them healthy air to breathe, is

21 not without cost. The specifics of how to achieve

22 this standard and how long Houston will have to

23 achieve it are important questions, but once the

24 standard is adopted we'll do whatever we need to do to

25 address it.
126

1 We do believe, however, that where possible,

2 the EPA should not impose penalties against regions

3 that do not meet the national ambient air quality

4 standards due to the contributions of preempted

5 sources. It's simply a matter of fairness for us,

6 what -- I have no problem if we have -- face penalties

7 for what is within our control, but what is outside of

8 our control is of concern. We look forward to working

9 with the TCEQ and other state agencies in developing a

10 regional approach that works for all of us. And thank

11 you for the opportunity to comment.

12 MS. WEGMAN: Thank you, Mayor Parker.

13 MS. HASTINGS: Good afternoon. My name

14 is Debbie Hastings, and I'm a Vice President for

15 Environmental Affairs for the Texas Oil & Gas

16 Association. I have a Master's degree in

17 environmental resources and over 20 years of

18 environmental management experience, including working

19 at the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality for

20 nearly 19 years.

21 TxOGA was founded in 1919 and it represents

22 more than 4,000 members. Texas' 27 refineries

23 manufacture 27 percent of the nation's fuel and the

24 oil and gas industry directly employs 189,000 Texans.

25 These jobs are located in 225 of our 254 counties.
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1 In addition, our industry is responsible for

2 the top two job multipliers in the state. 17 new jobs

3 are created with every one petrochemical manufacturing

4 job and 14 new jobs are created for every petroleum

5 refining job. In fiscal year 2008, the oil and gas

6 industry paid 9.9 billion to the State in taxes and

7 royalties. Our industry is a cornerstone to the

8 state's economy.

9 I share this information to help us to

10 remember that real people are employed by the oil and

11 gas industry of this state. Regulatory decisions that

12 threaten oil and gas jobs have very real implications

13 for hundreds of thousands of Texas families. It's

14 tempting to turn a blind eye to economics that impact

15 the oil and gas industry, but to do so is a disservice

16 to the thousands of Texans whose livelihoods depend on

17 oil and gas.

18 Constantly changing standards issued by the

19 EPA create uncertainties that impact oil and gas

20 investment, economic expansion and ultimately jobs.

21 The EPA's proposal to once again lower the NAAQS

22 continues a trend of creating a moving target for

23 success. A moving target creates unpredictability and

24 diverts finite resources away from expanded job

25 creation and economic development.
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1 While working to meet previous air quality

2 standards, the oil and gas industry has been a leader

3 in developing technologies to improve air quality in

4 Texas with tremendous results. Air quality in Texas

5 is dramatically improving. According to TCEQ's most

6 recent data, air quality has continued to improve

7 cross the state as our population grows by the

8 millions. To accomplish this, the oil and gas

9 industry has invested $148 billion towards improving

10 the environmental performance of its products,

11 facilities and operations. A great percentage of this

12 was done in Texas. But the standard must be stable

13 for employers to continue to make quality investments

14 to meet the goal.

15 Counties and employers statewide have been

16 working hard to meet the 1997 eight-hour ozone

17 standard which was then lowered again. The federal

18 regulatory process to develop the strategies to meet

19 this new standard were already in motion when EPA

20 decided to once again propose to lower the standard to

21 a level that is currently unattainable with existing

22 technology. Just as it has taken time to develop and

23 implement the technology and practices to successfully

24 meet the 1997 standard for the Houston-Galveston25 Brazoria area, we need to find consensus on reasonable
129

1 cost-effective plans to achieve the existing 2008

2 standard before it is lowered further.

3 The oil and gas industry is committed to

4 continuing to improve air quality, and we must be

5 mindful of the time and resources required to develop

6 the technology needed to meet any lower standard. To

7 dismiss the realities of what's required to meet air

8 quality standards is to jeopardize economic stability

9 and opportunity. As the EPA continues -- continually

10 embraces proposals that inject uncertainty into our

11 economy, we urge the federal government through the

12 EPA to consider the real-world consequences for Texas

13 families whose livelihood are linked to oil and gas.

14 We also urge you to consider the real-world

15 consequences that a changing goal will have on the

16 industry's ability to supply the nation with fuel. As

17 there is no new science that dictates lowering the

18 standard, our industry must plan years in advance to

19 bring energy to its customers in a timely manner. So

20 we urge you to leave the current standard in place.

21 Thank you.

22 MS. WEGMAN: Thank you. I'll just note,

23 as you're aware, that costs are not considered in

24 setting the standard, and to the extent you have any

25 scientific, you know, basis for why we shouldn't
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1 change the standard, we would encourage you to submit

2 that to the record.

3 MS. HASTINGS: Will do. Thank you.

4 MS. WEGMAN: Thank you.

5 Our next two speakers are Patrick McIlvain

6 and Donald Cook.

7 MR. MCILVAIN: Good afternoon. Welcome

8 to Houston. I'm so glad you're here. I'm C. Patrick

9 McIlvain, community activist, Vice President, First

10 Ward Civic Council and chair special events for Super

11 Neighborhood 22. I have no --

12 THE COURT REPORTER: Spell your name,

13 please.

14 MR. MCILVAIN: It's M-C capital I-L-V as

15 in Victor, A-I-N. Scottish American.

16 I have no set words here. I have no talking

17 points. I just want to speak from my heart and from

18 my experience of being here in Texas and the fact that

19 our air has gotten worse. I think that if we were

20 more proactive in preventing illnesses, we would be

21 much healthier and have a much better economy all the

22 way around. It is -- I wonder about the number of

23 lives that have health issues with every new

24 petrochemical job plant that is open. I think we need

25 to look at the human values and not so much the
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1 monetary values. Thank you.

2 MS. WEGMAN: Thank you.

3 MR. COOK: Hello. I am Don Cook and I

4 am here because I live in the neighborhood. I'm a

5 public citizen. I'm also a member of the Green Party,

6 but I am not speaking for the Green Party. Phil

7 Snyder, who spoke about an hour ago, was -- gave sort

8 of our official presentation, and as a retired air

9 quality tester, he was much more cognizant of

10 technical and scientific matters in that area than I

11 am. He did ask me to stress, however, that when he

12 spoke about the difficulties which the EPA will face

13 in enforcing these rules, I think he was concerned

14 about the level of automotive pollution in the city,

15 he was not trying to discourage you but stress the

16 challenge and he wanted me to express the hope that

17 many of us feel, the hope that we can build a better

18 world.

19 Every generation wants to build a better

20 world for its children. With seven billion people on

21 the planet, however, several systems close to

22 collapsing, it will probably not be a materially

23 better world. Hopefully it will be a sustainable

24 world, a world which will last, a world which, if I

25 can use the word which I am uncomfortable with, might
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1 be spiritually better in that it will -- we will raise

2 and train better people who will interact with each

3 other in a more loving, peaceful and functional way.

4 I'm almost 62 years old. For almost exactly

5 30 years I've lived within six miles of the Houston

6 ship channel. I know that many of the lives of my

7 thousands of neighbors have been shortened by that

8 proximity over the years and I fear, naturally, for

9 the longevity of my wife, my children and myself.

10 I've also been to a lot of government

11 hearings over the years. Usually the situation was

12 one where some project was planned which I and most of

13 the other citizen speakers did not seem to approve of,

14 but it always seemed to me that the project that was

15 planned was going to go through anyway. Whatever we

16 did, the public or the people would be ignored and it

17 was going to happen come hell or high water. That's

18 unfortunately always proved true in every instance

19 that I've personally investigated and I hope that will

20 be the case now, that the EPA will prevail here in its

21 desire to make more stringent ozone levels and enforce

22 them.

23 It also occurred to me as I was thinking

24 about what I was going to say yesterday that the

25 difference between -- a difference between Republicans
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1 and Democrats which I might want to share with

2 people -- I did mention I am a Green Party, right? --

3 and the difference is -- that I am thinking of is that

4 Republicans seem to always keep their word but

5 unfortunately they promise things which are not good,

6 while Democrats promise things which are good but

7 don't necessarily deliver on them. So functionally

8 they frequently come close to being identical in

9 action, and of course the reason for that can be laid

10 down to the lack of separation of corporation and

11 state and our approximate democracy.

12 The corporations will fight the EPA on this.

13 They have been, I'm sure, today. Then after the

14 recent Supreme Court decision of January 21st

15 reinforcing the notion of corporate personhood and

16 removing even more barriers to political donations by

17 corporations, they will be even stronger. Jobs will

18 probably be something they'll focus on in this very

19 weak economy we have now, or rather, this economy

20 that's getting healthier if you don't look at jobs.

21 Well, my comments to that are you can't work

22 if you're dead and you shouldn't have to work in a way

23 in a place that's going to endanger your health and

24 the health of others. My thumb moved there. And

25 secondly, that I hope -- I hope those seeking
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1 employment in the energy industry can find the jobs in

2 the booming clean, safe, never-ending energy industry

3 which is coming along now with solar and Zephyr.

4 In closing, I want to say on this Groundhog

5 Day that I hope the groundhogs in the EPA will not be

6 frightened by their shadows and we will not have

7 another six weeks of what has been an interminable

8 ozone winter. Thank you.

9 MS. WEGMAN: Thank you.

10 Our next two speakers are Deron Patterson and

11 Elena Craft.

12 Actually, it's the button on -- yeah, just

13 hold -- where it says push, you have to hold it while

14 you speak.

15 MR. PATTERSON: Hi. My name is Deron

16 Patterson from Sugar Land, Texas. That's D-E-R-O-N.

17 I work for PPG Industries in the glass division.

18 And PPG, we have a glass factory in Wichita

19 Falls, Texas. We employ over 400 people. We have two

20 float lines there making clear glass and tinted glass

21 and we make the most energy-efficient glass in the

22 market. But I'm here today speaking more broadly as a

23 member of the Texas Glass Association. I am on the

24 State Board and, therefore, I'm talking about the

25 whole Texas glass industry, including my competitors.
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1 And what I wanted to talk about was a

2 solution to this problem of reducing our NOx, SOx and

3 other greenhouse emissions, which is energy codes.

4 And I am happy to report that our state energy

5 conservation office held a hearing just last week on

6 Texas implementing the 2009 energy code. And it looks

7 very favorable that on the commercial side for our

8 development that we'll have the newest energy code and

9 in 2012 we'll have it for residential. And that's a

10 good thing because in Texas we allowed too many years

11 to pass without updating our state energy code. Right

12 now we have the 2000 series.

13 And I mentioned the energy codes because with

14 the 2009 energy code, when it goes into effect every

15 commercial building in this state will have insulated

16 glass, like I have in here in front of you, requiring

17 the most energy-efficient properties of low-emissivity

18 glass. And guess what? It's all made in Texas by PPG

19 in Wichita Falls, Guardian Industries in Corsicana,

20 Texas, and Cardinal Industries in Waxahachie. And

21 there's dozens of fabricators who can temper and

22 insulate and laminate the glass here in Texas. And so

23 when this new energy code comes into place, it's going

24 to reduce energy consumption in all of our buildings

25 for new constructions. So I'd ask the EPA to continue
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1 strengthening energy codes throughout our state and

2 every state and that will take care of new

3 construction.

4 But now, existing construction, like this

5 hotel -- my kids hate it when I am out traveling and

6 looking on the floor of the logos of glass, airports

7 gets you in trouble, but I couldn't help but to notice

8 this hotel here has energy-inefficient monolithic

9 glass. But the problem for our building owners today

10 is the federal tax credit of $1.80 per square foot is

11 just not good enough. There's some legislation

12 working its way through the house to raise that to

13 three dollars a square foot and we really need the

14 support to get the incentives for the existing

15 buildings because there is countless thousands of

16 buildings in this city and Austin and San Antonio, El

17 Paso, Dallas that could be retrofitted, and not just

18 with glass. That's not the magic bullet. It's an

19 important one to get to energy-efficient buildings,

20 but new air-conditioning systems, new lighting system,

21 et cetera. So we need more incentives to get our

22 building owners to do that. Because if we do, what we

23 know the statistics are that buildings, homes,

24 hospitals, commercial buildings, schools consume 70

25 percent of electricity. 50 percent of that
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1 electricity comes from coal and coal without

2 carbon-sequestration equipment is our biggest emitter

3 of NAAQS and SOx and CO2. So we need more incentives

4 to reduce that, and energy codes is a great way to do

5 that.

6 Now, I thought I'd just put a plug in for my

7 own company. At our factory in Wichita Falls, Texas,

8 we -- about every 10 to 12 years you have to redo the

9 float line as far as the refractories and we're about

10 ready to turn off our tint line here in a few weeks.

11 And PPG is going to spend an extra about six to eight

12 million dollars putting in our proprietary oxygen fuel

13 technology on that tint line. It will be our third

14 plant in the U.S. And what does that mean? That

15 means we'll consume 10 percent less natural gas,

16 correspondingly 10 percent less CO2. But the big

17 reduction is on NOx. The NOx will be reduced by 70

18 percent, which is a great thing.

19 And I just want to let all my competitors

20 know, while this is a PPG proprietary technology,

21 we'll be glad to sell it to them so that all 30-plus

22 plants in the United States can have this technology

23 and reduce NOx by 70 percent throughout the United

24 States. Thank you for your time.

25 MS. WEGMAN: I do have one quick
138

1 question. Do you have any opinion on the ozone

2 standard that we proposed in light of the --

3 MR. PATTERSON: Yes. My personal

4 opinion is we should go at the lesser amount.

5 MS. WEGMAN: Meaning 60 parts --

6 MR. PATTERSON: That is correct.

7 MS. WEGMAN: Okay. Thank you very much.

8 MR. PATTERSON: And we have the

9 solution.

10 MS. WEGMAN: I definitely got that part

11 of the message.

12 DR. CRAFT: My name is Elena Craft and

13 I'm a toxicologist with Environmental Defense Fund, a

14 nonprofit, science-based environmental organization.

15 Thank you for the opportunity to testify about EPA's

16 proposed revisions to the nation's health-based

17 national ambient air quality standard for ground-level

18 ozone.

19 We applaud Lisa Jackson and the Obama

20 Administration for reviewing and restoring scientific

21 integrity in the decision-making process, especially

22 when it comes to decisions that affect the health of

23 our citizens. The previous Administrator Johnson had

24 no foundation for arbitrarily selecting the 2008 ozone

25 standard of 75 part per billion and in fact his
139

1 decision was rejected by the Clean Air Scientific

2 Advisory Committee as a failure to protect human

3 health.

4 We thank EPA for restoring science --

5 science's rightful place in the decision-making

6 process and recommending a more health-protective

7 standard of 60 to 70 part per billion. Environmental

8 Defense Fund supports a primary ozone standard of 60

9 part per billion as offering the best protection for

10 vulnerable populations against an array of

11 ozone-related adverse health effects and premature

12 mortality, and a secondary standard for ozone of 7

13 part per million per hour to provide increased

14 protection against ozone-related adverse impacts on

15 vegetation and forested ecosystems. The standards

16 represent the protective ends of the ranges

17 unanimously recommended by CASAC.

18 We've heard today from API and others

19 regarding questions on the findings from the Adams

20 study. API fails to mention that they funded the

21 study in an attempted -- and in attempting to refute

22 the findings from Adams, they would have us believe

23 that we are exposed to ozone in the same manner as a

24 typical lab rat.

25 The truth is that we're exposed to ozone in
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1 combination with many other pollutants, such as

2 particulate matter. In fact, the lowering of ozone

3 requires the lowering of chemical precursors such as

4 NOx and VOCs. NOx also contributes to the formation of

5 PM. EPA has calculated the value of these

6 co-benefits. An ozone standard of 60 part per billion

7 could translate to a combined morbidity and mortality

8 benefit of $48 billion when you add in the effects of

9 the decreased PM.

10 In Texas, asthma is one of the most prevalent

11 chronic diseases and the continuing rise makes it one

12 of the state's biggest health concerns. According to

13 a 2007 study by the Texas Department of State Health

14 Services, an estimated 2.3 million adult Texans have

15 self-reported lifetime asthma and 1.4 million have

16 been officially diagnosed with asthma. Both of these

17 estimates are higher than our national averages.

18 Asthma affects more children than any other

19 chronic disease and is one of the most frequent

20 reasons for hospital admissions among children. The

21 Texas Department of State Health Services reports that

22 over 800,000 and 580,000 of Texas children have

23 self-reported lifetime and then officially diagnosed

24 asthma respectively. Given the large number of

25 affected Texans, asthma has resulted in major economic
141

1 and social burdens accounting for over 25,000

2 hospitalizations and an estimated $447 million in

3 total hospital charges in 2007 alone. In addition,

4 from 1999 through 2005, there were a total of 1,831

5 deaths in Texas associated with asthma.

6 It's fitting to remember some of the previous

7 comments we've heard regarding the ozone debate. In

8 2007, David Schanbacher at TCEQ stated that "Texas is

9 using every opportunity to address the current ozone

10 problem and still faces insurmountable challenges."

11 Also in 2007, our own Governor Perry wrote that "not

12 even a complete shutdown of the Houston ship channel

13 would bring about sufficient reductions."

14 One wonders how we met the 1997 standards

15 without shutting down the entire state last year,

16 given those proclamations. Industry representatives,

17 and indeed our own state environmental agency,

18 consistently claim that strong environmental

19 protections strangle economic development. TCEQ likes

20 to say that a stronger standard will result in

21 devastation of the traditional drive-through. Their

22 claim is that we won't be able to idle the engines in

23 the cars while we wait for our Big Mac, fries and

24 supersized soft drink.

25 The truth is that if TCEQ were serious about
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1 protecting the health of the citizens in our state,

2 then instead of coming to hearings testifying against

3 health-based protective standards, then they would

4 exercise more of the opportunities that we have to

5 reduce ozone concentrations, including stopping the

6 issuance of permits that fail to consider emissions,

7 limiting emissions from stationary sources, operating

8 meaningful trading schemes, and then encouraging a

9 mass transit system.

10 MS. WEGMAN: Your time is up. If you

11 can wrap it up, please. Thank you.

12 DR. CRAFT: We respectfully ask that

13 Administrator Jackson continue following the path of

14 science in protecting human health, heed the course

15 charted by EPA's independent Scientific Advisory

16 Committee, and be guided by EPA's own professional

17 staff in continuing the nation's critical race for

18 healthier air. The Clean Air Act mandates to protect

19 human health from ground-level ozone with an adequate

20 margin of safety calls for nothing less. Thank you.

21 MS. WEGMAN: Thank you.

22 We have one more speaker before we take our

23 lunch break. That is Christina Wisdom.

24 MS. WISDOM: Good afternoon. Since I am

25 the last thing between the morning and lunch, I will
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1 be brief. My name is Christina Wisdom and I'm the

2 Vice President and general counsel for the Texas

3 Chemical Council. TCC is a statewide trade

4 association representing approximately 70 chemical

5 manufacturers with more than 200 Texas facilities, the

6 great majority of which are located in the HGB

7 nonattainment area.

8 TCC member companies manufacture a number of

9 products, such as plastics and insulation products

10 that increase energy efficiency, which in turn lower

11 emissions of the ozone precursors such as NOx. In the

12 HGB nonattainment area, TCC members have worked with

13 other industrial sectors to invest $4 billion since

14 2001 to reduce NOx emission by over 80 percent.

15 We oppose lowering the NAAQS for ground-level

16 ozone as it will have a devastating impact on the

17 chemical industry resulting in the loss of high-paying

18 jobs and higher consumer prices. EPA should fully

19 implement the '97 and the 2008 standards before

20 considering lowering the standard even further.

21 Air quality in Texas and across the nation

22 dramatically approved -- improved. In Texas, HGB is

23 the only region that has yet to receive attainment

24 status designation from EPA with the '97 standard.

25 However, monitoring data from TCEQ for 2007, '8 and '9
144

1 indicates that HGB is currently meeting that standard.

2 This is very impressive, despite the state's rapidly

3 growing economy and population.

4 However, at the end of 2008, counties across

5 the U.S. were still not in attainment with the '97

6 standard. Existing challenges remain, the most

7 significant of which is the high contribution of Nox

8 emissions from mobile sources, particularly in urban

9 areas. In Houston, mobile sources account for 55

10 percent of NOx emissions and in Dallas they account

11 for 74 percent. Considering the federal government

12 has sole regulatory authority over mobile source

13 emissions, there's little the states can do to meet

14 the regulatory hurdles posed by a lower ground-level

15 ozone standard.

16 It is unnecessarily punitive for EPA to

17 implement a lower standard before the federal fuel and

18 engine standards can be fully implemented and their

19 emissions reductions fully realized. Furthermore, the

20 cost of achieving the lower NAAQS should deter --

21 should deter EPA from lowering the standard at this

22 time. I acknowledge that the Clean Air Act prohibits

23 EPA from considering costs when establishing the NAAQS

24 but not when analyzing how to achieve the NAAQS. EPA

25 is authorized to consider the cost, the technical
145

1 feasibility and the time necessary to attain a new

2 NAAQS.

3 In the revised Regulatory Impact Analysis,

4 EPA acknowledges that several areas cannot reach

5 attainment by use of only known controls. Despite the

6 fact that necessary technology to reduce ozone further

7 and at this magnitude from point sources is still

8 under development, EPA has estimated that in HGB it

9 could cost anywhere from between 15 to $30,000 a ton

10 to make further NOx reductions. This estimate seems

11 arbitrary at best since NOx emission trades in the HGB

12 Cap-and-Trade program have traditionally averaged more

13 that $150,000 a ton.

14 Nowhere in the analysis does EPA analyze how

15 a lower ozone standard will jeopardize the U.S.

16 economy and ultimately impede the states' ability to

17 achieve the standard. EPA's is predicting that 650

18 counties will not be -- will not be in attainment with

19 the 60 parts per billion. That means that the states

20 with those counties will face significant hurdles in

21 attracting jobs and economic development. Existing

22 businesses in those 650 counties will face more

23 permitting requirements to operate, which ultimately

24 will lead to significant operational delays and

25 increase cost. This means that all Americans in those
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1 650 counties will face increased energy costs as more

2 regulatory hurdles drive up the cost of electricity.

3 Ultimately, these ramifications will have a

4 significant impact on the states' ability to achieve a

5 lower NAAQS and TCC finds EPA's analysis insufficient

6 to support an assumption that it is technically

7 feasible for states to achieve a lower NAAQS in a

8 cost-efficient and timely manner.

9 Finally, it is not clear that the difference

10 between the existing 2008 standard and a lower ozone

11 standard will result in measurable improvement in

12 public health. Given that this proposal is one of the

13 most expensive regulations ever issued by the federal

14 government, it's alarming that EPA would go forward

15 with it, given the uncertainty as to whether the

16 proposal is based on peer-reviewed sound science and

17 verified data.

18 In conclusion, TCC supports scientifically

19 based, transparent, cost-efficient environmental

20 regulations aimed at improving and protecting the

21 environment while enabling businesses to flourish and

22 grow in the United States and Texas. Because we

23 believe that this proposal is contrary to these

24 principles, we oppose lowering the eight-hour primary

25 and secondary ozone standards. Thank you so much for
147

1 your time.

2 MS. WEGMAN: Thank you. Just a couple

3 of small things. We do not take costs into account in

4 setting the standards, as you're absolutely correct

5 that we do take costs and feasibility into account

6 when it comes to attaining or implementing those

7 standards. We do create a Regulatory Impact Analysis,

8 which is what you were referring to. To the extent

9 that you have information about, you know,

10 inaccuracies, from your view, in that, we would like

11 that information and the underlying data that support

12 it. That would be --

13 MS. WISDOM: We'll be happy to submit

14 that in our written comments.

15 MS. WEGMAN: Okay. As well as any

16 information you have on the science?

17 MS. WISDOM: Absolutely. Thank you.

18 MS. WEGMAN: Thank you.

19 Okay. Well, thank you everybody for

20 participating this morning. We're going to take a

21 lunch break and I believe we are scheduled to start

22 again at 2 o'clock.

23 (Lunch break.)

24 MS. WEGMAN: Okay. Folks, I think we

25 will start up the hearing again. Just before we get
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1 started, I want to remind people that if they want to

2 speak, to please sign up with our registration desk.

3 And even if you don't want to speak, if you would let

4 the folks at the registration desk know that you're

5 here, we'd like to know how many people have come for

6 the record. It makes a big difference to us how many

7 people come out and we very much appreciate everybody

8 taking the time today to come and talk with us.

9 So our first speakers this afternoon are --

10 and just as a reminder to folks, we are calling people

11 up in pairs and so we'll have the first two speakers

12 and then we've got a timer and everyone has five

13 minutes to speak. So the first speaker is State

14 Senator Rodney Ellis and Robert Levy.

15 SENATOR ELLIS: Thank you. My name is

16 Rodney Ellis.

17 MS. WEGMAN: Senator, would you just

18 turn the mic on. I don't think it's --

19 SENATOR ELLIS: Can you hear me?

20 I'm Rodney Ellis. I'm a state senator from

21 Houston. I've been in the state legislature 20 years.

22 Prior to that, I was on the city council here in

23 Houston for six years. I'm also on the National

24 Commission on Energy Policy and I co-chair a

25 commission to get African Americans engaged in the
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1 dialogue about climate change. I'm active with a

2 group of state legislators, bipartisan group around

3 the country, who have been working closely with the

4 White House to encourage comprehensive legislation on

5 this subject. We met in our nation's capital last

6 week. We submitted about 1,201 names, a good number

7 from Texas, might I add, encouraging comprehensive

8 legislation to deal with the issue of climate change.

9 I am here today because I have fought for

10 clean air during my entire tenure in the Texas senate.

11 Back in 1991 I introduced a bill to have Texas adopt

12 the Cal LEV emissions standards. Obviously, thanks to

13 the work of the current administration, there won't be

14 a need to put that bill in again now. But sometimes I

15 do think that if we had adopted those standards back

16 then just how far we would be towards achieving our

17 goal and not having a number of the problems that

18 we're going to have to deal with pretty soon today.

19 I'm here because first I want to applaud

20 President Obama, Lisa Jackson and the administration

21 for the positive steps that they have taken, having

22 the courage to make the necessary decision to improve

23 America's public health and protect their environment

24 by establishing a new, more stringent health-based

25 standard for ground-level ozone. I applaud this
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1 action particularly because of the large body of

2 scientific evidence that the proposed ozone standard

3 is needed to protect our most vulnerable population

4 groups: Our children, our elderly, and people who

5 suffer from asthma.

6 I noted that a number of people particularly

7 in my state, some in state government, who would

8 question these new standards. I welcome the standards

9 with open arms because I know ultimately it is the

10 right thing to do.

11 I want to make seven quick points. One,

12 Houston is at a critical crossroads. So is the state

13 of Texas. We can perceive the issues of pollution and

14 climate change as serious obstacles or we can embrace

15 these challenges as massive opportunities. If we want

16 to continue to be the energy players in the next

17 century that we were in the last century, I think we

18 need to look closely at some of the fossilized

19 thinking that we have had over the years and figure

20 out how to embrace this new green economy. I know

21 that Houston and I know Texas has the intellectual

22 capacity to do that, the capability to do it, and I

23 hope that my colleagues in government will seize this

24 opportunity.

25 Number two, I think there are indications
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1 indicates that the interstate transport of ozone

2 across state lines is contributing to my home town's

3 ozone challenges. Because of this, I urge the EPA to

4 quantify the impact of interstate ozone transport in

5 this area and across the country and to also put in

6 place the necessary interstate controls to address

7 this crucial issue.

8 Number three, the Obama Administration's

9 decision to tighten emissions standards on various

10 types of vehicles over the past year will have a

11 significant positive impact in reducing the region's

12 ozone levels over the next five to ten years. In

13 fact, vehicular emission reductions relative to the

14 new standards account for more than 95 percent of the

15 emissions reductions that the TCEQ has included in the

16 SIP for the Houston area to maintain the 1997

17 eight-hour ozone standards of 85 parts per million.

18 Fourth point, the reliance on vehicular

19 emissions -- emission reductions to attain the 1997

20 ozone standard suggests that significant emission

21 reductions will be required from the area's industrial

22 commercial sectors in the next SIP to attain the new

23 proposal standard. I want to urge the TCEQ and EPA to

24 come together with local and regional stakeholders to

25 assure that the necessary scientific analysis are
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1 promptly undertaken to assure the most cost-effective

2 ozone-reduction strategies are identified for

3 inclusion in the forthcoming SIP to assure timely

4 attainment of the new ozone standard.

5 Fifth point, I urge my colleagues at the TCEQ

6 to figure out how we may reduce the region's level of

7 air toxins, particulates and greenhouse gases as plans

8 are finalized to meet the new ozone standard in the

9 future.

10 Sixth point -- and I am going to submit this,

11 by the way -- available data indicate that this region

12 may have already attained the 1997 eight-hour ozone

13 standard. This fact highlights the remarkable

14 progress we're already making in reducing smog in our

15 area. I call on the TCEQ to promptly convey all

16 stakeholders to put in place the necessary SIP and

17 maintenance plan to assure actual attainment of the

18 1997 standard over the next few years.

19 Seventh and last point, in Houston, by 2018,

20 TCEQ predicts that the factories and other industrial

21 facilities will produce 43 percent of our air

22 pollutants while cars and trucks will account for only

23 14 percent. Of all large industrial emissions in

24 Texas in 2007, 40 percent of the NOx emissions come

25 from power plants. Most of the power plant NOx
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1 emissions are from 17 existing coal-fired --

2 coal-fired power plants. 11 recently permitted and

3 proposed coal plants would emit 27,000 additional tons

4 of NOx annually if they're permitted to go into

5 operation. I want to raise that issue because it's

6 going to be very difficult to get where we know we

7 need to be if we don't do something about those

8 plants.

9 Thank you for coming to Houston to let me

10 testify.

11 MS. WEGMAN: Thank you for taking the

12 time.

13 MR. LEVY: Hi, I'm Robert Levy and I'm

14 here representing first myself as a citizen, secondly

15 I serve as President of GHASP, Mothers For Clean Air,

16 President of the Board, and thirdly as Director of a

17 group known as Industry Professionals For Clean Air.

18 Personally, I have a Ph.D. in chemical engineering and

19 I worked for roughly 40 years in oil refining

20 industry.

21 So my colleagues and I are deeply concerned

22 about the health effects that -- the known health

23 effects of the ozone, the public health being

24 compromised, and we're here to strongly urge EPA to

25 act to lower the standard to the range that's been
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1 proposed and preferably to 60 parts per billion.

2 I think we all have some personal stories

3 about ourselves or friends or acquaintances in town

4 who have suffered as a result of ozone in the

5 atmosphere. Personally, I can say that as a

6 70-year-old runner, I have a lot of concerns about

7 my -- the health of my lungs going forward. Also, my

8 wife suffers chronic respiratory issues which somehow

9 magically disappear every time we travel outside of

10 Houston for more than 24 hours. So I also have

11 personal -- strong personal feelings about this issue.

12 On the technical side, representing Industry

13 Professionals For Clean Air, we all have experience in

14 the industry and we firmly believe that technical

15 solutions are available and -- and unreasonable cost.

16 And we realize that in the past industry has often

17 objected to tightening of the standards but then in

18 the past it's been found that cost-effective solutions

19 are available and in some cases even profitable

20 solutions. So we believe that smart engineers can

21 work these problems and lead us to achieving the

22 better standards.

23 Once again, I urge the EPA to heed the expert

24 scientific advice which has come from the Scientific

25 Advisory Committee and proceed to implement the
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1 strongest recommended standard of 60 parts per

2 billion. I appreciate having the opportunity to

3 testify and I -- we will have written comments

4 submitted by one of my colleagues, Lucy Randall.

5 Thank you.

6 MS. WEGMAN: Thank you. Thank you very

7 much.

8 Our next speakers are Jon White and Thomas

9 Weber. And generally, we would like both speakers to

10 stay up until both speakers are done with their

11 comments.

12 MR. WHITE: Good afternoon. My name is

13 Jon White. That's Jon, J-O-N, no H. I am here today

14 representing the -- I serve as the Director for

15 Natural Resources & Environmental Quality for Travis

16 County. I also serve as the county's environmental

17 officer. I am here today representing the Travis

18 County Commissioners' Court. We have written comments

19 that we will provide to the reporter. We expect there

20 will be additional written comments from Travis County

21 in coordination with our regional Clean Air Coalition.

22 So you can expect that later on.

23 Travis County is one of five counties within

24 the Austin-Round Rock Metropolitan Statistical Area.

25 The present population of the region is about 1.7
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1 million. That's about a 32 percent increase from the

2 year 2000. Travis County is the fifth most populous

3 county in the state of Texas. Current population of

4 Travis County is almost exactly right at one million.

5 And, again, that's about a 23 percent increase from

6 the year 2000. So we are a rapidly growing, rapidly

7 urbanizing area. Air quality is a major concern to

8 people of Travis County as well as the entire region.

9 Travis County is a signatory to three

10 voluntary agreements to reduce harmful air emissions

11 in the Austin-Round Rock region, specifically

12 emissions that are precursors to ozone formation.

13 In -- that includes the pioneering Early Action

14 Compact. I think it was the first of its kind. The

15 County, as well as its partners in the region, have

16 implemented a number of controls and programs to

17 reduce emissions. These have been extremely

18 successful since 1999. Our design value has gone

19 from 90 parts per billion in 1999 to 75 part per

20 billion last year.

21 Now, Travis County will continue to promote

22 and implement additional emission reduction strategies

23 through our regional efforts. We also understand very

24 clearly that any tightening of the current standard

25 will likely -- could very well put Travis County into
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1 a nonattainment status. Nevertheless, Travis County

2 commends the U.S. EPA and its commitment to further

3 protect public health and quality of ecosystems and

4 agricultural production. Travis County also strongly

5 supports U.S. EPA in its efforts to base its standards

6 on science.

7 So Travis County still has some additional

8 concerns with respect to the new proposed standards.

9 First and foremost, I think, we are very concerned

10 about transport from out-of-region emission sources.

11 Our region is adversely affected by both interstate

12 and intrastate transport from sources beyond our

13 jurisdictional control. Multi-day -- monitoring data

14 taken during multi-day high ozone episodes in the

15 region show that background ozone concentrations,

16 meaning the stuff that's transported in, accounts for

17 about 80 percent of our eight-hour maximum.

18 Transported emission make it highly unlikely

19 that the region will be able to demonstrate attainment

20 even with additional control strategies. Accordingly,

21 we hope the EPA will consider some sort of a phased

22 implementation approach, extended compliance time

23 frames or alternative compliance pathways. Mr. Weber

24 will expand on that.

25 The final point that I will make today is
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1 that a metropolitan area designation for any

2 nonattainment is -- a metropolitan areawide

3 designation is essential. 78 percent of nitrous oxide

4 emissions in the Austin-Round Rock area are from

5 mobile sources. So 80 percent of what we've got is

6 from transported sources and another 80 percent of

7 what's left is from mobile, automotive-type sources.

8 Urbanization beyond the central core of the

9 region is proceeding at some of the fastest rates in

10 the country. Commuting, transportation, all those

11 things, those are regional issues. They're not

12 localized. Therefore, Travis County strongly

13 recommends that any nonattainment designation for the

14 Austin-Round Rock MSA include a metropolitan area

15 designation. A single county nonattainment

16 designation would be inappropriate because it would

17 undercut the ability of the region to achieve success.

18 It will be essential to the success of control

19 strategies to reach attainment that all significantly

20 contributing geographic areas be included, and this

21 would be consistent with EPA's past practice.

22 At a minimum, the most -- the most populous

23 counties on the IH -- on the Interstate Highway 35

24 corridor, specifically Williamson County, Travis

25 County and Hays County, should be included if a
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1 nonattainment designation is determined for the

2 Austin-Round Rock MSA. And I will pass on for

3 additional technical comments to Mr. Weber. Thank

4 you.

5 MS. WEGMAN: Thank you. Just one

6 question. I want to make sure I understood what you

7 were saying. You said that background ozone accounts

8 for 80 percent of the eight-hour --

9 MR. WHITE: Under certain conditions of

10 multiple days when we have high ozone levels.

11 MS. WEGMAN: Okay.

12 MR. WHITE: In those specific

13 circumstances, that's the case. And we obviously

14 would be glad to provide the background reports

15 related to that.

16 MS. WEGMAN: That's what I was going to

17 ask, if you could provide the information about that

18 and also the figures you were giving about mobile

19 source emissions --

20 MR. WHITE: Yes.

21 MS. WEGMAN: -- and their contribution.

22 MR. WHITE: Be pleased to do that.

23 MS. WEGMAN: And I just want to make

24 sure, you were saying include Williams [sic], Travis

25 and Hays Counties? Did I hear that correctly?
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1 MR. WHITE: Yes.

2 MS. WEGMAN: Okay.

3 MR. WEBER: Good afternoon. Thank you

4 for being here in Houston. I'm Thomas Weber,

5 W-E-B-E-R, also with Travis County. So I'm going to

6 continue with the comments and not repeat what

7 Mr. White's indicated.

8 One -- again, focusing on some of our

9 implementation concerns. Time frames for corrective

10 measures appear to be too short. Although some of

11 this is a little bit uncertain, we did notice that EPA

12 identifies a time range from 2014 to 2031 during which

13 the primary standard must be attained probably,

14 depending on severity. Due to airborne water quality

15 studies conducted by Baylor Institute for Air Science

16 2006, we're aware that there are a lot of -- there's a

17 lot of data that indicate the transport of ozone into

18 our particular metropolitan area from upwind sources,

19 and so we believe that rather than guiding a timeline

20 for attainment based on severity that it should be

21 more focused on what is contributing to that

22 metropolitan area and, therefore, the attainment

23 deadline should be similarly set for nearby adjacent

24 metropolitan areas.

25 To -- on phased implementation, our
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1 Commissioners' Court raised the concern to us that we

2 want to express today that jumping from our current

3 conditions to a standard, say, in the range of 60 to

4 65 may be unrealistic expectation to immediately

5 resolve and it may discourage a lot of voluntary or

6 even regulatory solutions. Now, we're not -- we're

7 not questioning the standard but more the phase-in of

8 goals to -- I guess we're suggesting a phase-in of

9 goals to have some incremental time frames. For

10 instance, you could have an MSA reduce the design

11 value by 5 parts per million in the first five years

12 followed by 5 -- another 5 parts per million in the

13 next five years. So you could have perhaps successive

14 implementation plans. Ultimately each MSA would be

15 expected to achieve attainment of the adopted standard

16 that you're establishing through this rule-making. We

17 think this approach, or one similar, would encourage

18 efforts rather than placing the focus on litigating or

19 seeking to immediately overturn a standard that may be

20 immediately unrealistic.

21 Two points on monitoring. It's our

22 understanding that the reliability of the ozone data

23 obtained from air-monitoring equipment is

24 insufficient. We particularly think it's insufficient

25 for nonattainment designations under the proposed
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1 standard. U.S. EPA's quality assurance specifications

2 allow an accuracy of plus or minus 5 percent and we

3 think that this error could be reduced by more

4 frequent calibration efforts, and so we think that

5 within this rule-making U.S. EPA and State of Texas

6 should develop more stringent quality assurance

7 protocols. Based on the health effects documentation

8 of EPA presented with the proposed standards and the

9 costly consequences of nonattainment, it's crucial to

10 more accurately measure air quality.

11 Relating to the secondary ozone standard, we

12 look at this with interest. We concur with the goal

13 for more protection of ecosystems, vegetation, and

14 agricultural crops. Just as one for instance, Travis

15 County is -- and its partners are responsible and

16 invest millions of dollars annually to preserve and

17 enhance, I guess I'll call it, vegetative habitat or

18 forested lands for federally endangered species in our

19 area. That said, we recommend and urge EPA to

20 eliminate the gaps in the air-monitoring network that

21 currently exist. We noted in your facts sheet that

22 there's been an additional rule-making to add perhaps

23 three non-urban monitoring locations per state. Three

24 locations appears to be -- it seems an inadequate

25 number for a state the size of Texas. We believe it's
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1 essential that the monitoring network measure the air

2 quality conditions in an area where these non-urban,

3 non-human receptors exist.

4 Again, we have a letter signed by Judge Sam

5 Biscoe of Travis County. It was -- these comments

6 were unanimously adopted by our Commissioners' Court

7 just last week, and we -- as Mr. White said, we expect

8 that we'll try to provide additional information to

9 you.

10 MS. WEGMAN: Thank you. That would be

11 great if you can provide some additional information,

12 especially -- well, on several points, but the

13 monitoring point you made about the problem with the

14 calibration and the reliability of the monitors. More

15 detail on that would be helpful because we did have a

16 separate rule-making on rules of monitoring, as you

17 note, but this question about calibration is something

18 we could conceivably address in this rule-making if,

19 you know, we understand better what your concern is.

20 MR. WEBER: We'd be pleased to do that

21 helping.

22 MS. WEGMAN: Okay. And then I hope also

23 your testimony, even though this doesn't relate to

24 this standard per se but on the implementation side,

25 lays out a little more fully some of your ideas for
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1 phasing and extending timelines. That would be very

2 helpful.

3 MR. WEBER: Okay.

4 MS. WEGMAN: Okay. Great. Thank you

5 both.

6 Our next two speakers are Jenifer Wilde and

7 Greg Twidal.

8 MS. WILDE: Hi, everyone. My name is

9 Jenifer and I am here as a private citizen and --

10 COURT REPORTER: Full name, please.

11 MS. WILDE: Jenifer Wilde. You can say

12 "wild," it doesn't really matter. J-E-N-I-F-E-R

13 W-I-L--D-E.

14 I am here as a private citizen and as a

15 representative of my peers in the environmental

16 movement who could not be here today. Most of them

17 are in Austin. And I have prepared my comment as an

18 artistic expression of how I really feel. And this is

19 in no way meant to be a joke or to make fun of all

20 these proceedings. I do take this very seriously. I

21 just thought I would express it as personally felt.

22 Yo, EPA, I like what you're trying to do.

23 Polluters coming in making me so blue. Breathing

24 clean air is what I really like. If someone makes it

25 dirty, I'm putting up a fight. These big coal plants,
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1 all of them on grill, shutting them down gives me such

2 a thrill. But Perry says that this proposal is

3 killing jobs, but really it's our own health getting

4 robbed. The air that we breathe, it affects us all.

5 So come on everybody, let's get on the ball. 60 parts

6 per billion is where we want to be. Living in America

7 healthy and free. Thank you.

8 MR. TWIDAL: Wow, how do you follow

9 that?

10 Hello, everyone, representatives of the EPA.

11 My name is Greg Twidal. That's T-W-I-D-A-L. And for

12 starters, I'm English but I am actually an American

13 citizen and for most of my life I have lived in the

14 infamous District 29.

15 There's been a lot of talk today about -- in

16 regards to the petrochemical complaints but little has

17 been said about the people living there. For the

18 record, I have been diagnosed with asthma. I have

19 severe allergies. All my friends and family know that

20 I sneeze and I am so loud and it's so uncontrollable.

21 And throughout most of my life I've had respiratory

22 problems. Please bear with me. My heart is beating

23 really fast.

24 MS. WILDE: Mine was too. Don't worry.

25 MS. WEGMAN: Just take your time and
166

1 speak --

2 MR. TWIDAL: Well, thank you. Thank you

3 very much.

4 MS. WEGMAN: -- at your own pace.

5 MR. TWIDAL: For the record, I support

6 the ruling to reduce the standard to -- I believe it's

7 .60 parts per million? Is that correct?

8 MS. WEGMAN: Yeah. It's a range of 60

9 to 70 and you sound like you're supporting the lower

10 end of the range at 60.

11 MR. TWIDAL: Yes. Any kind of reduction

12 would be very, very -- yes, it would help thousands of

13 people. The following comments I make today as a

14 private citizen. This is an oral testimony and I do

15 so -- I'm a private citizen with community interests.

16 I'm a volunteer for TEJAS, that's the Texas

17 Environmental Justice Advocacy Services, as well as a

18 member for the American Cancer Society, but I do not

19 speak directly for them.

20 Most of what I have to do -- most of what I

21 have to say today I say out of love for my neighbors,

22 friends and family. Representatives, as you already

23 know, this is not just an environmental issue. This

24 is a human rights concern. District 29 is known for a

25 lot of things, most of them are impressive. It is
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1 home to the second largest collection of petrochemical

2 plants and refineries. You can't miss them. If you

3 take 610 east you'll see them for miles.

4 What you might not know is that it is also

5 home for the -- it is home for the highest number of

6 uninsured persons in the nation according to a record

7 in 2008. This information can be found. So now we

8 take an area that creates lots and lots of pollutions

9 and now we have an area where the people are not only

10 at risk to the VOCs but also to the water, to

11 everything going on, but unfortunately are uninsured.

12 There are some insurance companies that do not cover

13 people -- that just will not cover people in this

14 area. They won't.

15 But they actually had to expand the district

16 to an area in Humble, which I also lived in. I lived

17 on Lake Houston. Water has to be shipped from Lake

18 Houston to the other areas within District 29 because

19 of pollution, because the water is not drinkable. And

20 believe me, the water in Lake Houston isn't that much

21 better either. Okay.

22 Asthma, cancer, and lung disease rates are

23 rampant in the area. My work with several volunteers,

24 we go home to home, speak to family after family after

25 family, and we hear nothing but reports of cancer,
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1 asthma, COP disease, aches and pains, and it's

2 startling. These are mostly minority families who are

3 just trying to make means here in the United States

4 who -- and some of them, I am in this area, are, you

5 know, unfortunately they're not yet citizens. I want

6 to put it that way. So they can't turn to anyone.

7 Their voices are not being heard and it's very

8 shocking.

9 And then there are the children in the area.

10 And I got to tell you, this is pretty upsetting.

11 These children in this area who know nothing about

12 taxes, environments, the economy. They don't know

13 anything about it. They know about soccer. Okay.

14 Well, honestly, they're being exposed to daily plumes

15 of VOCs that are being produced from these plants.

16 They look like clouds. But what happens is these

17 clouds move over these communities and dissipate and

18 these VOCs end up just covering communities, schools,

19 playgrounds. It's awful. You can see many of the

20 chemical plants from the school playgrounds. That's

21 how close they are.

22 As they mature, these children, their bodies

23 do not develop at a normal rate. And right now we are

24 hearing from the families and their doctors of

25 underdeveloped lungs, respiratory systems and other
169

1 disastrous illnesses. And again, these families do

2 not have insurance.

3 MS. WEGMAN: Mr. Twidal, your time is

4 up. I'm sorry.

5 MR. TWIDAL: Oh, okay. I believe that

6 these petrochemicals can be socially responsible and I

7 believe that if we work together on this, we can all

8 benefit. Thank you very much.

9 MS. STONE: Yeah, I do have one

10 question. Are you going to submit written testimony?

11 MR. TWIDAL: Sure, I believe I can.

12 MS. STONE: Great.

13 MR. TWIDAL: I'm very new at this.

14 MS. STONE: Thank you.

15 MR. TWIDAL: You're welcome.

16 MS. WEGMAN: That would be helpful if

17 with the statistic you have --

18 MS. STONE: Right.

19 MR. TWIDAL: I will.

20 MS. WEGMAN: Thank you both very much.

21 Our next two speakers are Tashiica Miles and

22 Christine Naspinski.

23 MS. MILES: I'm Tashiica Miles. I'll

24 probably spell it for you. There's no way you'll ever

25 get it right. T-A-S-H-I-I-C-A, Miles, M-I-L-E-S. I'm
170

1 here from the Community In-power and Development

2 Association. We're a nonprofit organization based out

3 of Port Arthur, Texas. I'm here to speak about the

4 pollution that we have.

5 We're surrounded by refineries everywhere,

6 north, south, east and west. And what I was going to

7 do is talk about how the ozone levels are impacting

8 the children. But I think everyone pretty much hit on

9 the effects it has on children. So thank you,

10 Mr. Twidal. So I'm going to take a different approach

11 here.

12 What I want to talk about is America. I want

13 to talk about how America has progressed over the

14 years. We as Americans have come a long way from

15 slavery, segregation, diversity and oppression. Women

16 now have the right to vote. We have our first African

17 American president and we have our first Latina

18 Supreme Court judge. The fact that we have come such

19 a long way as a nation is proof that we can continue

20 to progress and move forward to ensure that everyone

21 in Texas, as well as in other parts of the United

22 States, have clean air and clean water to drink and

23 breathe.

24 Where I live, the pollution is constant and

25 it attributes to high levels of ozone. I'm here
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1 because I'm wanting to support the lower ozone levels.

2 Was it 60 ppb, 60 parts per billion? I'm also here to

3 speak for my community as well as any community that

4 has to go through this, blacks, whites, Asians,

5 Latinas, all other people from all creeds, colors,

6 races and nationalities. As Americans, we have the

7 right to breathe clean air for a better quality of

8 living, which is why it's so important that the EPA

9 tries to enforce stricter air quality laws.

10 Everyone has a job to do. A police officer's

11 job is to serve and protect. A fireman's job is to

12 put out fires and rescue little cats from trees for

13 old women. A doctor's job is to make sure that you

14 have the proper medicine and maintain perfect health.

15 The EPA's job is to make sure that we all have clean

16 air to breathe. With that being said, I would like to

17 once again restate the fact that I'm in support of the

18 60 parts per billion.

19 I also have documentation that I brought from

20 my organization. We put together a pamphlet that

21 we've given out probably to everyone on the planet or

22 anyone we come in contact with, but just in case you

23 guys don't have it, I brought these especially for

24 you. So don't ask for the documentation because I'm

25 way ahead of you.
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1 So -- and based on the documentation, we

2 found that benzene, butadiene and propylene are all

3 leading causes of cancer. Where I live, we have

4 children with cancer, asthma, breathing problems,

5 respiratory infections and et cetera. I'm here just

6 to let you guys know that I would really appreciate

7 it, and so would everyone else, if you guys would do

8 the right thing and try and help us provide a better

9 quality of living for our children and our children's

10 children and the future to come. Thank you.

11 MS. WEGMAN: Thank you.

12 DR. NASPINSKI: My name is Christine

13 Naspinski. That's spelled C-H-R-I-S-T-I-N-E. Last

14 name N-A-S-P-I-N-S-K-I. I am an environmental

15 toxicologist and I operate a small-scale vegetable

16 farm. Previously I worked for a number of years in

17 the petroleum and petrochemical industry as a chemical

18 engineer. I am here today as a private citizen, but I

19 am also a member of the American Association for the

20 Advancement of Science and the Union of Concerned

21 Scientists, though I am not here representing them

22 specifically.

23 Thank you very much for providing this

24 opportunity for the public to comment on EPA's

25 proposal to revise the national ambient air quality
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1 standard for ozone. I agree with EPA's proposal to

2 strengthen the standards for ozone to be consistent

3 with the 2007 staff paper and the recommendations of

4 the independent Clean Air Science Advisory Committee.

5 This proposal is in line with the Clean Air Act

6 mandate that EPA set air quality standards to protect

7 the public health, including that of sensitive

8 populations consistent with the best available science

9 and with an adequate margin of safety. The Supreme

10 Court has ruled that EPA may not consider other

11 factors, such as compliance costs, when setting

12 ambient air quality standards.

13 In the fields of environmental toxicology and

14 public health, we often have to make conclusions and

15 recommendations based on limited information.

16 However, in the case of ozone, I believe the data are

17 plentiful and clear. In otherwise healthy adults,

18 exposure to ozone levels at or below the current

19 standard of 75 parts per billion has been shown to

20 result in decreased lung function, increased

21 respiratory symptoms, inflammation, and increased

22 susceptibility to respiratory infection. In fact,

23 even in our own area, a Felix (phonetic) study in

24 Galveston demonstrated adverse effects on lung

25 function from ozone levels well below the current
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1 standard.

2 The current ozone limit is not sufficient to

3 protect even otherwise healthy adults, much less

4 sensitive populations. Children, teens, pregnant

5 women, senior citizens, and people with existing lung

6 and cardiovascular diseases are particularly

7 vulnerable to the health effects of ozone. Our air

8 quality standards must protect these sensitive

9 populations. I believe a primary limit of 60 ppb will

10 accomplish this goal.

11 As an environmental toxicologist, I urge EPA

12 to heed the scientific evidence reviewed by its own

13 staff and the recommendations of the independent

14 advisory committee. As an educator, I urge EPA to

15 protect children's health and thus their ability to

16 attend school and learn by adopting the primary limit

17 of 60 ppb. As an urban farmer, I urge EPA to adopt

18 the secondary cumulative ozone limit which protects

19 the viability of agricultural plants, including food

20 crops.

21 As an engineer, I know that we as a nation

22 can utilize our considerable creativity and ingenuity

23 to find economically feasible ways to met these

24 proposed standards. And as a taxpayer, I want to see

25 the large volume of publicly funded ozone research be
175

1 used to improve the health of our country's people and

2 ecosystems. Thank you very much for the opportunity

3 to speak today.

4 MS. WEGMAN: Thank you. Thank you both

5 very much.

6 Our next two speakers -- our next two

7 speakers are State Representative Thibaut -- I'm

8 probably mispronouncing it -- and Jed Anderson.

9 REPRESENTATIVE THIBAUT: Good afternoon

10 and thank you for the opportunity to be with you

11 today. My name is Kristi Thibaut. So I know

12 everybody messes -- and I'm State Representative of

13 District 133. I serve west and southwest Houston. I

14 represent a wonderfully diverse community of people of

15 all background, experiences and income levels who hail

16 literally from all over the world. Despite any

17 difference we may have, we all share a desire to raise

18 our families in a safe, healthy environment.

19 I'm here today because I am concerned, not

20 only as a legislator but also as a parent of a young

21 child, that the proposed construction of a new coal

22 plant in this region will further erode air and water

23 quality in this area. As you know, the

24 Houston-Galveston area is currently designated as

25 nonattainment for ozone per Clean Air Act, which means
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1 that the air quality for my constituents fails to meet

2 minimum health-based federal standards.

3 Construction of this new plant as currently

4 proposed would add over 4,000 tons of nitric oxide to

5 the air in the Houston area every year. This would

6 significantly affect our already high ozone levels and

7 make it more difficult for Houstonians to get back

8 into attainment. Furthermore, the proposed White

9 Stallion plant, which would remove 36,000 acre-feet of

10 water each year from the Colorado River, which serves

11 many drought-stricken areas of our state, and

12 emissions from this plant will contaminate the river

13 and nearby Matagorda Bay with mercury.

14 As a member of the Texas Legislature, I have

15 a responsibility to the constituents I represent and

16 to all the people of Texas to serve the public

17 interest. Unfortunately, the Texas Commission on

18 Environmental Quality, as we know is TCEQ, routinely

19 authorizes major new sources of ozone without regard

20 to potential impacts on air and water quality in the

21 region. Therefore, I am requesting that permitting of

22 this new coal plant be denied until such time as TCEQ

23 brings its rules and policies up to minimum standards

24 required by the Clean Air Act and Houston area

25 residents can be assured that construction of a new
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1 plant will not negatively impact air and water quality

2 in our region.

3 As a legislator representing my constituents

4 and as a mother of a small child, I cannot stand by as

5 our air and water quality are further eroded. I ask

6 that you act to protect Texas families. Thank you

7 again for this opportunity to speak today.

8 I just wanted to add a couple of points, too,

9 that I'm sure that you are well aware of but I'd just

10 like to reiterate that this particular plant is

11 built -- is going to be built in a county that borders

12 two nonattainment counties, Fort Bend and Brazoria

13 County. And also it is my understanding, and correct

14 me if I'm wrong, that there are two other counties

15 along the Gulf Coast that also may be close to

16 nonattainment, Victoria County and Corpus -- and

17 Nueces County, I believe.

18 So I find it very troubling not only that we

19 would build more coal plants in this particular area

20 but also before we decide to build a coal plant, that

21 not only that we take into consideration the air

22 quality in that particular county but how it will

23 affect the entire region. But also the impacts on

24 that county on the environment.

25 If you know anything about that particular
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1 county, it's very marshy, it's very agricultural. I

2 don't think any time that we decide to build something

3 like this that we actually take into account not just

4 the air quality but the water quality, how it's going

5 to affect the farmers per se in that region. And they

6 have already been stricken with -- they've had some of

7 their water shut down already because of farm water

8 users. I just think we need to look at everything,

9 and that's all I would get at, is it's not just the

10 air, it's the entire environmental impact to the

11 entire community.

12 Plus I just -- I'm concerned as a parent. As

13 you know, there was a story recently in the Chronicle

14 about how air quality affects absences in schools. So

15 it all is related.

16 And I appreciate your time. I know that

17 you've probably heard this time and time again, but I

18 thank you. I wouldn't be here today if I thought the

19 TCEQ was actually doing its job. So thank you very

20 much.

21 MS. WEGMAN: Well, we really appreciate

22 your time and the time of everybody here today. It

23 means a lot to us that people are coming in and

24 letting us know what their experiences are and their

25 views. So thank you very much.
179

1 I do have one question. On the ozone

2 standard that we are proposing, do you have any views

3 on whether we should, you know, issue the more

4 health-protective standard that we are proposing?

5 REPRESENTATIVE THIBAUT: I think that

6 that would be great. Thank you.

7 MS. WEGMAN: Thank you.

8 MR. ANDERSON: My name is Jed Anderson

9 and I'm here today representing the SIP Transformation

10 Workgroup.

11 I'd like to comment on two issues in the

12 preamble. The first is the anticipated deadline for

13 SIP submittal in 2013. The second is where EPA noted

14 the difficulty in addressing trans-boundary emissions.

15 These issues both speak directly to a problem that is

16 becoming more apparent: The inability of the current

17 SIP process to timely, efficiently, and effectively

18 move us forward in achieving better air quality.

19 Although the SIP might be due in 2013, as the

20 preamble states, all of us know this is not likely to

21 happen, at least in an acceptable form, until around

22 2020. San Joaquin's one-hour SIP wasn't approved

23 until about two months ago, approximately 16 years

24 after it was originally due. Houston's one-hour SIP

25 wasn't approved until 2003, about ten years after it
180

1 was due. Houston's 85 ppb SIP now is expected to be

2 submitted in a few months, almost 13 years after the

3 NAAQS was changed. We cannot allude to the public

4 that three years from now a SIP will be submitted that

5 demonstrates attainment. We must tell the public the

6 whole truth. Telling them part of the truth by

7 telling them what the statute says is not the whole

8 truth.

9 In telling the truth and exposing this issue

10 to the light, we then must address the underlying

11 issue of why it takes so long to develop a SIP and

12 what are the inherent problems of the SIP process that

13 drive us to spend so much time and resources on these

14 plans. In 2004, the National Research Council wrote

15 the following: "The SIP process now mandates

16 extensive amounts of local, state, and federal agency

17 time and resources in a legalistic, and often

18 frustrating, proposal and review process which focuses

19 primarily on compliance with intermediate process

20 steps. This process probably discourages innovation

21 and experimentation at the state and local levels;

22 overtaxes the limited financial and human resources

23 available to the nation's air quality management

24 system at the state, local, and federal levels; and

25 draws attention and resources away from the more
181

1 germane issue of ensuring progress toward the goal of

2 meeting the NAAQS."

3 We can set the ozone standard at 5 parts per

4 billion but it does not matter if we cannot

5 efficiently, timely and effectively achieve this

6 standard. Most important thing to our lungs is not a

7 better standard but better air. This must be our

8 primary focus. To achieve this focus, the current

9 process must be transformed into a comprehensive

10 multi-pollutant air quality planning process that

11 assigns responsibility for achieving the NAAQS with

12 the authority to achieve the NAAQS and ensures that

13 control strategies are coordinated, prioritized, and

14 pursued in the most efficient way possible,

15 considering various air quality and climate change

16 goals.

17 The Clean Air Act must be revised to do this.

18 There are two suggested components. The first is that

19 responsibility must be aligned with authority. States

20 are responsible for achieving the NAAQS, yet the

21 authority to achieve the NAAQS rests largely now with

22 the federal government, the ability to regulate

23 federally preempted sources and

24 interstate/international pollutant transport.

25 Last year an article co-authored by NOAA
182

1 found that the average ozone level contributed from

2 pollutant transport in Houston was 60 ppb. If we set

3 the NAAQS at a level of 60 to 70 ppb, this means that

4 before TCEQ even gets into creating the SIP,

5 approximately 75 percent of the problem is off the

6 table. Of the potential 25 percent we can control,

7 approximately one-half to two-thirds of these

8 emissions are from federally preempted sources. We

9 are now down to an air quality planning process that

10 can address 8 to 13 percent of the problem, yet states

11 are 100 percent responsible for achieving attainment

12 and will be sanctioned if they don't. This

13 misalignment between responsibility and authority

14 results in substantial resources being spent on

15 finger-pointing, administrative exercises, less

16 cost-effective control strategies and delays.

17 The second needed revision is to address

18 pollutants comprehensively. The result of our current

19 compartmentalized approach is that resources are

20 sometimes spent on control strategies that increase

21 non-targeted pollutants and do not fully take

22 advantage of potential control strategy synergies.

23 For example, the SIP process drove the Houston area to

24 impose billion dollar NOx reductions, relying heavily

25 on SCR technology. Though SCRs are wonderful in
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1 reducing NOx, they increase PM due to the ammonia slip

2 and increase greenhouse gases because they take

3 significant energy to operate.

4 EPA's National Action Plan Vision for 2025

5 found that a significant amount of greenhouse gas

6 emissions could be reduced at a net cost savings to

7 America largely through energy efficiency. Energy

8 efficiency reduces not only CO2 but also NOx, PM,

9 mercury and other emissions. So on one hand you have

10 a process that's cost billions of dollars and

11 increased PM and CO2. On the other, you have a

12 process that might reduce all pollutants at a net cost

13 savings to America. It's time to make a change in our

14 approach.

15 A multi-pollutant strategy that prioritizes

16 based on public health and environmental impact is

17 necessary at a time when financial resources at all

18 levels of government and the private sector are

19 scarce. It is critical to urge Congress to make

20 structural improvements to the Clean Air Act to ensure

21 that all future control efforts are coordinated,

22 prioritized and implemented in the most efficient

23 manner considering various air quality and climate

24 change goals. Thank you.

25 MS. WEGMAN: Thank you. I'll note that
184

1 while today's hearing is obviously about our ozone

2 proposal and not about the implementation strategy,

3 within our office we have a group of folks who are

4 actually working on these SIP transformation issues

5 that you talk about and I can give you the name of

6 someone to be in contact with if you want.

7 MR. ANDERSON: That would be great.

8 Thank you, Ms. Wegman.

9 MS. WEGMAN: Okay. Thank you. Did you

10 have any specific comments on the ozone standard?

11 MR. ANDERSON: I don't other than, yeah,

12 we need to figure out how we need to get there.

13 MS. WEGMAN: Okay. Thank you.

14 Our next speakers are Walt Baum and Ken

15 Flippin. Is the other speaker here? Are you Walt

16 Baum or --

17 MR. BAUM: Yes, ma'am, Baum.

18 MS. WEGMAN: Okay. Baum, sorry. Is Ken

19 Flippin here? We'll just go ahead, then.

20 MR. BAUM: Thank you for your time

21 today. My name is Walt Baum and I'm here today

22 representing the Association of Electric Companies of

23 Texas, or AECT.

24 COURT REPORTER: Could you spell your

25 last name?
185

1 MR. BAUM: Yes, ma'am. Baum, B as in

2 boy, A-U-M.

3 The Association of Electric Companies of

4 Texas is a trade association representing 12 different

5 electric companies in Texas. Just like the Texas

6 electric industry is different from the rest -- from

7 most of the rest of the country, our association

8 represents all four of the different types of electric

9 companies in the state. We have both vertically

10 integrated rate-based electric utilities that operate

11 outside of ERCOT and then inside ERCOT we represent

12 the different companies that are independent

13 generation companies that are not rate-based power

14 plants and retail electric providers and regulated

15 transmission and distribution utilities.

16 As far as the proposed ozone standard, as you

17 know, EPA last changed the ozone standard in 2008 to

18 .075 parts per million and the state, cities and

19 businesses have all been working diligently to develop

20 plans to reach that standard. And the two previous

21 ozone standards set by the EPA have been attained

22 throughout Texas. EPA is now proposing a new ozone

23 standard with a range of .060 parts per million to

24 .070 parts per million.

25 This one-size-fits-all approach will be
186

1 problematic for Texas to meet since the background

2 concentrations of ozone in some areas of Texas are

3 already higher than .060 parts per million, which

4 means that no amount of technology or money would

5 allow certain areas to comply. This new standard is

6 likely to affect not only large urban areas of Texas

7 but possibly all of East Texas.

8 Power plants have already made significant

9 reductions in nitrogen oxides, NOx, a precursor to

10 ozone of 50 percent to 80 percent across the state.

11 Texas has one of the lowest NOx emission rates for

12 power plants compared to all the other states across

13 the nation. And I do have some charts that I -- I

14 would like to leave behind that shows that. I know

15 there's been a lot of discussion today about how Texas

16 leads the nation in pounds of pollutants, but one of

17 the things representing the electric industry that I'm

18 proud of is that Texas not only has made dramatic

19 reductions in NOx and SO2 over the past 15 years, our

20 power plant fleet that on a per megawatt hour of

21 electricity produced, we have one of the cleaner

22 fleets in the country as far as SOx and NOx pollutants.

23 For the large urban areas, many sources are

24 federally regulated, such as planes, locomotives,

25 ships and truck engines, and cannot be required by the
187

1 State to make reductions. Thus this handicap should

2 be addressed in any new rules rather than EPA just

3 saying here is a lower standard but we cannot help you

4 meet those reductions.

5 As we've done in the past, the electric

6 industry is ready to do our fair share in helping to

7 further clean the air in Texas. We agree with lots of

8 the earlier speakers that there is no silver bullet to

9 meeting our need for new electricity in the state that

10 is both environmentally clean and economically

11 efficient. Texas -- we need to continue to develop

12 our energy efficiency programs in the state. Texas

13 has one of the leading programs in energy efficiency

14 and we're proud of that.

15 We also need to continue our leadership in

16 renewable energy. We've installed more megawatts per

17 hour -- or more megawatts, period, of wind energy in

18 the state of Texas than any other state in the

19 country, and that's something we are very, very proud

20 of our -- our record in that. But we also need to

21 continue. It's going to take all different types of

22 resources to meet our needs in the future. We need to

23 continue to look at new -- look at the possibility of

24 new nuclear, at solar and other sustainable energy

25 technologies. And with that, I'd be happy to answer
188

1 any questions.

2 MS. WEGMAN: Thank you. If you do have

3 any information about the background levels, we've

4 been asking other speakers to provide that. And did

5 you have a view on the ozone proposal that we issued

6 as far as what level of standard we should set or

7 whether we should revise it?

8 MR. BAUM: In general, we feel that the

9 new standard set in 2008 is a standard that is

10 sufficient; however, if you choose to reduce the

11 standard, we do have one issue, as I stated, that we

12 do think that you should try and take a look at is the

13 issue of how -- how can you handle the different types

14 of industry that is federally regulated and does not

15 fall under the state regulations, such as, you know,

16 offroad and airplanes and locomotives and such.

17 We think that there, you know, has been lots

18 of industries in Texas who have already invested

19 billions of dollars to get us down to the .075

20 standard and although, you know, we can't pick up and

21 move our power plants to another state or any place

22 else once a new standard is -- is set. So we are --

23 you know, we are here in Texas and for Texas -- for

24 our companies to grow, we need Texas to continue to

25 grow, but it isn't -- you know, it -- we have already
189

1 invested a lot to try to meet new standards and want

2 to work with the EPA in further developing new

3 standards.

4 MS. STONE: Thank you.

5 MS. WEGMAN: Thank you.

6 MR. BAUM: Thank you for your time.

7 MS. WEGMAN: Okay. Is Ken Flippin here?

8 Okay. Bill Crosier? Is Bill Crosier here? Okay. We

9 have -- we have no one else scheduled at this time.

10 There are three folks who did sign up but don't appear

11 to be here. Peter Bella, Stephanie Cole and a B.

12 Simon?

13 MR. BELLA: Peter Bella.

14 MS. WEGMAN: Okay. If you'd like to

15 speak. And let me just check if there is anyone else

16 here in the room who would like to speak or you have a

17 later time.

18 (Discussion off the record.)

19 MS. WEGMAN: If there's anyone else here

20 who is signed up for a later time and would like to

21 speak earlier, just please go out to the registration

22 desk and we'll get you on earlier. Okay.

23 You're Ken Flippin?

24 MR. BELLA: I'm Peter Bella.

25 MS. WEGMAN: I'm sorry. Peter Bella.
190

1 My apologies. Okay. Go right ahead.

2 MR. BELLA: Thank you for the

3 opportunity to speak before you today. My name is

4 Peter Bella, P-E-T-E-R B-E-L-L-A. And I am the

5 Director of the Natural Resources Department of AACOG,

6 the Alamo Area Council of Governments, in San Antonio.

7 AACOG hosts the Air Improvement and Resources

8 Committee representing local municipal and county

9 government in the San Antonio region charged with

10 developing local responses to our ozone challenge.

11 San Antonio is the largest city in the United

12 States in attainment of the ground-level ozone NAAQS

13 and we are proud of that record. Thanks to our

14 longstanding partnership with EPA and the Texas

15 Commission on Environmental Quality, we have avoided

16 nonattainment through innovative programs such as our

17 Early Action Compact. San Antonio is one of 13

18 regions which signed an EAC and regained full

19 attainment status in 2008. We thank you for that

20 opportunity.

21 Given the analysis provided by our in-house

22 photochemical modelers, it is not clear that local

23 control strategies exist which can be implemented to

24 achieve an ozone standard revised below 70 parts per

25 billion. For these and other reasons, the AIR
191

1 Executive Committee proposes three specific comments.

2 One, the San Antonio region does not agree

3 with lowering the eight-hour average ozone standard

4 from the current level without balancing credit

5 acknowledging transport into our airshed.

6 Two, the primary and secondary ozone standard

7 should be the same standard.

8 Three, permitting rules need to require

9 evaluation of downwind ozone impacts using

10 photochemical grid modeling. Permits should be

11 modified or denied if adverse health impacts or

12 violation of the national ambient air quality

13 standards will occur as a result of permit action.

14 The elected officials on the AIR Executive

15 Committee requested that I also convey to you their

16 continuing commitment to reducing local ozone

17 precursor pollution on a voluntary basis. Local

18 voluntary measures are having a positive impact and

19 have increased in number and impact value since the

20 EAC expired in 2007. We have remained in attainment

21 of particulate matter and all other criteria

22 pollutants as well. We are committed to continuing to

23 improve air quality in the San Antonio region.

24 One of the earlier comments was that the

25 level of the ozone standard should not be further
192

1 lowered. The Committee members asked me to emphasize

2 that this comment should not be misconstrued. The

3 members are highly supportive of improving public

4 health. As a practical matter, our analysis shows not

5 only the limits of our ability to attain a reduced

6 standard but also shows the negative impact of

7 transport on our local monitors. It is clear that

8 with a lowered standard, we will absolutely require

9 reductions from sources outside our region in order to

10 assure attainment. We want to work with you and the

11 State proactively to address the issue of transport.

12 We also hope to further our understanding of

13 the health risks associated with ozone in our region

14 by conducting a local health study. Such a study

15 would assess, inventory, and take into account impacts

16 from the pollution source mix particular to our

17 region.

18 Thank you for taking the time to come to

19 Houston and receive these comments.

20 MS. WEGMAN: Thank you, Mr. Bella. I

21 just want to make sure I'm understanding your

22 comments. I am understanding you don't support our

23 proposed revision. Is that correct?

24 MR. BELLA: Without consideration of the

25 transport issue and it's -- we have not outlined and
193

1 defined what that would look like.

2 MS. WEGMAN: Okay. Are you planning to

3 do that and submit comments on that point or --

4 MR. BELLA: Yes, ma'am. We are planning

5 to submit written comments by the March 22nd --

6 MS. WEGMAN: Okay. Very good. And then

7 you said the primary and secondary standards should be

8 the same? Did I hear --

9 MR. BELLA: Yes, ma'am.

10 MS. WEGMAN: Okay. Okay.

11 MR. BELLA: Thank you.

12 MS. WEGMAN: Thank you.

13 DR. RUSSELL: Good afternoon. My name

14 is Nancy Russell. That's R-U-S-S-E-L-L, two S's, two

15 L's. And I am a doctor of public health with 27 years

16 of experience in research concerning the prevention

17 and treatment of cancer in people. Today I am

18 speaking as a retired private citizen.

19 I've reached the age of 71 without the

20 extreme diseases of lung cancer, asthma or emphysema,

21 but I do have chronically irritated eyes, nasal

22 passages, and sinuses. Respiratory illness hit me

23 about once or twice a year and last longer than I

24 think they should. I worry about the chronic colds

25 and other respiratory problems of my grandchildren. I
194

1 miss seeing stars.

2 I am strongly in favor of the EPA

3 strengthening the air quality standard to the .060

4 parts per million. These may cause decreased profits

5 occasionally and inconveniences, but we are an

6 imaginative and resourceful people. As an example,

7 seven years ago someone ran into and totaled my car.

8 Rather than plunge into debt immediately, I decided to

9 see how long I could get by just by riding my bike or

10 taking the Houston metro bus to my job in the Texas

11 Medical Center. This despite everyone telling me that

12 I could not possibly live in Houston without a car.

13 The metro system was not only reliable, but

14 it delivered me closer to my office door than the

15 parking garages of my coworkers and saved me between

16 60 and $100 a month just in parking. On the bus, I

17 met the wonderfully diverse groups of people who live

18 in Houston, including what had previously been an

19 invisible group to me, the number of people on

20 wheelchairs and with crutches and blind who were being

21 taken care of by the metro system.

22 Five years later, I was still without a car

23 but seemed to be still alive and I had used the money

24 I saved from car insurance, car repairs, et cetera, to

25 pay off the mortgage on my house and have savings left
195

1 over. Thank you for the opportunity.

2 MS. WEGMAN: Thank you very much. Thank

3 you both.

4 MR. BELLA: Thank you.

5 MS. WEGMAN: Our next speakers are Ken

6 Flippin, if he is here, and Rick Haigwood.

7 MR. FLIPPIN: My name is Kenneth

8 Flippin, F-L-I-P-P-I-N. I'm a community organizer and

9 work on political campaigns and I've worked all over

10 the state.

11 I currently live in Austin, Texas, but I've

12 worked, as I said, and lived in almost every part of

13 the state, West Texas, Austin, Houston, Dallas, and

14 have got to travel to San Antonio and South Texas

15 quite a bit. And the perspective that I would like to

16 add to the hearing, there's been a lot of people that

17 are scientists that understand all of the science

18 behind why these change in standards are important,

19 but as somebody that's been an activist on the ground

20 in a lot of these different communities, I want to

21 just give the perspective of -- both from my family

22 and from just knocking on doors, seeing the difference

23 in the quality of lives of people according to where

24 they live and the quality of air.

25 There's definitely a difference with folks
196

1 that live, for example, in the southeast part of

2 Houston or as you get closer and closer to the ship

3 channel, those areas that have the highest ozone

4 standards. What you see is that it's not every single

5 child but tends to be the children who have

6 vulnerabilities to lung issues, asthma and so forth,

7 they become much more severe. And then when it

8 becomes a community problem, it really changes those

9 communities because you have less opportunity for

10 those kids to play outside and be active and involved

11 in their community.

12 I go back to West Texas where I'm originally

13 from and you get out there and you can actually feel

14 the difference just walking around. You understand

15 that there's a difference in the air quality.

16 And I think that one of the things that is

17 really important for us in this state is to recognize

18 that with us having such a fast-growing state with

19 such big urban areas and with so many of our youth --

20 you know, so many of our young people already have

21 disadvantages in the state. We have one of the

22 highest dropout rates in the country and we have some

23 of the highest health problems in the country. And

24 this is something that will be one piece of solving

25 that larger puzzle for those younger folks, the next
197

1 generation of folks that will be leading our country

2 in the next 30, 40 years.

3 The other thing that I'd like to comment is

4 just that I know that a lot of the business and

5 industry folks think, well, this is just going to be

6 too much of a constraint, but there is a creative

7 surge of energy that has really risen up in the last

8 I'd say five to ten years among young people here in

9 Texas and I think it's true across the country.

10 People that are coming out of our business schools,

11 our law schools, our policy schools, our colleges, and

12 our high schools that want to change the way America

13 works towards a more positive way. There's less

14 obsession with their own ego and more sense of a need

15 to contribute to their community. And these folks can

16 help us solve the problems that we've created with our

17 air quality.

18 And there's a big business opportunity there.

19 I know that there's big business in coal, but there's

20 also big business if we move towards renewable energy

21 but also just in making the energy that we use now,

22 using it more efficiently working in our homes. And I

23 think by having these new standards, it actually

24 queues to all of those folks that are looking to build

25 businesses, get involved in businesses in that
198

1 community. It gives them a great initiative and

2 opportunity to see that this is a place that they can

3 start a business, that they can do something. And we

4 need that in Texas.

5 Our state government is not friendly on this

6 and that's a big issue. And so that's why we need the

7 federal standards to change, so that we can have that

8 incentive in Texas and we can make a big difference.

9 MS. WEGMAN: Thank you. Thank you very

10 much.

11 If you can state your name and spell it for

12 our court reporter, please.

13 MR. HAIGWOOD: Hi. My name is Rick

14 Haigwood, spelled H-A-I-G-W-O-O-D. I'm the President

15 of a company called CNG-NGV Solutions, Incorporated

16 here in Houston. We're one of two natural gas vehicle

17 conversion companies, the other being Parkway

18 Chevrolet. Between the two of us, we represent about,

19 I guess, eight or -- eight of the ten EPA-certified

20 companies that are on the list of certificate of

21 compliance companies. We just started recently.

22 I'm also a member of a group called the

23 Houston Natural Gas Vehicle Consortium. We have

24 partners in that. It's Apache Corporation, Anadarko,

25 Shell Oil, CNG for America, groups like this that are
199

1 ready to put in fueling infrastructure.

2 One of the problems that we have right now

3 with implementing this is that the EPA has rules that

4 certify vehicles on a model year and vehicle model and

5 engine family. As an example, if you've got an F150,

6 an F250, an F350, pickup truck, an Expedition E150,

7 250, 350 van, and they all have the same exact

8 5.4-liter engine in them, you have to certify each

9 individual one of these vehicles over and over and

10 over again.

11 It's not the vehicle that makes the

12 emissions. It's the engine. Now, when you do this,

13 you have to pay 110 to $150,000 per vehicle to get the

14 certification. I think that's not a very good idea,

15 quite frankly. It's a big hamstring for us to try to

16 implement natural gas use.

17 Now, when we're trying to meet these ozone

18 and NOx emission standards just by the implementation

19 of converting these vehicles -- and I agree we

20 should -- you should have a certificate of conformity

21 on an engine, but not doing the same engine. As an

22 example, again, that 5.4 engine has been in use since

23 2005 up to 2009 and actually 2010 is the last year

24 they're going to use it and then they'll have another

25 one. But you've got a -- '5, '6, '7, '8, '9, '10 --
200

1 five years times all six of those vehicles that you

2 have to re-certify annually at the same cost. So I

3 would think that unless there's a change to the

4 engine, modification to the engine or to the brain of

5 it, that it should only be done one time or needed to

6 be done one time.

7 You're causing an exorbitant cost by having

8 this regulation on the consumer. Right now it costs

9 about 12, $15,000 but you get tax credits to do your

10 conversion. Most of our customers are fleets. I'm

11 working with commercial fleets and government fleets.

12 We also represent International Navastar platform,

13 which is a Phoenix 466 engine made by a company called

14 Emission Solutions out of Dallas that changes school

15 buses to run on natural gas. And we could convert 12,

16 15 of these a week, you know, and reduce fast, you

17 know, the NOx emissions out of school buses.

18 There was just a study done by you guys that

19 said every child in America spends between ten and 35

20 minutes a day twice a day in a school bus at idle

21 going from one spot to the next to the next to the

22 next. Have y'all ever -- or do you remember, I

23 guess -- of course you have. Do you remember sitting

24 in a school bus?

25 MS. WEGMAN: Yes.
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1 MR. HAIGWOOD: Part of one of my deals

2 that I do when I go talk to people, is I take them and

3 say, well, pull up one of your buses in front of your

4 shop and let's go out there and have the meeting

5 there. You know, let it idle. About ten minutes

6 later, they're going, oh, we got to get the heck out

7 of here. You know, it's pretty nasty.

8 The $32,000 tax credit, the new Natural Gas

9 Act that's being proposed is going to help a lot to

10 getting things done. One of the issues we have, as I

11 said, was the infrastructure. The group that I just

12 mentioned, Shell and Apache, Anadarko, are ready to

13 jump all over that side of it, put it in. The problem

14 is is that chicken-egg kind of a thing.

15 Another part of this, the bi-fuel -- I'm out

16 of time. Anyway, I just -- you know, I look forward

17 to working with EPA. I talk to you guys quite often.

18 You know, it's just something we need to do and we're

19 ready to do it now. It's not something that's in the

20 future. I could be -- I could have your car converted

21 in two days if you were on the list.

22 MS. WEGMAN: Well, I'll keep that in

23 mind for the future. I did just want to ask -- I

24 think I'm understanding you to say you feel you could

25 help meet a new --
202

1 MR. HAIGWOOD: We already do.

2 MS WEGMAN: -- more protective ozone

3 standard. Do you have an opinion on what --

4 MR. HAIGWOOD: We already do.

5 MS. WEGMAN: Do you have an opinion on

6 what we propose?

7 MR. HAIGWOOD: Yes, I think we should.

8 MS. WEGMAN: Okay.

9 MR. HAIGWOOD: I mean, it's -- you know,

10 every one of the engines that I represent that y'all

11 have is -- we're 210 compliant already, you know, and

12 we meet that.

13 MS. WEGMAN: Okay. Very good. Well,

14 thank you.

15 MR. HAIGWOOD: Thank you.

16 MS. WEGMAN: Thank you both very much.

17 Is Sharron Stewart here? We have three more

18 speakers currently signed up. So I think why don't

19 we -- if they're all here, we'll go through them and

20 then take a break. So Sharron Stewart. Is Kate

21 Fischer here?

22 MS. STEWART: Hello. My name is Sharron

23 Stewart. I'm a private citizen from Brazoria County.

24 I've been involved in these issues for 40 years. I

25 began as the first environmental aide in the Texas
203

1 Legislature in 1971, which was quite a commute.

2 I would like to talk to you specifically

3 about the ozone monitors in Brazoria County. Until

4 recently there was only one. It was located in Clute.

5 Clute is adjacent to Lake Jackson and Dow Chemical.

6 What you need to understand is in the four counties

7 around Galveston Bay, we have one-half of the entire

8 national petrochemical refining capability and one of

9 the largest segments of that is located in Freeport,

10 Texas, particularly Dow Chemical.

11 This is the largest individually owned site

12 in the world by any measure, be it the number of

13 people employed directly or by contract, by the amount

14 of land surface covered by the plants, by the amount

15 of product produced, by the amount of power generated.

16 They have three power plants there and a coal plant in

17 the Hill Country that only serves that facility.

18 But it is very rural. There are only --

19 there are less than 700,000 people in Brazoria County

20 as a whole. Brazoria County is the third largest by

21 land county. The largest county is near El Paso. The

22 second largest county is Harris County. The third

23 largest is Brazoria. We are bigger than Rhode Island,

24 but we are rural, although an hour from Houston.

25 You have the ship channel complex, you have
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1 the Texas City complex, and you have the Freeport

2 complex. Now, it's no longer all Dow but it's still

3 mostly Dow.

4 That monitor was put in place in April of

5 1974. The old Texas Air Board came to me in '73 and

6 asked me to help get the site funded, which I did.

7 The site was built mostly by the work of two

8 employees, one of whom recently retired and the other

9 who now represents Erin Brockovich as their expert in

10 California.

11 It was an important site. It was well sited

12 by TCEQ. It's on city property owned by the city of

13 Clute. It's a softball field and it's immediately

14 near Dow, BASF, Shintech and other smaller plants. It

15 is immediately downwind of the Dow Plant A complex.

16 It is the only monitor that picks up that information.

17 The 2000 AQS study, which was part of EPA's

18 Great Waters project, EPA and NOAA funded it.

19 Galveston Bay air quality was the third part of that

20 study, which was very important to this area, which

21 showed the transport that people argued over until

22 that study was done. Of course, we argued after it

23 was done and spent an awful lot of money around here

24 to try and refute it, but instead, the statistics do

25 not refute it. You know, the work that was done does
205

1 not refute what the 2000 study showed.

2 MS. WEGMAN: Ms. Stewart, you're out of

3 time.

4 MS. STEWART: And I haven't even gotten

5 to the point. This monitor -- please give me one more

6 minute. This monitor has been moved to the Dow

7 Chemical site where they have their monitor. This was

8 done in 2003. Their monitor picks up air from bottom

9 land, forests, ranch land, farm land and the gulf. It

10 is not in a direct pattern. It is adjacent. And the

11 statistics went down dramatically.

12 I am tired of all of the obfuscation that's

13 done in Texas on air quality issues. At least 11

14 times that monitor between '74 and '90 was the No. 1

15 highest reading in the country. Now no one knows

16 what's the highest reading in the country because

17 things get averaged out. I've met with TCEQ with

18 another person who will testify later about that and

19 did not get anywhere because to move it back to the

20 Clute site would take one to two days of two people's

21 time and they'd have to rent a trailer.

22 MS. WEGMAN: I am afraid I'm going to

23 have to ask you to wind up your testimony. I think we

24 understand your concern about the moving of the

25 monitor from the Clute site and it sounds like you
206

1 also think we should get some monitors -- or some more

2 monitors should be placed in Brazoria.

3 MS. STEWART: Absolutely.

4 MS. WEGMAN: Okay. Okay. Well, thank

5 you. Thank you very much. If you don't mind waiting

6 until the next speaker is done. Thank you.

7 MS. FISCHER: Hi. My name is Kate

8 Fischer. I am a native Houstonian. I am in favor of

9 setting a limit for ground-level ozone to 60 parts per

10 billion. My cousin Greg, also a native Houstonian,

11 always used to jokingly say, "I don't trust air I

12 can't see." But poor air quality is very serious and

13 causes health problems such as asthma and increased

14 susceptibility to respiratory infections.

15 I personally have had a series of upper

16 respiratory infections during my years spent in

17 Houston. It is my hope that stricter regulations will

18 help better our city and greatly benefit our country.

19 Thank you.

20 MS. WEGMAN: Thank you both very much.

21 I think the last speaker we'll take before a short

22 break, if he is here, is John Yaiber. Is John Yaiber

23 here? Okay. It's a little early, so I think what

24 we'll do is take a ten-minute break right now. And

25 again, if anyone else here wants to sign up to speak,
207

1 please do so.

2 (Break.)

3 MS. WEGMAN: Okay, folks. Sorry for

4 that delay there. Turned out to be a longer delay

5 than I expected.

6 So our next two speakers are John Yaiber and

7 Bill Crosier. They're here? Bill Crosier is here.

8 Is John Yaiber? No. Is Stephanie Cole here?

9 Okay. Whenever you're ready to start.

10 MR. CROSIER: Okay. I'm Bill Crosier,

11 C-R-O-S-I-E-R. I'm Co-Chair of the Progressive Action

12 Alliance, which is a multi-issue organization based

13 here in Houston.

14 First, I want to thank you for conducting

15 this hearing in public and listening to us. I'm sure

16 you're going to be ready to get up and move around a

17 bit more after this is over.

18 I'm an engineer. I like to talk about

19 numbers and equations and graphs and dollars and

20 things like that, but I'm not going to talk about that

21 here today. I'm going to talk a little about people's

22 lives and just ask you a few questions that I hope

23 you'll be considering when you're thinking about the

24 standards for ozone.

25 Well-paid industry representatives have been
208

1 here today to convince you that they're doing all that

2 they can or at least they're doing enough and that the

3 pollution they're putting in the air really isn't so

4 bad and that, you know, it's okay, we just need to

5 keep doing what we're doing. But one of the

6 questions -- the first question is what do we tell our

7 children and our grandchildren and their grandchildren

8 what are they going to do if they have asthma or

9 other, you know, bronchial problems, lung problems,

10 and they want to go outside and play with their

11 friends at school or after school and the ozone level

12 is too high? We all have friends that are like that

13 that have children that way.

14 Just a little personal thing. A friend and

15 coworker had to move out of Houston over 20 years ago

16 because his young children had respiratory

17 difficulties, and every time the ozone level was too

18 high it would bother them severely. It wasn't just a

19 matter of going outside and play; sometimes they could

20 hardly breathe. So will their children or their

21 grandchildren be able to live in Houston? You know,

22 this is over 20 years ago and we're still facing the

23 same issues.

24 And as I mentioned, we also have not just

25 friends with young children, we also have parents and
209

1 grandparents. Many of them have respiratory

2 difficulties as well. The ozone doesn't bother me as

3 much, at least I don't -- not that it's obvious. I

4 don't know if it's cutting years off my life or not,

5 but I know it's cutting years off of other people's

6 lives. And it's really hard to put a dollar value on

7 that, and that's one reason I completely support the

8 60 part per billion standard and I -- hopefully we'll

9 be able to decrease that even more in the future.

10 The -- we've been told for decades, again,

11 that the air is going to be cleaned up soon, but we

12 keep building power plants and expanding coal mines as

13 fact as we can, it seems, with frequent disregard for

14 what it's doing to our environment. And you know, I

15 just want to know when we're going to get serious

16 about cleaning up the air that we breathe and also the

17 water, of course.

18 One more thing to think about. There's one

19 word that industry representatives are afraid to say

20 when they're talking about the economics of this

21 situation and the feasibility and this sort of thing.

22 It's a word that points towards a way of saving

23 consumers money or cleaning up our environment and

24 saving our precious resources for future generations.

25 It's a word that won't solve all our problems, but it
210

1 completely negates the talk about whether we can

2 afford this technology or that now, even if we chose

3 to ignore the dramatic health effects of air pollution

4 on our lives. It's a word that European countries,

5 Japan and most of the rest of the world embraces but

6 for some reason it can't be spoken by policy-makers

7 here.

8 If you haven't figured it out yet, the word

9 is conservation. We used to talk about it, but, you

10 know, I -- it's been decades, it seems like, since

11 elected officials or candidates or policy-makers want

12 to talk about it. It's not something the industry

13 wants to hear. They want us to keep consuming more

14 energy. They equate consuming energy with a good

15 lifestyle. But it's not necessary.

16 We can promote economic growth and green

17 jobs, preserve everyone's health, clean up our air and

18 save consumers money if we use less oil and gas and

19 coal while we develop a renewable energy. Let's do

20 the right thing for our children and grandchildren.

21 Let's conserve fossil fuels that can be used for other

22 things besides fuels for the petrochemical industry

23 and save them for other uses and reduce the maximum

24 ozone allowable to 60 parts per billion or less.

25 Let's remember the future generations, please. Thank
211

1 you.

2 MS. WEGMAN: Thank you.

3 MS. COLE: My name is Stephanie Cole.

4 That's spelled C-O-L-E. And I currently reside in

5 Kansas City, Kansas. And I appreciate the opportunity

6 to be here and speak today.

7 I am here to speak in support of the proposed

8 revision to air quality standards and I applaud the

9 EPA for proposing science-based rules that reflect the

10 mission of your agency, which is to protect human

11 health and the environment.

12 Currently, far too many Americans suffer from

13 respiratory illness and these conditions are worsened

14 by ozone pollution. Children, the elderly, and those

15 with respiratory illnesses are especially at risk and

16 these populations would greatly benefit from reduced

17 ozone pollution.

18 I'm an aunt to two boys in Nebraska: Taylor,

19 who is three, and Isaac, who is 10 months old. Both

20 of them live in central Nebraska with their parents,

21 and just a few miles from their home in Nebraska is a

22 coal plant that's currently being expanded to add

23 additional coal-burning capacity. And as you know,

24 coal-fired power plants are a source of nitrogen

25 oxides, which contribute to ozone pollution. And I'm
212

1 concerned that Taylor and Isaac will be growing up in

2 close proximity to a large source of pollution that

3 could unfairly impair their health or could handicap

4 their ability to reach their full developmental

5 potential.

6 And while the health and well-being of my

7 nephews is certainly important to me, there are many

8 more beyond my family who are harmed by air pollution

9 that we can reduce. Scientific research demonstrates

10 that the ozone pollution is harmful to human health

11 and I am encouraged to see the EPA taking the

12 necessary steps to address this longstanding public

13 health and environmental issue. And I would ask that

14 the EPA establish a rule that reflects the

15 recommendations of the scientific community and that

16 limits ozone at 60 parts per billion.

17 And again, I appreciate the opportunity to

18 speak today.

19 MS. WEGMAN: Thank you both for your

20 testimony.

21 Let me just check again. Is John Yaiber

22 here? Nancy Murphy and Jim Schermbeck.

23 MS. MURPHY: Hi. I'm Nancy Murphy and

24 I'm actually here as a private citizen. I hope I

25 speak for all the people that breathe in Sugar Land
213

1 because that's where I'm from. And I want to -- I'm

2 an anthropologist, I'm an activist, and I'm also a

3 member of the citizens advisory panel for a chemical

4 plant in my area.

5 My husband is a -- works for the oil

6 industry. And I will tell you, all the people that I

7 know in those industries are wonderful and caring

8 people, but like Senator Ellis said earlier in the

9 other room, he said, I pay my taxes not because I'm a

10 decent and honorable person, although I am, I pay my

11 taxes because the IRS will come after me if I don't.

12 And I will have to -- I have to agree with him, that

13 this is certainly the -- this is why I pay my taxes.

14 Although these are wonderful, decent people

15 in the oil industry and the chemical industries that I

16 work with, they're not going to do the right thing

17 unless they are forced to do the right thing. And I

18 am so glad to see the EPA again involved in the

19 environmental issues. It's been a long wait. But

20 we're -- I hope that you guys will be making the

21 changes necessary. Certainly, the 60 parts per

22 billion is more than a goal, it's certainly a

23 necessity.

24 Another issue that's important -- I want to

25 hit on two more issues. One is that we've got really
214

1 an excellent cancer -- we're like the center of the

2 world for cancer research. You know, they don't put

3 the best cancer hospitals in the world or even in --

4 large great cancer hospitals in places that doesn't --

5 that don't have cancer. I mean, a lot of people are

6 very proud of the fact that we've got these great, you

7 know, cancer hospitals, but people need to wake up as

8 to why it is that we've got these great cancer

9 hospitals. And from my family and the people that

10 I've known, I can tell you that cancer is not a small

11 issue in our area.

12 I want to talk just briefly in my remaining

13 minutes about what business really looks like in

14 Texas. And you know, I'm all for being friendly,

15 okay. But the business-friendly experience in Texas

16 really does seem to have no bounds and I'm concerned

17 that an area -- give an example from another area.

18 We've got -- mandatory binding arbitration is a tool

19 that businesses use and it is certainly a

20 business-friendly tool.

21 We've recently had a person, Jamie Leigh

22 Jones, that was gang-raped with a number of other

23 women in Iraq through the KBR and KB -- they are

24 unable to take their case to court because KBR has a

25 mandatory -- made them sign a mandatory binding
215

1 arbitration clause, which means that they just

2 negotiate this out of court. All right. That's a

3 business-friendly tool and businesses have a lot of

4 business-friendly tools in Texas.

5 In order to seek any kind of justice, these

6 women had to go to Al Franken in Minnesota to have

7 legislation drawn up although Jamie Leigh Jones lives

8 in Houston. You know, this is where that legislation

9 should have been written up, but it had to be written

10 up by Al Franken in Minnesota. Now, that's wrong.

11 That's business friendly out of bounds.

12 And I'm concerned that you guys have heard a

13 lot of stories from the -- from industry -- and

14 thank -- you know, my husband works for the industry.

15 But business friendly can exist -- can coexist with

16 business responsibility. And I want that to happen

17 because although I appreciate having a livelihood, I

18 also appreciate having a life. And that's not -- you

19 know, we're just not talking in bumper stickers,

20 these -- these are real issues.

21 We've -- my family has fought with cancer in

22 the last two years and it's -- and I will tell you,

23 when I moved here 12 years ago I didn't have asthma.

24 I have asthma now. And I didn't realize I would be

25 buying a house in Sugar Land five miles from the
216

1 Parish coal-burning plant. It's one of the largest in

2 the country. It's amazing how we can close our eyes

3 to things that are right under our nose.

4 But these are real issues and I hope that

5 this panel will understand that business friendly must

6 have parameters. They must have parameters. And

7 we're dealing with healthcare issues that certainly

8 M.D. Anderson is well aware of and other people are

9 too. We can certainly do better. Thank you.

10 MS. WEGMAN: Thank you. Thank you very

11 much.

12 MR. SCHERMBECK: Gee, I'm so sorry. I

13 don't have any fingerpuppets or anything like that. I

14 can't be too entertaining. I know y'all have been

15 here all day.

16 My name is Jim Schermbeck. I'm here to --

17 it's S-C-H-E-R-M-B-E-C-K. I'm here today representing

18 Downwinders at Risk, a 16-year-old grassroots group

19 based in Dallas-Fort Worth whose main focus is

20 cleaning up the largest concentration of cement

21 manufacturing in the United States.

22 Dallas-Fort Worth is now at the end of its

23 second decade of being in continual violation of the

24 Clean Air Act because of its chronic ozone or smog

25 problem. One of the reasons why is the failure of
217

1 government to demand the best control technology for

2 the 10 cement kilns that are operating just a few

3 square miles of each other in Midlothian, south of

4 Dallas-Fort Worth.

5 These kilns emit half of all the industrial

6 pollution in north Texas and account for 8 to 9

7 percent of all the ozone-forming emissions in the

8 region. DFW is the only nonattainment area in the

9 whole country that has so many cement kilns

10 immediately upwind of its urban centers.

11 We support the EPA's reevaluation of the

12 national ambient ozone standard and encourage the

13 Agency to set a health-based standard between 60 and

14 70 parts per billion. In our opinion, this action

15 would right a wrong committed two years ago when the

16 Agency ignored its own Scientific Advisory Committee's

17 unanimous recommendation and set the standard too

18 high.

19 Science should always be the standard by

20 which we assess public health damage and it should

21 guide our policy-making as well. Unfortunately,

22 that's not the case here in Texas now nor has it been

23 for quite some time. Our own state agency is

24 ideologically driven or, rather, contribution driven.

25 Texas Commission on Environmental Quality has become
218

1 an extension of Rick Perry's campaign and so it works

2 to support his political agenda at the expense of

3 science and the public health.

4 As a consequence, this is making TCEQ the

5 biggest purveyors of junk science in the State of

6 Texas. They are the bizarro world state environmental

7 agency where the mission is to avoid enforcement of

8 environmental laws by ridiculously wrong-headed

9 approaches to problem. It's as if they didn't mean to

10 solve the problems to begin with.

11 Nothing illustrates this better and the need

12 for stricter federal oversight from you guys than the

13 case study of how TCEQ has repeatedly fumbled DFW's

14 chronic ozone problem and the Midlothian cement plants

15 that contribute to it.

16 Case study No. 1, where to put -- where to

17 center your clean air plan. Anyone who lives or

18 visits even the Dallas-Fort Worth area knows that the

19 predominant wind direction during spring and summer

20 during the ozone season is south and southeast going

21 north and northwest. Anyone who looks at the record

22 of violations of ozone standards in Dallas-Fort Worth

23 can see the results of those winds. They are all

24 gathered in the northwest quadrant of the metro mess

25 in terms of both the numbers of violations and the
219

1 highest readings of ozone, and Tarrant, Denton, Parker

2 and Wise Counties.

3 Yet the monitor that the TCEQ chose to design

4 their entire clean air plan around the mid decade in

5 2006 was in Collin County, directly due east of

6 Tarrant County, far, far away from where the worst

7 chronic monitors are and where the -- and way out of

8 the path of the predominant winds. The result was

9 that last summer, during the middle of the worst

10 economic slowdown since the Great Depression, DFW saw

11 yet another TCEQ clean air plan fail. And by the way,

12 it failed because of those problematic monitors in

13 Tarrant County.

14 Again, I'm sorry, I don't have any fancy

15 visual aids, but here you go. Here's where the winds

16 blow in DFW, all right, to the north and to the

17 northwest, and here's where EPA and TCEQ decided to

18 center their clean air plan around, way to the east.

19 As a consequence, we failed our umpteenth clean air

20 plan and we are now due to have two done by the time

21 2013 rolls around.

22 Case study No. 2, the impact of the cement

23 plants. I-20 is a major interstate highway that runs

24 the length of DFW on its southern border. When you're

25 on I-20, you're in the thick of the southern part of
220

1 an urban area with an estimated 6 to 7 million people.

2 As you ride in your car along the highway in Arlington

3 past one of the region's busiest malls, you can look

4 out your window due south and see the smokestacks in

5 the Midlothian cement plants clear as day. Well, when

6 it is clear as day.

7 Yet TCEQ took the position that these cement

8 plants, the region's largest industrial facilities by

9 far, accounting for half of all the industrial air

10 pollution in north Texas, had absolutely no impact on

11 air quality in Dallas or Tarrant County just across

12 the county line. Citizens had to petition the Agency

13 to get the adjacent county included in DFW's

14 nonattainment area for this last round of SIP

15 planning. That was a petition that was granted.

16 Modeling, then, after that petition was

17 granted revealed that the plume, sure enough, did have

18 an impact on DFW air quality. And by the way, the

19 impact -- those exact monitors in Tarrant County that

20 were most chronic and troublesome for us, and so by

21 choosing Frisco instead of Tarrant County as the way

22 to design your clean air plan, you avoid having to put

23 controls on the cement plants that could have saved

24 you the trouble this last summer of failing another

25 clean air plan.
221

1 If you look at the choices they made in terms

2 of control technology throughout this decade, TCEQ has

3 lectured us on how SNCR and SCR were technically

4 infeasible to install in the Midlothian cement plants.

5 Those technologies might work over in Europe but

6 certainly never over here. Then a permit violation

7 allowed my group to leverage -- it needed to press for

8 the nation's first insulation of -- installation of

9 SNCR in a U.S. cement plant. And guess what, the

10 technology worked. It worked so well that not only

11 does that plant have a full-scale operating SNCR unit

12 on both of its kilns, but the plant across the street

13 has one as well.

14 For a short period of time --

15 MS. WEGMAN: Mr. Schermbeck?

16 MR. SCHERMBECK: -- the country -- yes,

17 ma'am, I am wrapping up.

18 MS. WEGMAN: Okay. Thank you.

19 MR. SCHERMBECK: These are just

20 instances -- three instances where the TCEQ has been

21 completely wrong in terms of the science they used.

22 The last example that I was going to use is the

23 natural gas field, Barnett Shale field, which they

24 have not taken into account lately but which has grown

25 by gangbusters in the last three or four years and now
222

1 accounts for the equivalent of all the emissions of

2 vehicles in the DFW area.

3 Just this morning I was in Dallas watching

4 the swearing in of Dr. Armendariz as the new regional

5 administrator. This is somebody who has taken on

6 TCEQ's abuse of science directly in almost every one

7 of these instances. To me, that shows that this

8 Agency is finally getting serious about taking on air

9 quality.

10 But if you really want to get serious,

11 exclude the State next time. Deal directly with

12 locals, make it easier to have a federal

13 implementation plan drawn up between the locals who

14 want to solve the clean air plan but have their plan

15 thrown out by the State last time, and the EPA. Don't

16 let the State get involved. They're not serious about

17 clean air, and putting them in charge of a new clean

18 air plan is the equivalent of putting the Klan in

19 charge of civil rights enforcement. It just will not

20 get the job done. Thank you.

21 MS. WEGMAN: Thank you both. Did you

22 have a question?

23 MS. STONE: Yes.

24 MS. WEGMAN: Just one second. I was

25 going to say do you have a written --
223

1 MR. SCHERMBECK: Oh, I'm sorry.

2 MS. WEGMAN: -- statement?

3 MR. SCHERMBECK: Really? Because this

4 is just my notes.

5 Yes, ma'am?

6 MS. STONE: So your recommendation about

7 the standard is just within the range of --

8 MR. SCHERMBECK: 60 to 70, yes, ma'am.

9 MS. STONE: So any part --

10 MR. SCHERMBECK: It's exactly what the

11 Scientific Advisory Committee recommended.

12 MS. STONE: Thank you very much.

13 MR. SCHERMBECK: Thank y'all. We

14 appreciate it.

15 MS. WEGMAN: Thank you both for coming.

16 Okay. Our next speakers, Nancy Lomax and

17 Scott Johnson.

18 MS. LOMAX: Good afternoon. My name is

19 Nancy Lomax. My family has lived in the Houston area

20 for 100 years and I live about 600 feet from the

21 southwest corner of Loop 610, which is probably one of

22 the busiest highways in the world. So I'm extremely

23 concerned about air quality and support your proposal

24 for 60 ppb as a -- or even better.

25 My mother -- my elderly mother and my
224

1 youngest daughter both suffer from asthma, and after I

2 turned 60 I've started wheezing myself. Sometimes it

3 makes me smile a little because it sounds like there's

4 a little kitten mewing inside my lungs, but I know

5 it's not a humorous matter and that my likelihood of

6 this getting worse as I get older is great.

7 So I'm not going to take more of your time.

8 I just wanted to say I am an ordinary citizen. I'm

9 not a scientist. But I -- as kind of the sandwich

10 generation of taking care of elderly and older

11 children and grandchildren, I call myself the club

12 sandwich. I have at least three layers.

13 I know the effects of asthma. I've had to

14 drive my mom to the hospital when she is as gray as

15 this turtleneck for lack of oxygen. So please be sure

16 that you remember those of us who are not scientists.

17 We just breathe the air and we need some help. Thank

18 you very much.

19 MS. WEGMAN: Thank you very much.

20 MR. JOHNSON: Good afternoon. My name

21 is Scott Johnson, J-O-H-N-S-O-N. Thank you for

22 offering the opportunity for us to speak today.

23 I'm speaking on my own behalf. And as

24 someone who spent some years in elementary school in

25 Houston in the mid '70s, I have recollections of
225

1 taking a tour of the ship channel at that time and

2 looking at these tank farms and breathing the air that

3 was very polluted and very inhospitable and wondering

4 if this was the way that the world should be. And

5 many of the speakers have talked about great strides

6 that we've made, but to me a lot of times when we're

7 talking about improving the situation, we're talking

8 about making up for lost time. We're talking about

9 catching up when we had a disastrous situation before

10 with levels twice as high or greater in Houston area,

11 in Los Angeles area and other cities in the U.S. and

12 now we're finally coming down to standards that are

13 coming close to what the proposal is from your

14 Scientific Advisory Committee in 2008.

15 And as well, I have recollections of driving

16 along Interstate 10 and breathing diesel exhaust while

17 the windows were closed, and granted, poor ventilation

18 system in an older car, and wondering again if I

19 should be breathing this, why is this out there, why

20 am I getting a headache. Thankfully, that same year,

21 approximately, that the catalytic converter was then

22 required on vehicles and made an astounding

23 improvement in the emissions from mobile sources.

24 Regarding here and now, 2010, one of the

25 challenges as I see it, as was indicated by a prior
226

1 speaker, is that the EPA delegates certain

2 responsibilities to the Texas Commission on

3 Environmental Quality. I'm not sure that is in the

4 public's interest for them to be doing that and

5 particularly related to PSD, there's potential for

6 significant deterioration. And this is the issue

7 having to do with having major point sources, such as

8 coal-fired power plants or cement kilns or plastics

9 factories located and sited in attainment areas in

10 non-urban counties, outside of the boundary or the

11 jurisdiction of the nonattainment areas and therefore

12 not being looked at with as much review and in as

13 stringent a way, and also having less people who were

14 there to protest the case as well and then having

15 those sources be upwind of urban counties and urban

16 counties being penalized for that.

17 The classic example is a cement -- a

18 coal-fired power plant on Oak Grove which is being

19 sited in Robertson County. Modeling work that was

20 done on behalf of the region for Central Texas, which

21 I am from Austin, indicated that the -- when those two

22 800 megawatt power plant units came online on certain

23 days during the ozone season, the effect on our

24 regional ozone would, in essence, negate all of the

25 gains that we made through the planning process, all
227

1 the Early Action Compact, including emissions testing

2 for vehicles in two of three urban counties as well as

3 other controls, Stage 1 vapor recovery to grease and

4 solvents, that heavy duty diesel idling rule that we

5 put into place.

6 And this is very troublesome because, as

7 you -- was mentioned earlier, there are other

8 coal-fired power plants out there that are in various

9 stages of the permitting process and those need to be

10 evaluated. What the TCEQ indicates is that we're

11 following EPA guidance, and that may be true, but are

12 they ever requiring photochemical modeling to be done

13 to show on certain days, in certain wind conditions,

14 where those nitrogen oxide emissions are going to and

15 in this case they're coming from the northeastern

16 trajectory on certain days coming into Williamson

17 County, where Round Rock is, and creeping over the

18 border to Travis County, where Austin is.

19 This is something that the EPA, I believe,

20 needs to address to have any hope to meet a goal of 60

21 to 70 part per billion range that you're proposing.

22 And I'm supportive of the lower end, 60 parts per

23 billion.

24 A new primary standard, I think, will also

25 facilitate a reduction of not only ground-level
228

1 emissions, toxic air pollution and greenhouse gas

2 emission, particular carbon dioxide, because it should

3 accelerate the transformation from fossil fuel energy

4 generation to one where there is no choice but to put

5 some catalytic reduction on the plant or have the

6 person do offsets or, better yet, diversify their

7 portfolio of generation to be using non or low carbon

8 sources. Thank you very much for your time.

9 MS. WEGMAN: Thank you very much. Thank

10 you both very much for your time.

11 The next two speakers are Deborah Shafto and

12 Lev Guter or Guter. I'm not sure which.

13 MS. SHAFTO: Thank you. I guess I don't

14 have to push the button this afternoon, do I?

15 MS. WEGMAN: No. We got some help and

16 fixed that.

17 MS. SHAFTO: I appreciate that. I don't

18 have any statistical data to present --

19 (Brief interruption.)

20 MS. SHAFTO: Oh, I'm sorry. My name is

21 Deborah, spelled the old-fashioned way, D-E-B-O-R-A-H,

22 Shafto, S-H-A-F for Frank, T-O.

23 I don't have any -- as I said, I don't have

24 any statistical data to present. There's been a lot

25 here. What I wanted to remind you of is when I was a
229

1 child, which was a long time ago, the best part of the

2 year was the summer days, the long summer days where

3 we would take off our shoes, leave them in the closet,

4 run outside, play all day all of our childish games

5 outside in the sun.

6 Later on I became a teacher and we had code

7 red days where the children aren't allowed out, we had

8 code orange days when they're allowed out but not

9 allowed to engage in strenuous athletics. We've

10 limited their lives and not just healthwise, but the

11 fun of being a child now has to take place mostly

12 inside in the summer. There was one particular year

13 when day after day there were those alert days. You

14 had to listen to the radio and get the alert before

15 you came to school.

16 There was one particular little boy who

17 during -- I taught -- I think I had him in

18 kindergarten that year. He was in the hospital about

19 six times with asthma. When I was growing up, I never

20 even heard of anybody who had asthma. I never heard

21 the word. I don't think there's a classroom in

22 Houston today that doesn't have at least one sufferer

23 from asthma. Maybe it isn't as severe as this little

24 boy going to the hospital time after time, but they're

25 there. They're there. You have to watch the air
230

1 quality. The parents have to make arrangements to

2 have inhalers in the nurse's office. The nurse has to

3 be sure and be there to administer the medicine.

4 I don't think this is what we have in mind

5 when we plan for our children. I have heard today

6 corporate interests deny the veracity of the

7 established scientific fact. I have heard them impugn

8 the reliability of sources on the collection of that

9 data. I don't think there's a doubt in anybody's mind

10 whether that data is real, whether the scientific

11 facts are in fact real.

12 I call your attention to the fact that

13 corporations are neither moral nor immoral. They are

14 amoral. What happens in a corporation is the bottom

15 line is what counts. I don't doubt that you -- going

16 to be subject to tremendous pressure from those people

17 concerned with the bottom line. They speak of the

18 loss of jobs if these new standards are presented or

19 implemented. This is -- these are the same

20 corporations that will lay off 500 or 1,000 people

21 just to meet -- to make the bottom line of a quarterly

22 report look good. They're not concerned about jobs or

23 employment. It's a red herring.

24 Without intervention, whatever makes a profit

25 is what will be done. And you are our intervention
231

1 and I implore you to make that intervention, to make

2 this new standard a reality and to make the next

3 intervention even more stringent so that once again

4 the children can take off their shoes and run around

5 every summer day. Thank you.

6 MS. WEGMAN: Thank you very much.

7 MR. GUTER: Hi. Good afternoon. My

8 name is Lev Guter. My first name is spelled L-E-V.

9 My last name is G-U-T as in Thomas, E-R. And I'm an

10 associate field organizer with the Sierra Club for

11 Arkansas and I am based out of Little Rock, Arkansas

12 and that's where I live.

13 I'd like to give a perspective from Arkansas.

14 I don't know how many folks here today have given you

15 this perspective, but I feel that it's important to

16 come here to Houston to speak with you-all about the

17 regional implications and, of course, the national

18 implications that the comments in this room are going

19 to have. The ripple effect of what happens in Houston

20 is an incredibly important thing that we to the east

21 are concerned about because the westerly winds are

22 going to blow whatever is commuted around here into

23 our state. So what happens in Houston doesn't

24 necessarily stay in Houston when it comes to air

25 quality.
232

1 Now, Arkansas is mostly a rural state. We

2 have a lot of rural poor and a lot of those folks just

3 can't afford healthcare. And the air quality

4 standards that are being discussed today are going to

5 directly impact the amount of, you know, damage,

6 basically, that our people in these rural parts are

7 going to have to their health. And they, just to put

8 it frankly, can't afford to have asthma. I mean, they

9 can't afford to have conditions like asthma that are

10 going to be aggravated through the pollution that

11 we're going to be seeing if these standards aren't

12 tightened. And that's why the Sierra Club is

13 advocating for the 60 parts per billion standard.

14 We feel that that is the only way that people

15 are going to be protected to have the best health that

16 they can have and that they're entitled to have

17 whether they're poor or rich. And since we have a lot

18 of poor in Arkansas, I come to ask you to consider

19 them when you're thinking about making a

20 recommendation.

21 Now, also another part of sort of the

22 perspective from Arkansas deals with our state

23 agencies and that's why the national federal agency

24 can have a lot of clout, can have a lot of influence

25 and can have a lot of guidance in the ways that we're
233

1 dealing with our air quality in our state. I'd like

2 to cite two examples. The first example is our state

3 implementation plan, our SIP. That is under attack,

4 and actually on February 8th, this coming Monday, we

5 are organizing around a hearing of our own in the

6 state to protect our SIP against utilities in

7 Arkansas.

8 Entergy, SWEPCO, and the Arkansas Electric

9 Cooperative Corporation have come together and

10 requested that our state environmental agency, the

11 Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality, make a

12 variance to the SIP. The deadline for that air

13 quality SIP is October 15th, 2013. Now, since the EPA

14 has not approved that SIP, the five-year clock has not

15 started to run. Therefore, the state utilities have

16 asked the state agency to push back that deadline.

17 And since the EPA hasn't ruled on it, the state

18 governing body can have a say.

19 The ABEQ has approved that variance. The

20 commission which oversees that agency is called the

21 Arkansas Pollution Control and Ecology Commission. On

22 January 22nd, there was a meeting of that Commission

23 and the Sierra Club asked for a public hearing on that

24 variance before the Commission makes a final ruling.

25 If we hadn't asked, then the public never would have
234

1 had a period of comment. And February 8th is our time

2 to say, listen, this variance is a bad idea because if

3 the deadline is pushed back, we're just going to have

4 more time to breathe in all of this really filthy air.

5 If the federal government can come in and

6 make some really, you know, strict and important

7 standards, not overly strict, it's just in order to

8 have the amount of air quality that we deserve, then

9 the federal guidelines, the federal regulations are

10 really going to put some teeth into what we can do in

11 Arkansas. And since the Arkansas utilities have so

12 much power, have so much money and influence, it's

13 really a way that the EPA can help us out in Arkansas,

14 the people who don't have a voice. So that's why we

15 are advocating for the 60 parts per billion. Thank

16 you very much.

17 MS. WEGMAN: Thank you. I just wanted

18 to ask you if you have any information about

19 populations in Arkansas and how they might be affected

20 by ozone or any information about transport coming

21 from Texas to Arkansas and could submit that for the

22 record.

23 MR. GUTER: I would certainly like to do

24 that. Thank you very much.

25 MS. WEGMAN: Okay. That would be very
235

1 helpful.

2 MR. GUTER: Okay. Thank you.

3 MS. WEGMAN: Thank you for coming today.

4 Thank you both.

5 Our next two speakers are Minoo Sherkat and

6 Melanie Oldham.

7 Are you Melanie?

8 MS. OLDHAM: Melanie.

9 MS. WEGMAN: Okay. Is Minoo Sherkat

10 here? Is Bonnie New here?

11 MS. OLDHAM: Hi. Good afternoon. My

12 name is Melanie Oldham, O-L-D-H-A-M. And I've been a

13 healthcare professional, a physical therapist for 28

14 years. I am a new member on the H-GAC Regional Air

15 Planning Committee from Brazoria County and I've been

16 an unpaid public health advocate since 2000. I also

17 have three children, two of which had asthma when they

18 were younger. And I know what ozone alert days mean

19 because I, you know, would watch that daily and

20 whether or not they could go outside.

21 Just to mention, my Rep is Dennis Bonnen,

22 former Chairman at Environmental Reg for six years in

23 Texas. My senator is Mike Jackson.

24 I want to thank EPA, thank y'all for being

25 here to listen to us and -- to all of us. And I want
236

1 to thank the Scientific Advisory Committee for taking

2 the time and long effort to look at the studies and

3 come up with these recommendations. And I am up front

4 and I'm very supportive of the 60 parts per billion to

5 protect, you know -- the studies show to protect

6 public health of children with asthma and other people

7 at risk.

8 Let me -- Brazoria County, we're south of

9 here. We're a county of -- it will be close to

10 300,000 people directly south of Houston. Again, my

11 Rep is Dennis Bonnen and, you know, he brags we do

12 have very low unemployment and we have jobs, jobs, and

13 jobs, but a lot of us feel that jobs at what cost. It

14 has been maybe our public health.

15 Right now Brazoria County is the No. 4 county

16 in the nation for release of carcinogens in air and

17 water. We're infamous. We're the No. 1 emitter of

18 dioxins in the nation. Dioxins from Dow Chemical,

19 Freeport, Texas. The American Lung Association gives

20 us an F every year for ozone because we exceed the

21 recommended number of days.

22 And we are a severe nonattainment county.

23 Just like Harris County, we're a hot spot. We have

24 the whole chemical industry, like Ms. Stewart spoke

25 to, in the Port Freeport and we have -- we're growing
237

1 so fast. We have road construction, a variety of

2 sources of NOx, VOCs, which make ozone.

3 I would just like to comment on monitoring.

4 As Ms. Stewart spoke earlier, we only have two TCEQ

5 ozone monitors in Brazoria County. One that was

6 historically there was put there 37 years ago by TCEQ

7 and a lot of important stakeholders, was, when we

8 weren't paying attention, moved in 2003. You know,

9 they were getting readings as high as 140 parts per

10 billion and it was moved to far West Lake Jackson,

11 which is on Dow property. And of course, the design

12 values have come down and our industry is bragging in

13 the local newspapers we're going to make 84 parts per

14 billion, but they don't say that that's the old 1997

15 standard.

16 But a lot of us feel -- we -- actually,

17 Sharron and I, we got hit by the hurricane. We were

18 in Austin in September '08 and we got to go to -- went

19 to TCEQ and got to speak with David Brymer and Susan

20 Hildebrand, who are now the heads of Air Division TCEQ

21 in Austin, and they looked at everything and agreed

22 that the ozone monitor was put in the wrong location.

23 It should not be there on Dow property. If nothing --

24 and it should be two miles northeast of there. But

25 they didn't have the funds to move it.
238

1 And as Sharron and others, we strongly -- to

2 have good historical data, we need that monitor back

3 in Clute, Texas first thing. Then, you know, TCEQ

4 wants to put another monitor where it should be, two

5 miles north, then that would be something to look at.

6 But unless we have accurate monitoring, how are we

7 going to know what our issues are and how bad they are

8 in Brazoria County or anywhere else? You know, I am

9 hoping that EPA, or whoever, will help TCEQ look at

10 where the correct sites should be for monitoring.

11 Also, as someone mentioned, 43 percent of our

12 air pollutants are from industry. And a lot of my

13 friends work for industry down in Brazoria County.

14 There's a lot of good responsible companies that are

15 doing their fair part and there's other companies that

16 could do a whole lot better.

17 Also, 40 percent of our NOx comes from power

18 plants, but they're getting ready -- they're hoping to

19 build a coal power plant in Bay City right next to our

20 county. And a lot of the -- one thing people don't

21 want to discuss, that every 56 baby boys born in Texas

22 now have autism. As a physical therapist that does

23 pediatric PT, that's something that should get

24 people's attention. You know, that's directly due to

25 mercury from coal-burning plants and other sources.
239

1 Also, the technology does exist to reduce

2 ozone emissions by industry. I am a new member on the

3 H-GAC Regional Air Planning Committee and I just sit

4 there and wonder, listening to the conversation

5 between industry, government, and the public health

6 advocates where I hear over and over industry saying

7 there is no good science. You know, I say read the,

8 you know, Federal Registry. You know, I only have a

9 biology degree, but I can read and understand that

10 people have taken a long time -- the Scientific

11 Advisory Committee made these recommendations for a

12 good reason, and if we really want to -- you know, the

13 studies were done on adults. We don't know exactly

14 the effects on children, but not -- why not err on the

15 side of caution, do the right thing, and recommend the

16 60 parts per billion to protect children with asthma

17 and people at risk.

18 Because I work with those people day in and

19 day out and we have serious issues in Brazoria County

20 and Texas. We have our own cancer center in Lake

21 Jackson, Texas, and I just want you -- ask you at EPA

22 to help us, give some guidance to TCEQ, help put some

23 teeth into their program. We need to change our TCEQ

24 penalty policy so we get this industry's attention.

25 They just laugh at the penalties now. And again, just
240

1 do the right thing and support the 60 parts per

2 billion to protect public health.

3 MS. WEGMAN: Very good. Thank you.

4 MS. NEW: Good afternoon. I am Bonnie

5 New. I am a --

6 COURT REPORTER: Spell your name,

7 please.

8 MS. NEW: New, N-E-W. I'm a physician

9 specializing in occupational and environmental health

10 and I'm the Director of a Texas group called Health

11 Professionals for Clean Air. This is a group of

12 doctors and researchers who banded together in the

13 early 2000s to voice the concern of the medical

14 community because of the public health burden of poor

15 air quality in Texas and the fact that it is often

16 discussed in local circles as if it's -- improvement

17 of air quality would be a lifestyle amenity, like

18 going to the park, as opposed to a public health

19 issue.

20 The medical community and scientific

21 community has weighed in quite heavily on the issue of

22 health effects of ozone. The EPA's CASAC was

23 extraordinarily complete in reviewing the literature

24 and explaining their decision for supporting a range

25 of 60 to 70 ppb. We do know from chamber studies that
241

1 there are adverse effects on adults, not children but

2 adults, and the supposition, of course, would be that

3 children would be even more sensitive. But there are

4 positive chamber studies at 60 ppb. So given the

5 range under consideration includes that as the lower

6 limit, Health Professionals for Clean Air supports the

7 NAAQS level of 60 ppb.

8 One thing that the expert summaries such as

9 CASACs do not adequately convey is the clinical side

10 of dealing with the ozone issue. This is no joke.

11 Patients and families have an experience that I will

12 try and recall to you a little bit and physicians have

13 another experience. This is not what you read

14 typically in summaries of the medical literature, but

15 it is very much the front line of what happens when

16 the ozone meets the lungs. For patients and families,

17 asthma and other chronic lung conditions are a real

18 lifestyle-altering experience, a life-altering

19 experience. And in fact, they often are life

20 threatening. People do die of asthma.

21 Physicians spend more and more time treating

22 asthma. We see -- there's an increased incidence of

23 asthma. We see more asthma in -- exacerbations in the

24 emergency room. But the patients live with this every

25 day and it affects family members as well in terms of
242

1 productivity and cost and enjoyment of life. And

2 siblings who aren't attended -- they have a different

3 childhood experience when one of their siblings is

4 acutely sensitive and reacts with -- to ozone

5 pollution with asthma.

6 For physicians, it's extraordinarily

7 frustrating in the clinical setting. The medications

8 that we have in our armamentarium are many and

9 different types that do different things, but while we

10 try the more sophisticated and newer generations to

11 try to control the inflammatory reaction that is

12 caused by exposure to ozone and other intense

13 irritants, the truth is it's limited. There are

14 people who still die in the emergency room and the ICU

15 despite full-blown medical care that -- whose airways

16 cannot be opened up.

17 And all the inhalers and so on that are

18 commonly used -- I mean, it's a mainstay of primary

19 care practice, those treat symptoms. It's very

20 helpful and it's advantageous to have your symptoms

21 controlled, but believe me, that's not affecting the

22 disease. What will affect the disease, the airway

23 irritation, is less irritants. That's ozone, among

24 other things.

25 Another thing that doctors are acutely aware
243

1 of, there's not only an increased incidence of asthma

2 in -- or prevalence of asthma in -- among adults and

3 children and we would assume that might be due to air

4 pollution increasing over time compared to, say, 1920,

5 but you are probably aware there's California --

6 several California studies from 2004 that were an

7 absolute knock-out for doctors. It -- these studies

8 showed that asthma is not just exacerbated,

9 existing -- people with existing asthma, but that

10 ozone caused the asthma in a cohort of children in

11 California.

12 MS. WEGMAN: I have to ask you to wrap

13 up. I'm sorry.

14 MS. NEW: Okay. Very good.

15 At any rate, the arguments that we hear

16 against ratcheting down the ozone level appropriately

17 are, one, it costs too much, and second, an impugning

18 of the science. The medical community finds both of

19 those both insulting and presumptuous and, really,

20 contrary to our goals of public health. HPCA endorses

21 60 ppb, the Texas Medical Association and the -- and

22 ten medical specialty societies in the State of Texas

23 last May endorsed the consensus statement on

24 improvement of air quality that asked for the state

25 and federal governments to enact legislation that
244

1 would indeed protect public health. That's what 60

2 ppb would do and all of the doctors in Texas have

3 spoken for it.

4 MS. WEGMAN: Thank you very much. I

5 don't know if you have written testimony that you can

6 give us and fill in what I had to cut off.

7 MS. NEW: Yes.

8 MS. WEGMAN: And we are probably aware

9 of the studies that you were citing as far as causing

10 asthma, but if you can just make sure we have those

11 citations so we know which one you're referring to,

12 MS. NEW: Will do. Thank you.

13 MS. WEGMAN: Okay. Very good. Thank

14 you.

15 (Break.)

16 MS. WEGMAN: Okay. We'll start up again

17 if we could. Our next two speakers -- Minoo Sherkat?

18 Is Rosalia Guerro-Luera -- let me see, Minoo Sherkat?

19 No? How about Stephanie Nugent? Okay.

20 MS. GUERRO-LUERA: Good afternoon. My

21 name is Rosalia Guerro-Luera. That is R-O-S-A-L-I-A

22 G-U-E-R-R-E-R-O dash L-U-E-R-A. Thank you.

23 I'm here as a resident. I'm a mom and a

24 resident of Sugar Land, Fort Bend County. As you've

25 heard and I learned today, we not only make great
245

1 sugar but we also make great glass thanks to my friend

2 at PPS [sic]. So I was glad to hear about that. We

3 are actually about 30 miles downwind of -- here of the

4 industrial complex and it's nice to know now we

5 actually have an air monitor located in Sugar Land

6 because, as someone else mentioned, things that happen

7 in Houston not always stay in Houston. So we are

8 usually affected by huge plumes of toxic chemicals

9 that tend to float down our way and then turn into

10 ozone when they approximate Sugar Land and so it's

11 sort of like an ozone pandemic down there.

12 And although I currently do not live on the

13 fence line, I am not ignorant of the plight of

14 fence-line communities, as I was actually born and

15 raised in Texas City, which is another industrial

16 town, little -- from here closer to Galveston County

17 and is just down the road. You might have heard of

18 us. We do have a nasty habit of blowing up.

19 And although when I was younger the plants

20 were the economic engine of our small town, my father

21 did not work there because when I was young, blacks

22 and Mexicans were not allowed to work at the plants

23 and -- at least that's what the hiring manager told my

24 father. I'm thankful for him today because my dad

25 just turned 83 last week and I have many memories and
246

1 I can continue to enjoy my father, and not so much

2 these are memories that many of my schoolmates do not

3 have because either their fathers were vaporized

4 during some accident or are quietly and courageously

5 combatting their cancer diagnosis.

6 I remember this -- these are very vivid

7 memories I have of going to funerals putting down

8 young, vibrant men into the ground as collateral

9 damage to the 5 o'clock rush hour. I remember it was

10 actually considered rude to ask why they died so young

11 and it was even considered ruder to seek any justice

12 on their behalf.

13 I believed that at 14 years of age but at 40

14 I no longer believe that. So I come to you in part to

15 honor those men and seek justice for them now and a

16 safe environment for their grandchildren. Needless to

17 say, I do support the strengthening of the ozone

18 standard. I think it is the least we can do and I

19 mean that literally and figuratively. It is the least

20 we can do. And although I know you cannot take

21 economic impacts into consideration, I personally find

22 it reprehensible that industry would come here and

23 count pennies in front of suffering communities.

24 In closing, I would like to publicly thank

25 our elected officials, our local officials, our state
247

1 reps, our senators and others that have spoken here

2 today on our behalf. I thank them for voting the

3 right way on the issues most of the time, and even

4 though they were staring into the jaws of defeat, it's

5 a thankless job, I know, and I do publicly thank them.

6 And I encourage them to take up these issues

7 vigorously in the next session.

8 And for my final words, I will take them from

9 Cesar Chavez -- I steal them from him -- who said, you

10 cannot stop an idea whose time has come, and I think

11 this is one of those ideas whose time has come today.

12 Thank you very much.

13 MS. WEGMAN: Thank you very much.

14 MS. NUGENT: Hi, my name is Stephanie

15 Nugent. That's N-U-G-E-N-T. And I am here to show my

16 support for the 60 parts per billion limit on

17 ground-level ozone.

18 I'm a runner and I've been a runner for most

19 of my life. I've also lived in cities for most of my

20 life, and so I find it kind of ironic that through

21 trying to improve my health, better my breathing

22 capacity, I actually may have been damaging my lungs.

23 Smog exposure has been referred to as a sunburn of the

24 lungs. Now, I put on sunscreen before I go running

25 outside to protect my skin and I don't use SPF 5, I
248

1 use SPF 55. Unfortunately, I can't do the same for my

2 lungs. But the EPA can and they can do that by

3 implementing the 60 parts per billion limit on the

4 ozone.

5 I have been here for most of the day, heard a

6 lot of the testimony, and a lot has been said about

7 stricter air standards being at odds with economic

8 growth. I see that as a really narrow view. If we

9 focused on building a clean energy economy, wind,

10 solar, geothermal energies, clean air would go hand in

11 hand with job creation and economic development. It

12 doesn't have to be an either/or scenario, and I hope

13 that the EPA recognizes that as well. I also hope

14 that the EPA will stand behind the science and go for

15 that 60 parts per billion limit. Thank you.

16 MS. WEGMAN: Thank you both. Is Erin

17 Hickok here? And let me -- just checking on Minoo

18 Sherkat.

19 MS. HICKOK: Hi. Can I get started?

20 MS. WEGMAN: You sure may.

21 MS. HICKOK: Great. My name is Erin

22 Hickok and --

23 (Brief interruption.)

24 MS. HICKOK: My name is Erin, E-R-I-N,

25 Hickok, H-I-C-K-O-K. I wanted to address some
249

1 comments made by some industry representatives that I

2 heard today saying that it's just not possible to

3 reduce ozone emissions, and this is simply not the

4 case. In a -- in a nation where we made it to the

5 moon, where we're increasing our technology at rates

6 completely unheard of in the past, you know, the

7 solutions are really simple. It's clean, renewable

8 energy and the costs are far too high to do nothing.

9 I am here today to take a stand for clean

10 air, not just for myself, but for my nieces and

11 nephews and their little lungs that are breathing this

12 air, and for my mother, who suffers from pulmonary

13 hypertension. Much of my life I've watched her suffer

14 being on oxygen. Once a vibrant woman, she can no

15 longer work. She lives in our Social Security system

16 above -- or below poverty level and no longer can

17 contribute to society the great talents that she once

18 had and often stays inside because going outside can

19 aggravate her lungs. She hates being a burden on the

20 system with high medical costs, expensive medications,

21 and really tethered to her oxygen.

22 And we know that it's not just my mom. There

23 are thousands of lives that could be saved every

24 single year by enforcing these standards. And the

25 cost to future generations is simply unacceptable.
250

1 I definitely applaud the EPA in putting forth

2 the standard that's based on the science and I know

3 that we can achieve this. Like I said, the solutions

4 are simple. It's clean, renewable energy and it not

5 only will reduce the ground-level ozone and smog that

6 are causing people to suffer, but at the same time

7 will help us combat climate change. At the same time

8 it will give us new green jobs, open up entire new

9 industries and education opportunities for the next

10 generation. And also it gives us opportunities as a

11 nation to be a global leader in green technologies.

12 These are the kind of solutions that I would like to

13 see and I strongly support the 60 parts per million

14 [sic] regulation. Thank you.

15 MS. WEGMAN: Thank you. Thank you for

16 being here most of the day.

17 MS. HICKOK: Thank you.

18 MS. WEGMAN: I have no one else right

19 now signed up to speak. Is there anyone in the

20 audience who would wish to speak?

21 (Discussion off the record.)

22 MR. BICKLEY: My name is Shaun Bickley,

23 S-H-A-U-N B as in bravo, I-C-K-L-E-Y, and I'm a

24 resident of Houston and I came here to speak in

25 support of the EPA proposed regulation of reducing the
251

1 air quality to -- the air quality standard to 60 parts

2 per billion.

3 Up to 10,000 lives would be saved per year by

4 adopting these regulations, which means 10,000 people

5 are dying every year because they can't breathe. For

6 me, this is enough, but if there are those who insist

7 on attaching a dollar value to these lives, by any

8 cost analysis we can't afford not to act.

9 In every cost analysis performed by analysts,

10 these regulations are a win. In addition to saving

11 lives, reduced medical costs to the community, it's

12 estimated at 13 to 100 billion. Over 330,000 missed

13 days of work and 1.9 million missed days of school

14 would be avoided, resulting in increased productivity.

15 Nor is this a loss for business. Coal and

16 dirty energy technology is not the only source of

17 energy jobs. It's not even the source of jobs in the

18 21st century. Renewable green jobs create four jobs

19 for every one job in the dirty energy industry. There

20 are entirely new industries opening up in wind, solar,

21 and geothermal. The United States will be at the

22 forefront of the energy industry without sacrificing

23 the health and lives of people.

24 Renewable energy even offers the chance to

25 become totally energy self-sufficient and even the
252

1 opportunity to sell our excess energy to other

2 countries. We know this is possible because Iceland

3 has done it and I think that anything they can do we

4 can do as well. That's all.

5 MS. WEGMAN: Okay. Thank you.

6 MR. BICKLEY: You're welcome.

7 DR. MARRACK: I'm Dr. Marrack,

8 M-A-R-R-A-C-K, initial D. I'm a retired physician

9 after over 60 years in active practice. I'm also

10 until recently the co-chair of the Air Waste

11 Management Association's Waste Management Committee

12 and a member of the Health Effects Committee. I had

13 to retire because I've lost most of my vision.

14 The ambient air in Houston is improving

15 incredibly slowly. A snail goes faster. The problem

16 lies in, one, the EPA's obsession with --

17 MS. WEGMAN: Can you just press the

18 button again on the mic?

19 DR. MARRACK: I can't see a button.

20 MS. WEGMAN: I'm sorry. It's just that

21 lower button.

22 DR. MARRACK: Push. I'm sorry. I

23 touched it accidentally. I apologize.

24 MS. WEGMAN: I understand. No problem.

25 Thank you.
253

1 DR. MARRACK: Sorry, ma'am.

2 The problem of the air pollution in Houston

3 is partly compounded by the fact that EPA is obsessed

4 with ozone. Not that it's an innocent compound. It

5 is very injurious. But even more important are the

6 fine particulates, PM2.5 and smaller, which come from

7 combustion sources. They are faraway the most

8 important damaging agent in the ambient air here in

9 Houston and elsewhere.

10 EPA persists in treating particulates as a

11 homogeneous chemical, like lead or mercury. Whereas,

12 in fact, it's a very heterogeneous mix of particles

13 coming from various sources. The one I want to

14 protect -- concentrate on, the one that matters to

15 healthcare, is the particulates derived from

16 combustion sources, the CPM2.5 and smaller,

17 particularly those around 1 micron. They are not

18 homogeneous. They have a core of amorphus carbon and

19 a coating -- a very porous particle, I might say, with

20 a huge surface area, around 500 to 1,000 square meters

21 per gram. They absorb chemicals avidly, both those

22 from the combustion source and those from the ambient

23 air.

24 The studies that have been done by EPA and

25 others, Demarini and Janelle Lucas at -- Lewtas at the
254

1 EPA Triangle Park; Dan Costa, EPA, all demonstrate the

2 mass of fine par -- combustion-generated fine

3 particles is largely due to the absorbed chemicals. A

4 fifth to a third of their mass is absorbed chemicals.

5 Of these, they are demonstrated to be the polyaromatic

6 hydrocarbons and PCBs and other allergenated

7 hydrocarbons, all of which are anything but good for

8 you.

9 They are irritants. Demarini and Lewtas

10 showed extracting these chemicals from combustion

11 par -- collected combustion -- collected combustion

12 particles, that not only are they analyzable and show

13 multiple compounds present, GC mass spec, but, also,

14 that they are carcinogenic in direct animal

15 experiments.

16 EPA has chosen to ignore most of the

17 recommendations from its Scientific Committee. I was

18 a member of the industrial combustion coordinating

19 rule-making committee, and we might as well not -- not

20 met, basically.

21 We need to reduce the PM2.5 and smaller

22 particles to less than 30 micrograms per meter cubed

23 and we need to enforce that law efficiently and

24 completely across the whole spectrum of industries.

25 EPA refuses to recognize that the alternative
255

1 will be to clean up those particles before they are

2 emitted, removing the injurious organic chemicals,

3 which is the other alternative.

4 The technology for doing this exists. The

5 costs of doing it are not much greater than that

6 getting down to 60 PB -- parts per billion -- sorry --

7 micrograms. And the costs don't go up exponentially

8 with increasing the amount of removal of fine

9 particulates for emissions. And this applies not only

10 to marine engines, railway track engines, stationary

11 units, pumps, off-road vehicles, and, of course,

12 highway vehicles, too. And possibly the most

13 difficult to do is the highway vehicles. The rest of

14 them are relatively easy.

15 MS. WEGMAN: Dr. Marrack, your five

16 minutes is up. I wonder if you could wrap up and then

17 we have a couple of questions, I think.

18 DR. MARRACK: Thank you. The EPA needs

19 to enforce rigid standards that protect the public as

20 required by congressional law and they're certainly

21 not doing that. And we need to go forward in this

22 urgently, not waiting three or four years.

23 Thank you.

24 Any questions?

25 MS. WEGMAN: Well, I do have a couple of
256

1 questions. The first is, you said we were ozone

2 obsessed.

3 DR. MARRACK: Yes.

4 MS. WEGMAN: I just wondered if you have

5 an opinion on the proposal we have out for ozone of 60

6 to 70 parts per billion.

7 DR. MARRACK: It isn't what your

8 Scientific Advisory Committee advised.

9 MS. WEGMAN: Actually, in this instance,

10 it is. This proposal --

11 DR. MARRACK: It's within the range, but

12 it isn't the lowest figure and it isn't the most

13 public health protective one.

14 MS. WEGMAN: Well, just to be clear, the

15 Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee did recommend

16 a standard within the range of 60 to 70 parts per

17 million [sic]. So we've proposed a range consistent

18 with what they recommended and we're taking comment on

19 that, and I wondered if you had an opinion within that

20 range?

21 DR. MARRACK: It's nothing like -- low

22 enough, it should be about 40. That was my opinion at

23 the time.

24 MS. WEGMAN: Okay. Thank you. The

25 other thing I just wanted to mention. As far as
257

1 particulate matter goes, we are very mindful of the

2 problems with particulate matter and we are currently

3 in the middle of a review of our particulate matter

4 standard and we plan to have a proposal out in

5 November of this year. And I hope you'll be able to

6 follow that and give us your thoughts on that as well.

7 So I just wanted you to be aware that that review is

8 underway. And our Administrator, Lisa Jackson,

9 decided to accelerate that review and do it more

10 quickly than our normal five-year period because she

11 was concerned about the fact that the standard we set

12 in 2006 was not consistent with the recommendations of

13 our Scientific Advisory Committee.

14 DR. MARRACK: Thank you for the advice.

15 MS. WEGMAN: I just wanted you to know

16 that. Okay. Thank you very much.

17 Okay. Is Donna Hoffman here?

18 (Discussion off the record.)

19 MS. HOFFMAN: My name is Donna Hoffman,

20 H-O-F-F-M-A-N, Donna, D-O-N-N-A. I am the

21 communications coordinator for the Lone Star Chapter

22 of the Sierra Club. We have about 24,000 members

23 across the state. And first I want to thank the EPA

24 for the wisdom of proposing a new health-based ozone

25 standard and I want to thank you as individuals for
258

1 coming to do this work here today.

2 So I'm asking EPA to pass the protective

3 standard of 60 parts per billion. As someone who grew

4 up on the Gulf Coast, I was born in Galveston, lived

5 in Port Arthur for a year as a toddler and grew up in

6 Corpus Christi. I'm aware of the smell and the

7 consequences of air pollution, and I can't accept that

8 as a way for us to live. So I'm really delighted to

9 be participating in this process.

10 My mother and her siblings all had asthma as

11 children and different times throughout their lives.

12 My Uncle C.G. Jones died of lung cancer, though he

13 wasn't a smoker. So as a person myself who practices

14 yoga -- yoga involves a lot of long, deep breathing.

15 Full breaths is a big part of yoga, so I want those

16 breaths to be full of clean air.

17 Sierra Club and our health and environmental

18 community partners are part of a large movement of

19 individuals, communities of faith, legislators,

20 business people and many, many citizens, and we're

21 focusing on the large industrial facilities in

22 particular because we figure that the large industrial

23 facilities are the fastest way to get ozone out of our

24 air that we breathe. We're also concerned, of course,

25 about highways and we've opposed the Grand Parkway
259

1 project that's on -- north of Houston because it would

2 increase trips traveled and we have a lawsuit about

3 that.

4 So we're focusing on these large industrial

5 facilities, in particular the coal plants and

6 refineries. Our Beyond Coal Campaign is part of a

7 big, dynamic clean energy movement, clean energy

8 sector, and we're steadily putting in place more and

9 more already available energy efficiency measures to

10 reduce consumption and the need for so much power

11 generation.

12 We're already No. 1 in wind energy in Texas

13 and we're building more of that. We also are steadily

14 building more and more distributed solar power and

15 geothermal power. We're seeing more and more panels

16 on big boxes at other large facilities like churches

17 and we'll see more and more solar panel in the

18 coming -- panels in the coming years on higher

19 education institutes and all available rooftops,

20 including parking garages.

21 So this is where we need EPA's help. Right

22 now we are not looking at cumulative impacts in Texas,

23 and so that's where I am going to use my prop here.

24 I've got a map of Texas. It shows the existing 17

25 coal plants. They're mostly in the northeast sector
260

1 of the state. You will see them in the yellow dots.

2 The red dots are the 12 proposed new coal

3 plants in Texas. So Texas has more than any other

4 state new proposed coal plants, and that's going to be

5 a real problem for meeting this new standard that we

6 want to be implemented of 60 parts per billion. So

7 right now, who -- when we ask how are we going to do

8 this, how are we going to reduce the ozone, we're

9 looking to the councils of government, so the cities

10 and counties that get together and create the state

11 implementation plan, working with the TCEQ and the

12 EPA. And those councils of government can really only

13 look at what they have in control in their hands. So

14 they can only reduce ozone in their localities.

15 So what we're not right now looking at, and

16 I'm asking EPA's help to step in, in particular in

17 Texas and in other parts of the nation, to look at

18 what was once called areas of influence. So those

19 places in the state -- and those are the clusters. I

20 will be pointing to those red and yellow dots that

21 aren't within these COGs, these councils of

22 governments, and right now the people who are being

23 charged with cleaning up their air can't control.

24 So I'm asking EPA to put a structure in place

25 where the TCEQ is required to take into consideration
261

1 cumulative impacts of all the large sources of ozone

2 so that those -- so that we can phase out the dirtiest

3 of the existing coal plants and we can stop building

4 new coal plants. That's been our focus.

5 And also on the refineries. I should speak

6 briefly to that. We've been working on upset

7 emissions. TCEQ hasn't been enforcing the going over

8 the upset emissions. That's when a refinery suddenly

9 puts out a whole bunch of pollution and whoops, those

10 numbers -- Neil Carman went and looked at that -- and

11 were very, very high so we're working with the

12 refineries to reduce that.

13 In the 1990s, the Texas State Legislature

14 passed a bill, Senate Bill 7, which called for 50

15 percent reductions in nitrogen oxides from Texas power

16 plants, so going back to the power plants briefly.

17 That led to significant reductions. There were

18 technologist in addition to what was done that could

19 have been put in place and the State said no, we

20 don't -- we don't have to do that. So we're -- we're

21 saying that's about fear and not wanting to change the

22 way of doing things.

23 So in conclusion, Texas isn't a fossil fuel

24 state, it's an energy state. We've got brilliant

25 innovators here who can go ahead and make that change.
262

1 A lot of the energy sector is doing it. So I'm asking

2 for your help to pass 60 parts per billion standard

3 and also look at cumulative impacts as an integral

4 piece of the method for getting there. Thank you very

5 much.

6 MS. WEGMAN: Thank you.

7 MR. LESTER: I am going to have to

8 apologizes for my voice. It almost never deserts me,

9 but it did today. I'm Jim Lester. I'm the Vice

10 President of the Houston Advanced Research Center.

11 The last name is L-E-S-T-E-R.

12 We've been managing an air quality research

13 program in East Texas since 2002. I wish I were

14 sitting here today testifying about a NAAQS for

15 benzene, but since we're here to talk about ozone, my

16 suggestion -- I am not an epidemiologist. I

17 appreciate the science that the epidemiologists did.

18 Since they gave you a range of 60 to 70, my

19 recommendation would be 70 because I am concerned

20 about the scientific tools we have to operate at this

21 level.

22 The Clean Air Act requires that you model an

23 ozone episode and then you demonstrate the

24 effectiveness of your controls on that episode. As

25 you get the standard lower, the spatial and temporal
263

1 scale you have to model at increases. It's not

2 altogether clear that the models we've got now are

3 going to handle the kind of modeling we're going to

4 have to do for these lower standards.

5 You've already heard about the ozone

6 background problem in East Texas. There is a Web

7 site, www.tercairquality.org, where you can find the

8 conceptual model Dr. John Nielsen-Gammon of A&M did

9 for background ozone in East Texas. It is commonly 50

10 to 55 parts per billion in the ozone season across the

11 eastern part of the state. So we don't need a

12 multi-county SIP approach, we need a multi-state SIP

13 approach.

14 In order to properly model this, you have to

15 have a decent emission inventory. EPA and TCEQ use

16 emission factors to get the emission inventory for

17 their volatile organic compounds. We've done three

18 major field studies, have shown that the estimates you

19 get out of those emission factors are an order of

20 magnitude too low. We need to be measuring the

21 volatile organics, but nobody has taken the lead to

22 bring the measurement techniques to the U.S. We have

23 to go to Europe to bring in the proper instrumentation

24 to get proper measurements on the VOC emissions.

25 It's not altogether clear that the current
264

1 continental and atmospheric boundaries we use in these

2 models will work. We may need a hemispheric model, we

3 may need to blend the current ozone models with

4 climate models. Because we're talking about a big

5 scale here when you get down to that level and we're

6 not quite ready -- I mean, you're talking about job

7 security for me and my scientists, but it's going to

8 be a challenge.

9 So my suggestion would be that we set it at

10 70 and see what we can do and go incrementally. I

11 always believe in you head in the right direction and

12 you take an incremental approach to environmental

13 improvement.

14 And I do support the secondary standard. I

15 think that that is a good idea, to add the secondary

16 standard to the primary standard. Thank you. Sorry

17 about the voice.

18 MS. WEGMAN: No problem. Thank you for

19 offering your testimony today. I have a couple of

20 questions. Others may as well.

21 You supported as I understood your testimony

22 to say 70 because of the limitations of our modeling

23 capability. Do you also support 70 --

24 MR. LESTER: It's not just your models,

25 it's the data we've got to put into the models.
265

1 Because the emission inventory of VOCs is not very

2 good.

3 MS. WEGMAN: Do you support 70 from the

4 standpoint of the health science?

5 MR. LESTER: Well, I'm assuming that

6 your epidemiologists were comfortable with that and so

7 that's why I am saying the top of the range.

8 MS. WEGMAN: Okay. Thank you. And the

9 other question on supporting a secondary standard, do

10 you support the standard that we proposed, the

11 separate secondary standard?

12 MR. LESTER: Yes, and now based on my

13 back-of-the-envelope calculations, we'll probably

14 violate that in East Texas. But I am basically -- I'm

15 also primarily trained as an ecologist, so I think we

16 need the secondary standard in place. We've seen too

17 much ecosystem damage in the eastern part of the U.S.

18 to allow that to move west.

19 MS. STONE: Thank you.

20 MS. WEGMAN: Okay. Anybody else have

21 questions? Okay. Thank you very much.

22 Let's see. David Bradley and Rob [sic]

23 Clifton, is either of them here? It looks like

24 they're both here.

25 MR. CLIFTON: My name is Rod Clifton,
266

1 C-L-I-F-T-O-N. I am with the Arc Wind Institute. We

2 are a group of professionals that are involved in the

3 development of clean energy systems. And I wanted to

4 thank the EPA for doing this, for bringing this to the

5 forefront. Whatever tools are needed to help prevent

6 further dirty power generation systems from occurring,

7 we are completely for it and back the efforts to do

8 that.

9 I'm not acquainted with the ozone-type issue

10 with power plants, but if it helps clean or prevent

11 coal power plants from being developed, especially in

12 our state, we would -- we wholeheartedly back your

13 efforts to do that, coal being one of the dirtiest,

14 probably the dirtiest and most detrimental pollutants

15 in the atmosphere at this time.

16 And as we're all aware, I'm sure, right now,

17 the dilemma that the planet -- not just Texas but the

18 planet itself is facing. More and more climate

19 scientists are coming -- drifting to the conclusion

20 that we may have already passed the tipping point for

21 a runaway climate catastrophe.

22 So recently Texas has acquired the status of

23 being the No. 1 state in the United States for the

24 generation of clean sustainable power. And this was a

25 marvelous thing for our state. My group of folks just
267

1 now coming to grips with the fact that we're

2 planning -- there are entities planning to build 12

3 new dirty coal-powered plants in the state of Texas

4 and that we are also now known, or I believe, as one

5 of the dirtiest polluting states in the U.S. that we

6 would actually compound this problem by doing this.

7 We just wanted to make our statement here

8 that we're 100 percent behind you. It's not just the

9 state of Texas. It's a planetary crisis that we're

10 battling. Texas should be leading the way, pardon me,

11 in clean energy development, not leading the way to

12 help destroy our planet. Thank you very much for all

13 you're doing.

14 MS. WEGMAN: Thank you for coming today.

15 MR. BRADLEY: I echo a lot of what Rod

16 said.

17 MS. WEGMAN: I'm sorry. Could you

18 introduce yourself?

19 MR. BRADLEY: My name is David Bradley

20 and I live here in Houston. I met Rod the other night

21 at a meeting for 350.org, which is an organization

22 dedicated to bringing the amount of carbon in the

23 atmosphere to 350 parts per million. And I echo a lot

24 of what he said.

25 I support and am excited by the EPA's current
268

1 efforts to reduce air pollution. I encourage the EPA

2 to freely use the Clean Air Act to combat climate

3 change and other environmental disasters.

4 I must admit, I'm very afraid and devastated

5 by the likely effects of global warming. I mean, if

6 it's true, I mean, it feels like it definitely changes

7 a trajectory of my life. I don't know whether or not

8 I'd like to have kids and put them through the misery

9 which will likely ensue. I know the titans of the

10 polluting industries continue to throw out excuses

11 about why they must pollute and risk the fate of the

12 human species. I hope the EPA will see through these

13 excuses and continue to push for limits to pollution

14 based on the health and the needs of human beings and

15 not the profits of major companies.

16 I want to thank you as well for coming out

17 and proposing these standards. And if there's

18 anything I can do to help you impose and enforce more

19 rigorous standards, I will definitely do that. Thank

20 you.

21 MS. WEGMAN: Thank you. Thank you both

22 very much for your testimony.

23 Jon Boyd and A.J. Davis?

24 MR. BOYD: Hi. My name is Jon Boyd.

25 It's J-O-N B-O-Y-D. I'm on the Board of Citizens
269

1 Transportation Coalition, however, these comments

2 today will be my own.

3 I support the efforts to reduce the ozone

4 threshold to 70 parts per million. I can't make an

5 argument based on the science. I'll have to defer to

6 the scientists to make that call, but I support the

7 EPA on developing standards based on science.

8 As someone who follows local transportation

9 issues, I can tell you that we have enormous

10 opportunities to improve air quality simply by

11 changing the way we move around. According to the

12 last census, only about two persons out of 100 walk or

13 ride their bicycles to work as a percentage of total

14 workers in the Houston area. By contrast, three out

15 of four of us drive to work by automobile. So just

16 changing the way we get to work and the way we get

17 around to do our errands is a way that we can improve

18 air quality.

19 And I can't quantify for you how that would

20 change meeting a new ozone level, but we are not close

21 to -- we can only -- we're only scratching the surface

22 of the opportunities for improving local air quality

23 through changes in transportation. And what might be

24 said of Houston, Houston is a little bit -- maybe

25 walks a little bit less than a lot of other cities,
270

1 but we have enormous opportunities than most of the

2 country to do much better.

3 Furthermore, by EPA tightening its air

4 regulations, we might hope that this might lead to

5 some different rule-making from the Department of

6 Transportation. One way that -- grants come in the

7 form of congestion mitigation air quality and

8 sometimes we are doing local projects to expand road

9 capacity to improve air quality, and while that might

10 improve the air temporarily by relieving bottlenecks,

11 in the long run it leaves us right where we started

12 from in having too many people driving and not enough

13 people using transit, not enough people walking, not

14 enough people using bicycles. So this is something

15 that we can do. We have lots of opportunities and

16 let's do it. Thank you.

17 MS. WEGMAN: I just want to check, you

18 said you supported 70. We propose 60 to 70. I just

19 wondered if you meant 70 specifically or you meant you

20 would support our proposed range. I just wanted to

21 check.

22 MR. BOYD: I would support the proposed

23 range. I picked 70 more or less that we need to

24 definitely make an increment somewhere, and if the

25 science tells us that we need to go lower, then we
271

1 should strive to go lower. Thank you.

2 MS. WEGMAN: Okay. Thank you.

3 MR. DAVIS: My name is A.J. Davis. I'm

4 a constituent of Gene Green local. I'm not an

5 environmental expert. My science background required

6 me to take historical geology, and while I'm not an

7 environmental expert, certainly led me to understand

8 the consequences of the environment and the importance

9 of understanding it properly. And I don't believe in

10 junk science.

11 The Bible informs me that greed can lead even

12 the best of us to behave poorly when greed becomes a

13 factor. And unfortunately, I think the creation of

14 pollution is often a cost-savings measure that we

15 don't need, unfortunately. I'll come back to that in

16 a minute.

17 I -- again, I'm not an expert. I don't know

18 the numbers. I'm not going to say any numbers. What

19 my issue is, I'm -- I'd rather have the environment be

20 a little bit too clean than a little bit too dirty.

21 When it's a little bit too dirty, there is rampant

22 diseases, which even as laborers we end up working and

23 then we have to suffer the ill effects and end up

24 costing us what little material wealth we gain through

25 our outsourcing to medical costs. Whereas if the
272

1 environment is a little bit too clean, well, maybe our

2 jobs do pay a little less but our quality of life is

3 nonetheless improved, and I think that's worth

4 stating.

5 One point I did want to make relating to

6 labor and offshoring is that pollution can also be

7 offshored as well as jobs. And if we set higher

8 standards here, sometimes it concerns me that

9 companies that do pollute here would just then move

10 their facilities overseas and pollute there, and

11 since -- you know, it's one atmosphere for the earth.

12 I would also -- if we set serious standards,

13 I want to see serious regulations of some sort made to

14 protect from the import and -- of pollution. I can't

15 do anything about someone working for less money in a

16 foreign country, but if the reason we're trying to --

17 we lose jobs here is to protect the environment, I

18 want to make sure that it's protected overseas as

19 well. Of course, I would prefer for the jobs to be

20 here, but that's another issue. And that's really

21 about all I have to say. Any questions?

22 MS. WEGMAN: I don't think I have any.

23 MR. DAVIS: Thank you.

24 MS. WEGMAN: Thank you. Thank you for

25 coming. Thank you for your testimony.
273

1 Angelita Sanchez and Harold Farber?

2 MS. SANCHEZ: Hi. My name is Angelita

3 Sanchez and I am motivated to being here because this

4 New Year's I decided to be more committed to something

5 else besides just recycling, and so I've been reading

6 information. And I raised five children. I don't

7 think I remember any of them having the respiratory

8 problems that my grandchildren now do.

9 And I go to visit -- I have two older

10 daughters now. One has four children and the other

11 one has two. Each one of them have respiratory

12 issues. I was shocked because I used to live in

13 California and I was shocked when I heard that one of

14 them had to be hospitalized to wear a mask and then

15 they got it fixed and then they had to go back in,

16 like, three weeks later. It just wasn't going away.

17 One of the daughters lives in 77506 area code

18 and they're near the refineries, the Goodyear plant, I

19 think Deer Park and Bayport. I was really surprised

20 to hear my grandson say -- I said, "You kids play on

21 the computer too much and watch too much cartoons.

22 Let's get outside, let's go do some gardening, pick up

23 leaves, investigate," stuff like that, because that's

24 how I grew up.

25 And they said, "We don't like to go outside."
274

1 And I said, "That's too bad. You need to go

2 outside. Why don't you want to go outside?"

3 They said, "The air stinks." And you know

4 what? Now that I live in Pasadena, I can guarantee

5 you that air stinks. And if you go out there to enjoy

6 a full moon at, like, 1:00 in the morning it's worse.

7 I'm just appalled that my daughter will even stay

8 living there.

9 I'm more appalled that the businesses -- they

10 go to Morales Elementary and they let the children go

11 out and play. I just can't believe that. When you

12 look at her medicine cabinet and look at all this

13 allergy stuff that she has to buy, it's there now, it

14 will be there next month. It's always there. I've

15 had an opportunity now to visit several times.

16 There's always medication there. There's medication

17 at the other daughter who moved away from the Pasadena

18 area. It's still there.

19 My mother died in 2007 from respiratory

20 problems. The doctors wanted to know, did she smoke,

21 did she work in a factory, did she, did she, you know,

22 all this stuff. She was a homemaker and she raised us

23 and that's basically all that my mother ever did. She

24 never smoked, she never drank, she never did anything.

25 She died of respiratory issues.
275

1 So I hope you guys can do whatever you can to

2 just really clean it up and whatever strict standards

3 need to be put in place, I would like to see them

4 there. Because you know what? Since I was a child, I

5 remember going to school and them talking about the

6 environment way back in the '50s and '60s, and you

7 know what, I don't think we've made the progress that

8 we should be able to do. That's really about all I

9 have to say.

10 MS. WEGMAN: Well, that was a lot.

11 Thank you very much. Thank you very much for sharing

12 that with us.

13 DR. FARBER: I am Dr. Harold Farber.

14 I'm a pediatric pulmonologist at Baylor College of

15 Medicine and Texas Children's Hospital. I am speaking

16 as a private citizen as a content expert, not for the

17 institution. I wish to thank the person who came

18 before me for putting a very human face on this.

19 I want to start out by saying I concur with

20 the consensus of the scientific and medical community

21 that the EPA should strengthen ozone standards and I

22 strongly support the 0.60 part per billion [sic]

23 standard.

24 Why we need an ozone standard, again, ozone

25 is highly toxic. It's important for the air we
276

1 breath. The current standards fail to protect the

2 health of millions of Americans as the Clean Air Act

3 requires. Again, we need a much tighter national air

4 quality standard.

5 The science is clear on this. Lower

6 standards -- excuse me, higher standards do not -- are

7 not sufficient to protect the public health. And to

8 protect the health of children, the elderly, and other

9 sensitive groups, the EPA should set the ozone

10 standard at 60 parts per billion. As you know, the

11 law requires EPA to base its decisions solely on the

12 need to protect the public health.

13 And although I'm sure you're aware of some of

14 these studies, I do want to highlight them that

15 document the harm of ozone and the benefits of

16 reducing the standard to 0.6 parts per billion [sic].

17 One of the classic studies was done in Atlanta in 1966

18 during the Olympics. And the Olympic preparations

19 included strategies to minimize traffic congestion,

20 including an integrated 24-hour-a-day public

21 transportation service, closure of downtown to private

22 automobiles, alternate downtown delivery schedules.

23 With this in place, the one-hour peak ozone

24 decreased from 81.3 parts per billion to 58.6 parts

25 per billion during the Olympic games. Associated with
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1 this, childhood asthma emergency department visits

2 dropped by 40 percent and asthma hospitalizations

3 dropped by 20 percent. Very, very tangible health

4 benefits associated with reductions of ozone in the

5 levels that you're proposing.

6 In Southern California, children in high

7 ozone and low ozone communities were followed. The

8 maximum one-hour ozone averaged 50.1 in the low ozone

9 communities and 75.4 in the high ozone communities.

10 Children in the high ozone communities who played

11 three or more sports, kids who spent more time active

12 outside, had three times the risk of developing asthma

13 as children in the low ozone communities. Again,

14 very, very tangible benefits clearly demonstrated with

15 reductions from current standard to this 0.60 or less.

16 The children's health study in Southern

17 California also showed that monthly prevalence of

18 asthma medication use was associated with monthly

19 average ozone levels, with three times the asthma

20 among children who were reported to spend more time

21 outdoors. Again, monthly summer ozone peaked at 70 to

22 100 parts per billion in the high communities, well

23 below 60 parts per billion in the low communities.

24 Again, much more asthma medication use associated with

25 higher ozone levels and less use associated with
278

1 reductions to the range near a 0.6 parts per billion.

2 Among nonsmoking California university

3 students, the lifetime exposure to ozone levels above

4 60 parts per billion was associated with decreases in

5 small airways function as measured on lung function

6 tests, about a 5 to 10 percent of predicted reduction

7 associated with being in high ozone communities.

8 Again, very clear benefits of lowering ozone levels.

9 And if I take some of our most vulnerable

10 patients, patients with cystic fibrosis who have very

11 high medical care utilization, a 10 part per billion

12 increase in ozone was associated with a 10 percent

13 increase in the odds of having two or more pulmonary

14 exacerbations. This takes years off of life of cystic

15 fibrosis patients, often requires escalation of

16 antibiotics, of therapy, frequently hospitalizations.

17 Again, I could go on but my time is short.

18 This science is clear. Current ozone

19 standards do not sufficiently protect the public

20 health. Harm to the respiratory health of children

21 has been clearly demonstrated at levels at or near

22 current standards and substantial benefit has been

23 clearly demonstrated with reductions to levels near

24 the proposed standard of 0.60 parts per billion. I

25 strongly endorse the reduction to 0.60 parts per
279

1 billion.

2 I just wish to highlight for you the groups

3 that have also called for the 0.60 parts per billion

4 ozone ozone standard include the American Academy of

5 Pediatrics, the American Lung Association, the

6 American Public Health Association, and the American

7 Thoracic Society. Thank you so much.

8 MS. WEGMAN: Thank you both very much

9 for your time. Dr. Farber, it looks like you have a

10 list of studies. I think we are familiar with them,

11 but if you would submit it for the record, that would

12 be helpful for us to have.

13 DR. FARBER: I will. Thank you.

14 MS. WEGMAN: Let me just check if we

15 have any questions. All right. Thank you very much.

16 DR. FARBER: Thank you.

17 (Discussion off the record.)

18 DR. FARBER: They're both published

19 studies. They're all published peer-reviewed studies.

20 MS. WEGMAN: They are -- but it's

21 helpful to have the public comments citing them as

22 well.

23 DR. FARBER: It very clearly documents

24 the -- that the .60 as recommended by the Council for

25 Scientific -- CASAC, yeah, is -- is important, is
280

1 scientific, is evidenced-based and we need to go to

2 .6. So thank you.

3 MS. WEGMAN: Thank you.

4 Our next two speakers, Raj Natarajan and

5 Stephen Kent. Is Stephen Kent here? Okay. We'll go

6 ahead with Mr. Natarajan.

7 MR. NATARAJAN. Am I alone?

8 MS. WEGMAN: Apparently. Mr. Natarajan,

9 if you could spell your name.

10 MR. NATARAJAN: I'm sorry. My name is

11 Natarajan, N-A-T-A-R-A-J-A-N. My first name is R-A-J.

12 I do want to support the 60 parts per billion

13 standards you are proposing. I think you can even go

14 lower with the technologies available. My main

15 problem -- I didn't want to talk here, but I do want

16 to point out, I don't -- that EPA is very much

17 politicized and I hope the 60 ppb, which you are

18 proposing, and the standard can be suggested on August

19 31, 2010 -- it is going to take a few years, at least

20 until 2013.

21 And I'm sure you already know that most of

22 the EPA regulations have not been followed for the

23 last eight years. It has gone haywire. And I hope

24 you can see the agonizing stories about all of these

25 people, but I think some of them will be alive to see
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1 the news standards being enforced. That's going to be

2 one of the big problems, the enforcement, and I

3 hope -- I don't want to introduce politics here, at

4 least for the next three years. Before the next three

5 years it will be enforced. That's my prior -- that's

6 my wish. And I wish you good luck.

7 MS. WEGMAN: Well, thank you. We

8 appreciate your coming out and talking with us today.

9 Let me check if Stephen Kent is here. Is

10 there anyone else in the audience who would like to

11 speak at this time? Come on forward. And let me just

12 ask if you have registered to speak.

13 MR. STELLY: No, I haven't. I'm sorry.

14 MS. WEGMAN: That's all right.

15 MR. STELLY: Hi. My name is Larry

16 Stelly, S-T-E-L-L-Y. And let me say at the outset I

17 am simply a member of the interested public,

18 interested because I like to breathe, but I am not an

19 expert in any of the statistics.

20 We've heard some heartrending stories, of

21 course, about the adverse health effects from

22 excessive ozone, not to mention other particulates in

23 the air, but -- and that, of course, compelling as it

24 is, is only a small part of the picture. I would like

25 to address -- first of all, let me go on record as
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1 saying that whether it's done or enforced by the end

2 of this year or on some sort of a time schedule that

3 corporations can plan for and adhere to, I would favor

4 the 60 part per billion standard and perhaps a lower

5 one in times to come --

6 MS. WEGMAN: You just have to push the

7 button and leave it on.

8 MR. STELLY: -- as technology advances,

9 of course. But if you look at it on a strictly a

10 microeconomic basis, we know that something like 16

11 percent of our GNP is spent on health. That's about

12 twice the next highest country, which is Germany.

13 Germany's per capita GNP, even with a weak dollar,

14 strong euro, believe it or not is not any higher per

15 capita GNP than America's is, even though they have a

16 fairly homogenously well-educated society, and we

17 don't necessarily have that though we're working

18 toward it.

19 The point is, we're spending twice as much as

20 a highly advanced country like Germany. And if you

21 were to posit -- and this is just, again, conceptual.

22 If we were to eliminate the adverse respiratory and

23 cancer and other health effects, including those of

24 kids who are not able to grow up athletic and strong

25 because they can't go out and run, put it all
283

1 together, I don't think it would be unreasonable to

2 posit that if we could control just ozone and other

3 particulates, we might have anywhere from 5 to 10

4 percent reduction of our medical expenditures. What

5 does that work out to?

6 Well, if 16 percent of 14 trillion is

7 something like 2.3 trillion for medical, if you reduce

8 that by 5 percent you're reducing it -- yearly medical

9 costs by maybe 115 -- by as much as 230 billion, at

10 the very least at 5 percent of 6 -- of 2.3 trillion,

11 something like $115 billion a year.

12 Now, compare that microeconomic benefit,

13 strictly dollars and cents reduced medical expenses to

14 what it would cost to retrofit or upgrade or change

15 the source of fuel. I don't know the numbers, but

16 let's just assume perhaps $10 billion, maximum $20

17 billion nationwide, that would be -- for the most

18 part, it would tend to be something on the order of a

19 one-time expense, whereas the savings on a

20 health-benefit basis would be yearly for as far as

21 future can stretch. It seems to me that the

22 microeconomic benefit of improved health greatly

23 outweighs the cost to industry of adhering to the

24 standards that we're talking about.

25 Now, there is legitimate concern, of course.
284

1 They're saying, well, we are concerned about an

2 unknown legislative political environment. That was

3 mentioned this morning. We don't know how to plan.

4 Let's make it specific. Plan for 60 and in future

5 years plan for improved standards, not just with ozone

6 but right across the board. Plan for it, budget for

7 it. If you have to charge a little more, that's a

8 matter that you'll have to work out perhaps with your

9 public utility commissions, but make the investment.

10 It is definitely worthwhile. That's strictly on a

11 microeconomic basis.

12 MS. WEGMAN: Well, thank you. If you

13 have any calculations that you want to submit for the

14 record --

15 MR. STELLY: I wish I had because, as I

16 say, I am simply a reasonably well-informed member of

17 the public, not an expert, but just the conceptual

18 difference between the continued annual savings in the

19 health budget of this country versus the essentially

20 relatively short-term, one-time benefits of enforcing

21 the technological improvements that companies would

22 have to make.

23 Coal is an enormous resource potentially.

24 Can coal be used cleanly? Well, it probably can be if

25 it's done right. But again, if the particulate
285

1 restraints are there, industry would have no choice,

2 if they want to use coal, than to do it right.

3 Scrubbers, coal gasification plants, for example.

4 We are just now coming into an era of massive

5 discoveries of natural gas from shale, as you know.

6 Louisiana, Texas, up in Pennsylvania and New York,

7 huge, huge, huge potential for power generation. We

8 need to go into that area, not to mention the

9 renewables, not to mention, of course, with the

10 President's comment at the State of the Union, which

11 is to consider, you know, major investment in nuclear,

12 you know, which is clean. Take care of the disposal,

13 probably more of us got it licked and that's being

14 done.

15 So I would say enforce the lower or the

16 improved standards to 60, not just there but across

17 the board with other particulates, let industry know

18 that they've got to plan for it, plan long-term, make

19 the investment, the country comes out way ahead.

20 One small concern might be that our

21 competitiveness against other countries, especially

22 shall we say dirty polluting countries in such

23 areas -- aspects as petrochemical products,

24 manufactured products, there may be some concern that

25 our country would have a competitive disadvantage if
286

1 we improve our standards. I would submit that as a

2 country, given that industry, for example, pays

3 massively for health insurance, medical care for its

4 own employees, they would save in that respect, and

5 beyond that the country would save and there would

6 probably be reduced taxes on major income earners like

7 major industry to support whatever public health, you

8 know, programs exist.

9 And let's remember, even though public health

10 legislation plan, you know, by the administration may

11 not pass, we nonetheless have major expenditures even

12 today as the state and local level in public health.

13 That's already a taxable item which industry could be

14 relieved partly now and going on into the future. So

15 on a microeconomic basis, it makes a lot of sense.

16 And industry can plan for it.

17 I dare say one last thing, which is way

18 beyond the purview of your department, and that is

19 this: It's been -- it's not original with me. If we

20 import goods, services, especially goods and

21 petrochemical items from countries that are known to

22 be high polluters, that should be taxable, that should

23 be added. And if they exploit their workers, by

24 golly, that should be taxable. If a Chinese worker

25 doing the same thing --
287

1 MS. WEGMAN: I am afraid we're going to

2 have to wind down.

3 MR. STELLY: One last -- I am just about

4 to wind it up.

5 If a Chinese worker makes one-tenth what the

6 American industrial worker is, there's a -- the ten

7 times factor. If the cost of pollution, for example,

8 is perhaps double what it is per unit of output,

9 average that in. Ten plus two over two is six. Half

10 of that, sock them and other third-world nonconforming

11 countries with low labor standards and high pollution,

12 sock them with the tariffs. It will even out and

13 protect American domestic industry from that kind of

14 unfair competition. If --

15 MS. WEGMAN: Okay. I think you're going

16 to have to wind up, please.

17 MR. STELLY: Let them squeal. We are an

18 independent country and we are sovereign still.

19 MS. WEGMAN: Okay. Thank you very much.

20 Our next speakers are Garrett Butler and Anna

21 Pierce, if they're here.

22 (Discussion off the record.)

23 MS. WEGMAN: Okay. Ms. Pierce?

24 MS. PIERCE: Hi. My name is Anna

25 Pierce. That's A-N-N-A P-I-E-R-C-E. I am a recent
288

1 graduate of the University of Texas at Austin. I

2 studied sustainability issues as well as social

3 justice issues, and through all of my experience with

4 my schooling and also the organizing that I have been

5 involved with for the past five years, these issues

6 have just become incredibly important to me and the

7 people that I work with.

8 I work mostly with young people. I started

9 an organization. It's a statewide organization

10 working with youth around the state combatting climate

11 change and other environmental issues. And mostly

12 what I want to say is that -- all the people that I

13 know that are my friends and my peers that I have

14 worked with, they go to school, they have jobs, and

15 they also work tirelessly day in and day out to make

16 sure that we have a just and sustainable future.

17 This is something that we know will affect

18 our generation and will affect future generations and

19 we feel like we want to make our voices heard here

20 today. And not many people could come out because of

21 school, but I hope to be here to not only represent

22 myself but the other folks I work with as well. And

23 we just want you to know that we very much support the

24 lowering of the emissions standards for this. We'd

25 like to see it at 60 parts per billion because we
289

1 really do know that the health of not only ourselves

2 but our communities and the entire planet are at stake

3 with this and every step that we can take to help

4 reduce emissions is going to be a really important

5 step to making sure that we have a better future for

6 ourselves and for generations to come. So I thank you

7 for being here today and taking these comments.

8 MS. WEGMAN: Well, thank you very much

9 for coming out and for representing yourself and your

10 fellow students. We appreciate that.

11 Is Garrett Butler here?

12 MR. BUTLER: It stinks out there today,

13 especially in this part of town. Raise your hand --

14 I am 58 years old --

15 MS. WEGMAN: I'm sorry. Could you just

16 repeat your name for the court reporter?

17 MR. BUTLER: I am Garrett Butler, 58

18 years old, born and raised in Houston, actually about

19 a half a mile from here. My two older brothers had

20 bad asthma. They were here in this part of town ten

21 years longer than I was. Then we moved over by South

22 Main and Post Oak not far from Houston Lighting &

23 Power and the paper mill. If anybody has been around

24 Houston they might remember that. The paper mill

25 stank real bad.
290

1 At about three or four, that's when I lived

2 over there by that paper mill. Okay. By first grade

3 I had ADD -- they didn't know what that was back

4 then -- OCD and dyslexia. By third grade, I was like

5 the first special education here in town until I got

6 my GED actually. At eight we moved over to

7 Tanglewood, which was a much cleaner part of town. My

8 brothers' asthma went away. They ended up going to

9 college and never -- in cleaner towns like Austin back

10 then and other places and never developed asthma

11 again.

12 At ten I was diagnosed -- because I had been

13 playing in Buffalo Bayou and a lot of dirty water

14 probably over there in the woods, with

15 hyperthyroidism. The Dr. Kelsey of Kelsey-Seybold

16 Clinic sent me home one day with the radiation killed

17 my thyroid gland, put me on maximum does of Thyroxine,

18 kind of just put me on the backburner and let me burn

19 my pituitary out. Keep on telling it quit taking

20 these maximum doses, which is a natural speed. Ended

21 up driving everybody crazy until they finally figured

22 it out at about 40.

23 Got my driver's license at 14. Dad was a

24 mortgage banker. Started coming over here and driving

25 this part of town taking pictures of foreclosures and
291

1 mortgage houses put me right back here in all this

2 polluted air. Started developing bronchitis. Started

3 going to Freeport a lot surfing. At about 16, in and

4 out with bronchitis until I was 38 years old.

5 Moved my family to Oregon into a national

6 forest. Never got bronchitis once I left town 15

7 years in a national forest, never got sick. Started

8 coming back here to Houston. Last three years, in and

9 out, and had three bouts of bronchitis when I stay

10 around this city. Because I live down here on my

11 sailboat in Clear Lake and bronchitis is coming back.

12 At about ten, I developed a dust phobia.

13 Now, I'm 29 years old, I started wearing a mask just

14 because I know this particulate matter is really

15 saturated with a lot of stuff so it gives me just a

16 little bit of a psychological edge and actually helps.

17 Sometimes I wear the charcoals one just to take the

18 smell away. And it probably won't ever be cleaned up.

19 I'm going to keep wearing my mask, but just want

20 everybody to know that you move to the national forest

21 and you get out of this air -- I was in the cleanest

22 part of Oregon right there on the central Oregon coast

23 where they set the standards for clean air right there

24 at Tillamook Head. Okay. Thank you.

25 MS. WEGMAN: Thank you. Thank you for
292

1 coming.

2 Is Stephen Kent here? Is there anyone else

3 in the audience who would like to speak right now?

4 I'm sorry, did you register?

5 MS. FARENTHOLD: No, I did not, but I'll

6 give you my name. It's F.T. Farenthold, and I'll

7 spell that. F as in Frank, A-R-E-N-T-H-O-L-D.

8 MS. WEGMAN: I want to make sure we got

9 that. I'm sorry, could you repeat your name just for

10 us? Because we don't have it.

11 MS. FARENTHOLD: Francis T. Farenthold.

12 MS. WEGMAN: Thank you.

13 MS. FARENTHOLD: And I am going to say

14 that this resonates with me, because more than 30

15 years ago as a resident of Corpus Christi I appeared

16 before what was then the Clean Air -- Clean Air Agency

17 of the state. And I was later in the Legislature when

18 we established Earth Day and so on and so forth. So I

19 have keenly watched, especially because I am from

20 Corpus Christi and the Coast and so forth, the process

21 in this state and I thank you for coming. I hope you

22 will stick with your guns whatever those decisions are

23 because this state government is incapable, as it is

24 organized and implemented, to protect the people of

25 this state. And I think you've heard enough of that
293

1 today.

2 So I thank you for being here. It is a

3 wonderful experience after these 30 years of great

4 frustration, both in and out of office, to find people

5 so receptive about the concerns of the citizenry. And

6 thank you.

7 MS. WEGMAN: Well, thank you very much

8 for taking the time to come today. We appreciate it.

9 Is there anyone else in the room who hasn't

10 spoken who would like to speak at this point? Okay.

11 If not, I think we will take a break at least for 15

12 minutes and we'll see if others show up. Thank you

13 all.

14 (Break.)

15 MS. WEGMAN: So the next speakers are

16 Stephen Kent and Albert Sosa.

17 (Discussion off the record.)

18 MR. KENT: So I am going to do a

19 presentation and this is basically off the TCEQ Web

20 site and it's available to everybody. And it shows

21 you the events that have happened as far as ozone.

22 Unfortunately, the TCEQ is not obligated to produce a

23 daily path of the ozone through our atmosphere, just

24 when it goes over a certain amount. As a matter of

25 fact, it's, like, 125 in Houston, but, you know,
294

1 humans being weaker or Houstonians being tougher, ours

2 is actually above the trigger for Dallas or San

3 Antonio or any other part of Texas. And talking with

4 the people, it turns out that they had too many events

5 that they had to chart if they kept us at the same

6 level as the rest of Texas.

7 Particulates are my field, really. Ozone is

8 just a sideline. I'm going to start a video and I'll

9 talk through it as soon as I sign in. Sorry. Okay.

10 This is really from -- I was a teacher in

11 high school chemistry and this is really from them.

12 This is a map of our analyzers around the city. All

13 these yellow things, you can get it off the TCEQ Web

14 site. A little more close you can see one of them.

15 Ozone is a product of organic compounds,

16 nitrogen oxides. And now what we're going to do --

17 I'll tell you the rest of this stuff while this rolls,

18 but basically we're looking to see all the barbecue

19 pits and lawnmowers that are causing the ozone like

20 our Governor says. And he does this with TCEQ, who

21 tells me that they're not obligated to protect the

22 public health, that they have a lot of decisions on

23 the table, you don't know all of it. I know I got a

24 kid that's not feeling good. I know when I was

25 teaching the kids knew when the air was bad. They
295

1 knew it was bad when the ozone was high. They knew it

2 was bad when particulates were high. And why did

3 they?

4 Because we got right up front with it and we

5 started trying to get the TCEQ information, which they

6 should release every five minutes when they get it,

7 but they hold on to it for an hour average, an hour

8 and a half after it happens. So somebody is actually

9 in the path of that red dot. Or when it begins --

10 you'll see it goes different ways, and that just

11 depends on which way the wind is blowing. Some are

12 worse than others. After this video, you should be

13 able to tell where you really don't want to live in

14 Houston because that is in the direct path.

15 Now, if you look, there's a little spot in

16 here that is the -- anyway, a little spot in here,

17 that's the ship channel. Okay. It takes a little

18 while for ozone to form because you have to have

19 volatile organic compounds, nitrogen oxides,

20 ultraviolet light and a spot for that reaction to

21 occur, and that's particulates, PM2.5, which we have a

22 problem with in Houston as well.

23 So you're starting to see why this area to

24 the west is a problem. And we only have the problem

25 with higher ozone numbers or particulates when there's
296

1 no wind because it just hangs. Otherwise, they're

2 counting on the diurnal winds to bring the air out to

3 the ocean and bring it back in and, you know, save us.

4 Well, you know, it doesn't always work that

5 way and you end up with students that are in a

6 classroom that are obviously getting a higher

7 concentration of ozone in their homes or in the school

8 where they happen to be when the ozone cloud passes

9 than other students which are outside of the path. So

10 we think everything is equal for students and

11 everything be on a tax basis, nobody is guaranteeing

12 the equal air for each one of these students that are

13 in a classroom.

14 I was in one classroom and all of a sudden

15 they were tarring the roof next to us while they were

16 taking a TAKS science test. I go, are you crazy? I

17 said kids are getting sick. How can they take a TAKS

18 test and concentrate when they have this in their

19 nose? And as it happens, there's also welders going

20 on. Welders generate manganese. Manganese goes

21 straight up the optic nerve into the brain, reduces

22 the brain capacity.

23 Lead obviously is a problem. We had

24 enough -- 7 trillion pounds of it thrown across our

25 nation while we were putting lead in gasoline. This
297

1 also hurts our students. So there's no equality.

2 When we talk equal testing, there's no equality.

3 Somebody is getting this, somebody else doesn't.

4 But if there were a batch of people that

5 thought they'd like to have a batch of ozone and not

6 reduce our standard, I have an ozone generator and we

7 could ramp them right up. They want to have that in

8 their nose, we can have it. But that's a rule that's,

9 like, 75 part per billion over an hour period or an

10 eight-hour period. Well, they went to the eight-hour

11 period because they failed so often under the hour

12 period.

13 This is really sort of hitting you at the end

14 of the day. Anyway, so the -- so if you take the same

15 basis across the city, you can see that one -- I live

16 up in Kingwood but I got hit and you can actually

17 smell it. Students could smell it. Coming in the

18 classroom, they'd say, it smells like it does outside

19 in here. It should. I have the cleanest filters and

20 everything else. So --

21 MS. WEGMAN: Mr. Kent, I just want to

22 let you know your time is up so if you can just try to

23 wrap it up.

24 MR. KENT: Great. I'll wrap up.

25 So the standard ought to change. It hurts
298

1 people's health. It's not onerous. It's getting it

2 to ready stage. I don't see a barbecue pit or a

3 lawnmower causing any of these things. And if anybody

4 wants to suck in enough ozone, I can make it happen.

5 Because it can happen in 75 part per billion. If you

6 take that over a five-minute period, it's 7,200 part

7 per billion and if you say, oh, well, they're over 200

8 times what they report based on emission factors on

9 their methanes or volatile organic compounds, we'll

10 just ramp it up 2,000 times. That gives them 3.6

11 million part per billion -- 3.6 million part per

12 billion, 3.6 percent in their air in a five-minute

13 period and we'll see what happens.

14 Anyway, that's a site. That's in back of a

15 school. And the other site is right in back of a

16 library. So this is right in the middle of us and

17 we're not next to the ship channel. Thank you.

18 MS. WEGMAN: Thank you very much.

19 Are you Albert Sosa?

20 MR. SOSA: Yes, ma'am.

21 MS. WEGMAN: Okay. Great. And let me

22 just check. Is Scarlett Russell here? Okay. We'll

23 have both of you come up since we like to try to have

24 two folks at a time.

25 MR. SOSA: So I just speak into this?
299

1 MS. WEGMAN: Yes, and if you can just

2 spell your name for the court reporter, please.

3 MR. SOSA: A-L-B-E-R-T-O and Sosa is

4 S-O-S-A.

5 All right. I believe that -- I'm not -- just

6 a student so I believe that the Clean Air Act should

7 provide other solutions to this problem, not only by

8 reducing the amount of ozone emissions but providing a

9 solution such as carbon sinks specially in the forms

10 of trees along the side of the road as a buffer for a

11 sidewalk to make pedestrian travel more desirable

12 because car emission helps produce ozone.

13 Also, I believe the EPA should approach this

14 issue holistically and join with the education

15 department and educate the youth and provide -- help

16 provide education to inspire young leaders in the

17 environment movement. Okay. Thank you.

18 MS. WEGMAN: Okay. Thank you very much.

19 I am just wondering, can we get the lights?

20 Thank you. So we can see people.

21 Let me just say, because we have a bunch of

22 new folks here. The way we're doing this is we call

23 people up two at a time and we ask, in general, it's

24 fine if both people stay until both people are done

25 speaking. And for purposes of the court reporter, if
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1 you could spell your name when you come up so she can

2 keep track of who's talking.

3 MS. RUSSELL: Hello. My name is

4 Scarlett Russell, S-C-A-R-L-E-T-T R-U-S-S-E-L-L.

5 Hello. How's it going? Thanks for coming

6 down here today to talk to us. Appreciate it. I'm

7 not a scientist by any means so I'm not going to sit

8 here and rattle off a bunch of statistics about

9 pollution. What I am is a person that's lived in

10 Houston for the past 11 years. I'm also a community

11 organizer. What that means is that I directly go to

12 the public and knock on their doors from 4:00 p.m. to

13 9:00 p.m. I meet about 50 people on average per

14 night. And I go to canvas on environmental and social

15 justice.

16 And what I have seen in my several months

17 canvassing here in the Houston area is a lot of sick

18 children, a lot of asthma, a lot of lung disease, a

19 lot of cancer everywhere, a lot of sick elderly people

20 that are suffering day in and day out. The amount of

21 pollution surrounding us, it's insane how many

22 refineries and smokestacks there are surrounding this

23 city.

24 There is a lot of distraction by, you know,

25 urban sprawl out there that's not quite in the
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1 pollution, and, you know, there's gorgeous downtown

2 with their hypnotizing skyscrapers, but there is a

3 reality of pollution here.

4 And one of the things that keeps, you know,

5 community organizers going is the passion for the

6 better good of human kind, whether it's social

7 justice, whether it's better environmental policies,

8 anything. And I'm sure that's why you guys are in

9 this set today, right? Because you care about humans,

10 you care about the environment. Your job is to

11 protect the environment, be defenders.

12 So as an environmentalist and a community

13 organizer, I do definitely feel that same passion

14 towards that, as I'm sure you all four feel today.

15 You wouldn't be here if you didn't understand the dire

16 importance of protecting the environment that we live

17 in. This is a wonderful opportunity for you guys to

18 make a step towards protecting us, the public

19 health -- the public for our health and to protect the

20 environment and have it be clean and as safe as

21 possible for future generations.

22 So I definitely urge you on behalf of myself

23 and hundreds upon thousands of people that I've seen

24 suffering, please, please lower it to 60 parts per

25 billion. It's a good step.
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1 Another good step to take is renewable

2 energy. We don't need anymore coal plants. You can't

3 deny that the technology is rapidly advancing in

4 renewable energy. It's getting more and more

5 increasingly affordable. There's a lot of opposition

6 from the polluters, but they don't have our best

7 interests in mind. They have their pocketbooks in

8 mind, the amount of money that they rake in from

9 raping, excuse my language, the earth and our health.

10 Please reduce it to 60 parts per billion and

11 definitely do some investment in renewable energy.

12 MS. WEGMAN: Thank you very much. Our

13 next speakers, Michael Drab and Anna Fisher.

14 MR. DRAB: Michael Drab, M-I-C-H-A-E-L

15 D-R-A-B.

16 I'm here. I'm a student at U of H. I'm a

17 freshman. And I'm not going to talk about, you know,

18 scientific things or, you know, health hazards or

19 anything like that. I am going to talk about the

20 future of where this city will be if it doesn't do

21 anything to stop the pollution that's happening. One

22 of my favorite hobbies to do is to walk around to see

23 things, to look at, you know, random things, but

24 whenever I can't find new things to look at, whenever

25 everything is getting old, I can always look up to the
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1 sky. I've done that since I was a kid.

2 My grandparents own a ranch out in central

3 Texas and I used to sit out there in the middle of the

4 night and lay on my back and look at the stars. And

5 out there, you wouldn't believe, the stars are

6 amazing. You can look up in the sky and it's

7 completely dark but the light shining on you will make

8 you feel like it's bright day. And not in the same

9 way that you see here in Houston, where it never gets

10 dark.

11 I look up at the stars here, or I try to at

12 least, and I see a deep purple sky with pink clouds.

13 It's like, okay, if you don't think that that's

14 unnatural or you don't think that that's, you know --

15 I mean, just the most disgusting thing you've ever

16 seen, whether it be, you know, a different color than

17 other places and it's different, it's still something

18 that's not natural for me to look at.

19 And I can't see the stars it's so thick. You

20 can't even see light permeating off just the light

21 bulb because the orange is so thick around it. And I

22 know that if I ever have kids and it keeps going like

23 this, the only thing that they'll have to think about

24 stars is me telling them they used to be out there but

25 all you can see is pink and purple now. And that's
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1 one thing that deeply saddens me because everyone

2 needs the stars to look at. It's motivation. It's

3 something to say, you know, there's something better,

4 there's something that will always have energy,

5 there's something that can live off of its own -- you

6 know. I don't know much about stars. I just like to

7 look at them, you know. So it's just something

8 beautiful to look at and everyone needs to see that.

9 If we keep going this way, no one will be able to see

10 them. And that's all I have to say.

11 MS. WEGMAN: Thank you.

12 MS. FISHER: Hi, my name is Anna Fisher,

13 A-N-N-A F-I-S-H-E-R. I'm also a student at the

14 University of Houston and I've lived in Texas since I

15 was in fourth grade. That's eight years old or

16 something. And you grow up hearing about all these

17 things like acid rain or how the pollution is getting

18 worse. And you know, in your geography class you keep

19 learning about pollution, how you can stop it. And at

20 the same time in our physics class you're learning

21 about the renewable energy that's coming out, all the

22 new technologies that are coming out and then at the

23 same time you're learning about all the new companies

24 that are coming out and all the new companies that

25 keep growing and how you can go into business and how
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1 you can go into oil company and how there's all these

2 wonderful opportunities to intern for an oil company.

3 And it's just so strange that people don't see the

4 correlation between one and the other.

5 And I have gotten involved in the

6 environmental club in my high school. I'm not

7 incredibly active, but it's just the idea that I care

8 and it's so saddening to think there are so many

9 people there who don't realize that one thing is

10 correlated to the other.

11 And my mom is from Mexico City and my dad is

12 from England. And we go to Mexico three times a year,

13 and I feel the difference when I go. I don't feel it

14 here. Luckily, I haven't been affected by the smog

15 here, but I know that when I go to Mexico City my eyes

16 water when I walk outside. And you get used to it

17 after a few days, but there it's, like, normal to see

18 people walking around with a face-covering mask

19 because the pollution is so bad.

20 And when I go to England and I visit my

21 grandma in the north, it's open fields. When we go to

22 Scotland, it's beautiful fresh air and I -- it's so

23 easy to see the contrast. And right now I feel that

24 Houston is that place that's in the middle and I've

25 seen -- I feel like I've seen both sides, and I'm just
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1 hoping that we can take some sort of right steps so

2 that Houston makes the step towards being greener and

3 having cleaner air more like England and so it doesn't

4 become something like Mexico City, which I'm hoping

5 they're going to be able to fix that, too, but we'll

6 see. And that's pretty much it. Thank you.

7 MS. WEGMAN: Thank you both for coming.

8 Thank you for your testimony.

9 Josh Malone and Jim Williams.

10 MR. MALONE: Hi, guys. My name is

11 Joshua Malone, J-O-S-H-U-A M-A-L-O-N-E.

12 So I am speaking to you as the president of

13 the Environmental Club at the University of Houston.

14 I'm an intern with the nonprofit advocacy group,

15 Environment Texas and just a concerned citizen most of

16 all.

17 I'm 22 and I've spent just about 20 of those

18 years living in Houston. And, you know, it's enough

19 for me to think that all these reports about how bad

20 Houston's smog is, all these horrible health reports,

21 it's enough to make me think that for a large portion

22 of my life maybe this is just the way it is. But I am

23 glad you guys are here because I think it's showing

24 everybody that it doesn't have to be this way.

25 And I think at this point I would hope the
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1 health concerns are obvious. Our air quality laws I

2 think have protected business at the expense of -- at

3 the expense of our citizens. And the Environmental

4 Club -- if I could direct everyone to the huge

5 phonebooks I have stacked in my hands, Environmental

6 Texas and myself have been canvassing the University

7 of Houston just this past week and we have collected

8 over just -- actually exactly 365 petitions asking the

9 EPA to do the right thing. Thank you.

10 And one for -- you know, one for every day of

11 the year just about. And it's just asking for, you

12 know, seemingly the most basic of needs, clean air.

13 And it's such a seemingly simple request, but it's

14 something that most other cities take for granted.

15 And I hope that you heed this request from these

16 nearly 400 young students and these young Houstonians

17 and the countless others with premature emphysema or

18 asthma or other lung diseases.

19 And you know, I am not naive. I know this

20 probably isn't an easy decision and you have likely

21 other interests you have to weigh, too, but -- but I

22 am still -- I still have enough faith in our

23 government that they still have the public health's

24 best interest at heart and I just ask that you do the

25 right thing. Thank you.
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1 MS. WEGMAN: I just want to assure you

2 that the reason that we have made this proposal to

3 revise the standard is because of Lisa Jackson, the

4 Administrator, EPA's concern about public health and

5 the environment and the concern that the standard be

6 clearly grounded in the science. So I want to assure

7 you that is very much on all of our minds.

8 I should have asked this of other folks, but

9 maybe you can speak to this question. Do you support

10 any particular number for the ozone standard between a

11 level of 60 and 70 parts per billion that we've

12 noticed?

13 MR. MALONE: Yes, I think the level of

14 60 parts per billion is -- been very acceptable. And

15 from the reports I've seen and from the research I

16 have done, it would make a big difference.

17 MS. WEGMAN: Thank you.

18 MR. WILLIAMS: My name is Jim Williams,

19 J-I-M W-I-L-L-I-A-M-S. I am the Chair of the local

20 Sierra Club, the Houston group, but I'm here more as a

21 private citizen than anything else.

22 I was on my way to a doctor's appointment at

23 the medical center and I happened to pass by the

24 Methodist Hospital, and sitting there on the table was

25 a blurb about ozone. And I picked it up and when I
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1 went to my appointment, I sat there and read it. And

2 I was just dumbfounded, flabbergasted at really how

3 bad Methodist Hospital said ozone was. It burns the

4 lungs like a sunburn.

5 I was in Mexico City here sometime back and I

6 find that they use ozone the same way we use chlorine

7 to purify water. I mean, when you think about

8 chlorine and ozone, I mean, it's really bad for your

9 lungs.

10 I further read more in the Methodist Hospital

11 brochure and it said that it's particularly bad for

12 seniors. And I'm a senior. It's particularly bad for

13 kids and it's really bad for kids with asthma. And

14 it's bad for people who are sensitive to ozone. So --

15 and it's just bad for everybody else. I mean, it's

16 not particularly bad but it is bad.

17 So we need to get ground ozone down to

18 reasonable limits. As I've been in Houston for 36

19 years, my respiratory problems have increased over the

20 years. I used to take one Dristan and that would

21 handle it. Now I am on two decongestants and

22 antihistamines twice a day and I rinse my nose with

23 saltwater. It's -- we need to clean up the air here

24 in Houston. And ozone, 60 parts per million [sic]

25 would be a good target. Thank you.
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1 MS. WEGMAN: Thank you. Thank you very

2 much for coming.

3 Our next speakers are Bridget Jensen and

4 Gracen Sheni.

5 MS. JENSEN: Hello, I'm Bridget Jensen,

6 B-R-I-D-G-E-T, last name Jensen, J-E-N-S-E-N.

7 First of all, I want to thank y'all for the

8 long day that y'all have spent here. I know it's been

9 a very long day and I appreciate the attention that

10 you're giving to everybody who is testifying before

11 you. So thank you.

12 I come tonight after my workout with my high

13 school track team and so I come from that, and my

14 concern is for these student athletes that I coach. I

15 don't want them to go through -- live through the same

16 story that I have. Back in the summer of 1995, I was

17 hospitalized for a month with a very severe case of

18 pneumonia. The doctors went in to do a scope of my

19 lungs and they found severe scar tissue, and they said

20 where in the world could this have come from.

21 And the only thing I could think of is back

22 when I was a graduate student a Cal Tech in Pasadena,

23 California, I would go out and train on my bicycle

24 around the Rose Bowl. And sure enough, you couldn't

25 see the San Gabriel Mountains, even though they were
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1 just a couple of miles away. And I would come in from

2 those workouts -- here I'm trying to stay in shape --

3 literally curling up in the fetal position wheezing.

4 And it hurt. So I -- that's the only place I can

5 think of of where my lung scar tissue came from. So

6 that -- so I obviously have depressed lung function.

7 And it came back to me just a couple years

8 ago. I am training for the world age group duathlon

9 championships. And it's the summertime and I'm

10 training pretty hard, and sure enough I come down and

11 I get hospitalized again with pneumonia. So I don't

12 dare go outside and train anymore in the summertime.

13 And here, it seems so ironic that here we

14 have this obesity issue, an epidemic in this country.

15 They're asking people to go and exercise. And it's

16 great to go outside and exercise for our mental

17 health, to get our vitamin D up, but if we're just

18 going to be exposing them to levels of ozone that's

19 going to create more problems for them with their

20 lungs, we'll just be trading an epidemic of obesity

21 for an epidemic of depressed or impaired lung

22 function. So I don't know what good that's going to

23 do.

24 We're obviously going to have to make

25 changes. People have talked about the changes to our
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1 energy systems but also there may be -- have to be

2 changes to our food systems that will affect our rural

3 counties. Maybe farmers will have to go to less

4 tillage of the soil, perhaps we need to be thinking

5 about less transportation of our food so we cut down

6 on transportation. We just eat more locally things.

7 So the point is, is that there's -- the

8 changes that we are going to have to make will affect

9 all of our society and not just the industry, not just

10 individuals, all of us. And as a coach, I stress to

11 my track team, granted, we have these individual

12 events that we strive for, but it is a team sport.

13 Our attitude and our efforts affects the team. And

14 it's that way, too, in the United States.

15 I want corporations and individuals to see

16 this effort to safeguard the quality of our air as a

17 team effort. And I would like to see that the EPA

18 adopt 60 parts per billion ozone as I believe that

19 that is what will safeguard the air quality for

20 everyone. And so I might even venture back outside

21 and train in the summertime. Because I believe that

22 our greatest resource in the country is our human

23 resource and our human resource that's educated and

24 healthy, and to have that we need to have healthy air.

25 Thank you.
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1 MS. WEGMAN: Thank you. Thank you very

2 much.

3 MS. SHENI: Gracen Sheni, G-R-A-C-E-N

4 S-H-E-N-I.

5 Good evening. I'm Gracen. I'm a student at

6 the University of Houston. I'm a sophomore. Active

7 member in Environmental Club. Took part as public

8 relations director. And I really enjoy so much about

9 the environment. I mean, all my life I have just been

10 as about as passionate of a kid as you could find,

11 just wanting to be in the clean air, you know, just

12 wanting to really protect what God gave us and just

13 see the beauty in how everything has been. And I

14 really -- I am so -- I mean, it's very disappointing

15 to see the effect that -- the unfortunate effects that

16 we as a society put on such large cities as Houston.

17 I mean, I have a Planet Earth series DVD and

18 it's just incredible to see the difference. You know,

19 we've turned one type of -- they seem like two

20 different words, honestly. You know, it's just

21 incomparable the look of clean air versus -- you know,

22 clean sky versus, you know, the smog that we have come

23 to see today, unfortunately.

24 And I just want to keep it kind of concise,

25 but personally my grandmother, she was on an oxygen
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1 tank for the majority of her life. And growing up

2 just with her, I was -- I was so disheartened, I

3 didn't think -- I still today think that, you know, no

4 one should grow up or be born into a society where

5 they have to worry about the air that they're

6 breathing or, you know, stepping outside and thinking,

7 you know, am I going to get -- are my lungs going to

8 be blackened or -- you know, it's just -- it's

9 saddening to think that we have to have that burden on

10 our back throughout daily life sometimes today, when I

11 know in the past that was never an issue and people

12 just lived, you know, peacefully and it was the way

13 things -- I think the way God intended us to live.

14 And so I think the most important thing about

15 this, we have such an amazing opportunity to act now

16 and join together with all of our shared common belief

17 protecting the environment to just get us back --

18 restore and preserve for the future the air that we

19 have that will be here today and tomorrow and the next

20 day after that and generations and so on as you can

21 imagine, but, you know, if not for us, just think of

22 what we could do for the people that we can't -- we

23 won't see. It's kind of hard to imagine, but it's

24 such a -- such a huge surreal type of realization when

25 we think about it that way.
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1 And also, I just wanted to say, I mean, I

2 think a lot of issues concerning the environment in

3 general, it's a lot about time and awareness. Because

4 we are running out of time, I think, and if -- in

5 terms of, you know, 60 parts -- I mean, I'm so

6 steadfastly for that number instead of 70. I'll tell

7 you why. Because why wait? Why -- why save the 70

8 for a later time, you know? It's now or never, you

9 know. It's got to be acting now or -- I mean, we

10 can't -- we'll never know the -- we'll never know what

11 could have been.

12 So if we're given that chance, I say just go

13 for it and let's see what will happen if -- what's the

14 worst, you know? They'll deny it, but over time

15 they'll see that they were wrong and that we'll need

16 to change the standards. So I mean, it's kind of a

17 win-win situation. I think people will start getting

18 it so hopefully we can change more people's mind to

19 see the light in it. So thank you very much.

20 MS. WEGMAN: Thank you. Thank you both

21 very much.

22 Our next two speakers, Phil Walk and

23 Carondelet Dember. Have I got this right? Is that

24 either -- is Phil Walk here? Okay. Great.

25 Carondelet Dember? What about Diane Aguirre?
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1 MR. WALK: My name is Phil Walk, P-H-I-L

2 W-A-L-K. I'm a student at University of Houston.

3 Until recently I worked with Scarlett, she spoke

4 earlier, and also Diane with the Texas Campaign for

5 the Environment. We actually canvassed on electronics

6 waste takeback laws.

7 But ozone is something that I guess I care a

8 little more about just because it does affect us,

9 like, right here. And moved down here from, like, a

10 town outside of Philadelphia when I was eight years

11 old or so, and I didn't know what an ozone day was. I

12 didn't know what ozone was. And my dad works -- or he

13 worked for a chemical plant who was in charge of

14 getting air permits and paying fines, working with the

15 TCEQ and EPA and stuff like that, and he always talked

16 about -- I remember when he talked about changing the

17 one-hour standard to the eight-hour standard and it

18 was -- I actually did a science fair project in middle

19 school about, like, creating ozone. I used big

20 plastic bags and had these strips with zanidine

21 (phonetic) and it reacted to the ozone.

22 I mean, it's a big problem here and, I mean,

23 sure, anyone who lives in Houston has been outside on

24 an ozone day in the summer and just how uncomfortable

25 it can get, not only the heat but the fact that you
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1 know that you are breathing something that is

2 unhealthy. And it's not just, like, particulate

3 matter in the air, which is something else that

4 definitely needs to be addressed, but I think lowering

5 it to -- or lowering that limit to 60 parts per

6 billion is definitely a step in the right direction.

7 And I mean, if it's -- it is the Environmental

8 Protection Agency. I think -- I mean that does show,

9 like, a proactive step, I guess, and maybe working on

10 stepping up to that name, I guess.

11 And I don't know, because I am kind of

12 saddened, really, like there are so many problems that

13 we face today that I kind of feel like we've trashed

14 our planet in a way. And I mean, people who are

15 younger than me, kids today, I feel badly for them

16 because, I mean, our lifestyle -- I mean, every time I

17 turn on a TV or start my car up, I mean, I am

18 contributing to, you know, the lowering of their

19 quality of life, I suppose.

20 And it's something that I think has been

21 delayed for a long time and I want to see that change.

22 I want to -- I want to actually have some hope for

23 maybe having kids of my own and not wanting them to,

24 you know, grow up with asthma or cancer. I haven't

25 had anything like that.
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1 So I think I've said my peace and I really --

2 I really want to see that 60 parts per billion

3 standard. And thank you.

4 MS. WEGMAN: Thank you.

5 MS. AGUIRRE: My name is Diane,

6 D-I-A-N-E, Aguirre, A-G-U-I-R-R-E. And I'm also a

7 student at the University of Houston and I work for

8 the Texas Campaign For the Environment as well.

9 But yeah, I'm really up here because I am

10 graduating in May and, like, I want to stay here but

11 it's just so terrible. I mean, we canvassed on ozone

12 for a couple of days last week and just, like, the

13 reactions that we got from people, like, every other

14 person I talked to, yeah, my child has asthma, yeah,

15 my niece, you know. It really affects a lot of people

16 in this area and it's just, like, the idea of, you

17 know, building a career and a family here, that just

18 is not that appealing to me at this point in time

19 because -- because of that. I mean, it's just -- I

20 mean, just the disregard that there is for the public

21 health is pretty appalling.

22 But I really wanted to comment on, like, what

23 a no brainer this is, really. I mean, the

24 Environmental Protection Agency, you know, got to work

25 to protect the public health and this is, you know --
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1 has all the science behind it. It's going to, you

2 know, help a lot of people, really. It's a small step

3 that's going to make a really big difference.

4 And I also wanted to comment on the reactions

5 that I got while we were canvassing on this. I mean,

6 most people were for it but, of course, when you talk

7 to 50 people a day on one particular issue, of course

8 you're going to find people that are going to be like,

9 no, I don't like what you're doing, I don't agree with

10 this. But the reactions that we got from them are

11 really just I would say flippant. I mean, they really

12 didn't have anything to, you know, back up their

13 disagreement in any way rather than except for, you

14 know -- well, I really don't know. I mean, it's just

15 like no, I don't want this. It was really not

16 anything that you could build a dialogue on.

17 But yeah, if you'll, you know -- lowering,

18 you know -- lowering it down to 60 parts per billion,

19 there's really just, from what I've read, like, a lot

20 of good evidence to support that. That is going to

21 help a lot of people in the long run. And yeah, I

22 guess I am done.

23 MS. WEGMAN: I want to say thank you. I

24 also want to say that -- to all of you folks who are

25 here, have some hope and faith for the future. With
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1 all of you here and all of you working as hard as you

2 are to try to protect the environment, I have a lot of

3 faith in the future.

4 So Carondelet Dember? Okay. Alejandro

5 Savransky. Is Alejandro here? Okay. Great. And

6 Anastasia Ozain.

7 Oh, and I want to make sure folks know, if

8 you want to speak and you haven't registered yet,

9 please register at our registration desk by 7:30. We

10 are going to -- we'll stay to listen to everybody

11 who's registered by 7:30, but if you haven't

12 registered by then we are going to try to cut it off.

13 We have a court reporter who is getting very tired.

14 MR. SAVRANSKY: My name is Alejandro

15 Savransky. It's A-L-E-J-A-N-D-R-O S-A-V-R-A-N-S-K-Y.

16 I'm the field organizer for Environment Texas over a

17 statewide citizen-based environmental service

18 organization working on clean air, clean water and

19 healthy spaces. We have about 20,000 members and

20 supporters across the state. We're based in Austin.

21 We do our work across the state. And we're here

22 definitely speaking in support of the science-based

23 standard of 60 parts per billion.

24 I've been doing environmental work in

25 organizing for the past four, almost five years. I
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1 started in Miami, Florida. My first job was a

2 canvasser. I knocked on people's doors to talk about

3 environmental issues. I knocked on a lot of doors for

4 many years and then I moved to L.A. to also work on a

5 canvassing campaign.

6 In L.A., one of the things that really struck

7 me is driving into L.A., you can actually see the

8 smog. It is so thick and it's something that really

9 strike -- it strikes everyone. Some people, I just

10 think, you see all the time commuting into L.A., but I

11 just could not help but notice it.

12 And I've been very, very fortunate to live in

13 Texas for the past two years. I think this is one of

14 the best places in the world. It's an amazing state.

15 I live in Austin and I came to Houston for the first

16 time roughly a year ago. And Houston has a bad

17 reputation. Coming here for the first time, I

18 remember thinking, oh, I am not going to like it, it's

19 not going to be a nice place. I think it's a

20 wonderful place and coming here I think it's a

21 beautiful place, beautiful open parks, open spaces.

22 There's an amazing light rail.

23 And one of the things that struck me also is

24 just there's great people, people that have a lot of

25 issues, a lot of environmental issues, especially
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1 clean air. I've had the privilege of canvassing in

2 places like Baytown, Galena Park, and just knocking on

3 people's doors and talking to them and hearing the

4 horror stories of how these people that live so close

5 to refineries and how affected they've been by the

6 quality of the air. And these people deserve better.

7 Texans deserve better. Houstonians deserve better.

8 And we -- we've tried to ask legislators to

9 take action and they haven't. We've asked Texas

10 Commission on Environmental Quality to take action and

11 they haven't. We need the EPA to step in and take

12 action. There seems to be no other way for clean air

13 in Texas than federal action and we really hope that

14 you take that action and actually finally adopt the 60

15 parts per billion standard. So thank you very much.

16 MS. WEGMAN: Thank you.

17 MS. OZAIN: Hello, my name is Anastasia

18 Ozain. That's A-N-A-S-T-A-S-I-A, last name O-Z as in

19 zebra, A-I-N. I am actually not a part of the

20 Environmental Group at U of H, but I am a student and

21 I just wanted to say that a lot of people say that

22 water is a source of life, but for humans it's air. I

23 mean, you can go three days without water, but how

24 long can you go without air? And we often use the

25 phrase "I am going to get some fresh air." Why?
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1 Because air is supposed to be refreshing and

2 restoring. And if you can't get that when you go

3 outside, if you can't get that when you walk down the

4 street, then why do we have it? You know, what's the

5 need of it?

6 And it's like when you have polluted air and

7 you have air that is contaminated, you exhale to

8 inhale -- inhale fresh air. But if you're inhaling

9 something that is just as bad as what you exhale,

10 what's the point of exhaling at all? I mean,

11 that's -- I mean, and it's true. If life -- air is

12 supposed to be the source of life, it's what we need,

13 and it's so sad because -- I'm in the health field and

14 it's so sad to see so many -- a three-year-old catch

15 pneumonia and it's summertime. You know, it's like,

16 why is he getting sick? And another seven-year-old

17 who has cancer and a doctor tells her she only has six

18 months to live. It's sad.

19 All of these -- all of these things are

20 happening, and it's not -- it's not anything genetic.

21 It's something that is the cause -- is caused by

22 pollution. And we know this and we have done nothing

23 about it and it's very saddening and I believe that we

24 should try and do something to help these kids because

25 they have to live on. And if they can't even make it
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1 to their tenth birthday, then how do we expect to have

2 a new generation of healthy individuals? And it's a

3 very sad thing.

4 It's something I wish we could reverse, but

5 we can't reverse time. We can only try and move and

6 prevent and try and restore. So let's try to restore

7 the air, therefore, we can restore life. Thank you.

8 MS. WEGMAN: Thank you both.

9 James Rinf and Judy Emerson?

10 MR. RINE: My name is James Rine.

11 That's R-I-N-E. I am a -- I am a member of Oil Patch

12 Democrats, which is an organization that supports a

13 rational energy policy for this nation. I am also a

14 research geologist and have been in the

15 petroleum-related research for the last 30 years or

16 so.

17 I moved to Houston about six years ago. I

18 was happy to come back to Houston. But I -- just

19 personally I wasn't happy in the afternoons when I

20 went to go ride my bike -- I usually ride about 60 to

21 100 miles a week -- that I kept hearing ozone

22 warnings. So personally I am for the lower standards.

23 Also, for my son, when he visits me I can feel more

24 comfortable that he goes outside.

25 But personally, being in the oil industry or
325

1 related industry for the last 30 years, I am proud of

2 the work I've done but I'm very disappointed by my

3 industry and the state government of my adopted state

4 of Texas that it thinks of short-term profits. They

5 put it in a higher value than the health of the

6 general population. And then on the other side, we

7 then refuse or want to deny general healthcare to the

8 people we sicken by the bad air.

9 So I firmly support the lower standards and I

10 thank you for your time sitting on this panel.

11 MS. WEGMAN: Thank you for your time.

12 MS. EMERSON: Judy Emerson, J-U-D-Y

13 E-M-E-R-S-O-N. I -- I'm a grandma and I've got -- I

14 can't even count how many I've got anymore. I gave

15 up. But I have four here in Houston, and so far

16 they're healthy. But I have a nephew who has a young

17 son who was born with -- turned out to be over and

18 over again hospitalization after hospitalization, some

19 kind of asthma that was trying to take his life

20 several times here in Houston. And this is a young

21 man whose wife he took care of and they went to

22 prenatal. She ate right and she did exercise, and so

23 she's wondering, well, why is my kid so sick?

24 Okay. I have a granddaughter in California

25 whose 200 miles from Los Angeles. She has sickle cell
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1 anemia and so she also has asthma and, you know, she

2 lives quite away from Los Angeles and she -- in the

3 high desert. So she has a bad case of sickle cell and

4 they just are -- the asthma and the sickle cell just

5 eat each other up and her in the process, and she's

6 been hospitalized I don't know how many times. And

7 she has to carry an air tank around with her all the

8 time. She's 14. She's getting better because the

9 medicines have gotten better. But nevertheless,

10 people deserve better life than this.

11 And if my -- my grandkid in Corpus Christi

12 was born healthy and she was fine until she got into

13 her preteens and she started developing asthma. And

14 it's just getting worse. And I have a young man who

15 joined our family via my daughter's marriage. He's

16 her brother-in-law and he has AIDS. Of course, he has

17 immune deficiency. So every time there's an ozone

18 alert, he's -- he's always -- that's the first thing

19 he checks in the morning is what's happened with the

20 weather. And so this is very difficult for him.

21 I have just these members of my family and

22 this is just repeated over and over again. We need

23 60, not 70, not 75. Please. Thank you.

24 MS. STONE: Thank you.

25 MS. WEGMAN: Thank you both for putting
327

1 your time here to share your thoughts with us and your

2 life stories.

3 Art Browning and Thomas Williams.

4 MR. BROWNING: Yes. Thank you for

5 listening to all of us. It's been a long day for you,

6 I'm sure. My name is Art Browning. That's A-R-T

7 B-R-O-W-N-I-N-G.

8 Somewhat like Jim, who spoke a minute ago, I

9 am a semi-retired petroleum geologist, still working,

10 so some of my greener friends may think I'm part of

11 the problem but we do need energy. And part of my

12 life story is I grew up in East Tennessee near the

13 coal-fired steam plant electric power generating plant

14 that spilled all that sludge all over the place. I

15 was in the shadow of that, and on a good day when the

16 wind was blowing away, our car didn't get covered with

17 ash. On a bad day, Mom got pretty bad asthma. So I

18 am keenly aware of how air quality can affect people's

19 lives.

20 This isn't just about coal plants here,

21 though. I am firmly in favor of y'all lowering the

22 ozone content here.

23 One of the things I do here in Houston is I

24 have helped with a public access television program

25 and we've had several guests through the years who
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1 live in Houston near -- especially down near the

2 refineries. I'm lucky enough to live northwest on

3 290, which is further away from the refineries, but we

4 still have a lot of traffic, you know, auto vehicular

5 traffic. And before they had ozone maps that I could

6 see online, I used to get bronchitis occasionally. I

7 thought it was pollen, but it didn't seem to be

8 seasonal. Now I think I need to start watching the

9 ozone. But I'd like y'all to think about that.

10 Also, one of the things that's come out in

11 some of the television programs when we have guests

12 talk about air quality in Houston, which we're going

13 to do again next week, is that the monitoring isn't

14 done 24 hours around the clock. It's mainly done

15 during the day. We need to tighten up -- tighten up

16 that a lot so that the upsets that happen in the wee

17 hours of the morning, people don't know about that

18 because we're not monitoring it as much as we should.

19 So those are some of the -- just a few of the

20 items that I'd like to bring up. And thank you for

21 your attention and thank you for your hope for the

22 future. I appreciate that.

23 MS. WEGMAN: Thank you.

24 MR. WILLIAMS: Hi. I am Thomas

25 Williams. That's T-H-O-M-A-S W-I-L-L-I-A-M-S. And I
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1 work with a small family propane business so, you

2 know, again, I might, you know, by some here be

3 considered part of the problem but am really glad that

4 I'm seeing the EPA step up and try and lower the

5 standards to 60 parts per billion to submit to the

6 Clean Air Act.

7 Even though we'll again probably have adverse

8 effect on my own business, it's something that's

9 needed for my nephews, who are already developing

10 asthma, at six months old already coming up with

11 issues. And I'm already seeing just these issues come

12 up with everybody that I deal with and that's just

13 really, you know, wanting to push for this cleaner

14 action. Thank you.

15 MS. WEGMAN: Thank you.

16 Ian Davis? Is Ian Davis here? Is there

17 anybody else here who hasn't spoken who would like to

18 speak? These will be the last two -- last two

19 speakers of the day.

20 MS. IBARRA: My name is Alyssa Ibarra,

21 A-L-Y-S-S-A I-B-A-R-R-A. I'm a senior at Rice

22 University and I'm -- haven't been living here for so

23 long, maybe four years, but I'm a native Texan and I

24 guess that's the angle I'm going to take it as. I was

25 trying to figure out how I should take it, as a child,
330

1 adult or student or whatnot, but I'll take it as a

2 Texan.

3 And I think we have a lot going against us.

4 There's so many -- I guess the mindsets and politics,

5 it's very entrenched to go against this -- I'm sorry,

6 this progress. But even down to the urban design of

7 our cities, we're not -- it's very hard to get away

8 from our cars and from our lifestyles, and all these

9 things are going against this progression that we --

10 we've heard that we want to take. And -- sorry.

11 I do think that we can do some things as a

12 bottom-up approach to change our lifestyles, to jog in

13 different times of the day or monitor our kids when --

14 I don't have kids, but our children when they play

15 outside. But I think it has to be a top-down approach

16 too. So I am here asking you to meet us halfway,

17 basically, and to try to do 60 parts per billion, just

18 to be clear. Thank you.

19 MS. WEGMAN: Thank you.

20 MR. DAVIS: Hello, my name is Ian Davis.

21 It's I-A-N D-A-V-I-S. And I am with the Sierra Club

22 and -- but I want to talk to you about my family. And

23 I am a fifth-generation Texan and most of my family is

24 from the Houston area. And every July 4th, we head up

25 towards Galveston, a little town called Bacliff right
331

1 there on the bay, and we have our July 4th picnic, you

2 know, and it's fun. And, I mean, generations and

3 generations of Robinsons all getting together and

4 having a blast, Kentucky Fried Chicken, the whole bit.

5 But what we've noticed over the years is it

6 just seems like every time we come in, drive into

7 Houston, you can just kind of feel and smell and

8 just -- there's something not quite right. And I am

9 not a scientist like Dr. Neil Carman, but I know how

10 it feels on a personal level.

11 And the little thing I wanted to share with

12 you along those lines is not only does our family stay

13 strong on July 4th picnics but, you know, we love to

14 camp. Stephen F. Austin State Park, there's a little

15 park just outside of Houston, that's where we have our

16 little Thanksgiving annual dinners, and it's just --

17 you know, everybody loves being outside. We love

18 playing croquet, playing football, throwing a Frisbee,

19 but I'm starting to get worried that as my wife and I

20 get ready to start a family, can our kids go outside

21 like we did. I mean, are we going to be stuck inside

22 playing Xbox 360? I mean, which is fun. I like

23 Madden, you know. It's a good, fun football game, but

24 I grew up going camping all around the Houston area,

25 out all parts of Texas. I mean, my dad was an Eagle
332

1 Scout and we just loved going to state parks. And

2 it's one of these recreational things I think families

3 can do when they don't have a lot of money.

4 And that's what's great about Texas, is we

5 have so many cool different geographic features from

6 Big Bend to the Big Thicket and I just want my kids to

7 be able to enjoy what I enjoyed.

8 So I wanted to thank you guys for taking the

9 time. I know it's been a long day, you guys. Really

10 appreciate it. Thank you.

11 MS. WEGMAN: Well, thank you. It's been

12 an extremely worthwhile and educational and rewarding

13 day for us. Thank you absolutely.

14 Unless anyone else is registered to speak,

15 we're going to end the hearing now. So I want to

16 thank everybody who has come today and taken the time

17 to offer us their testimony. And it is extremely

18 important. I want to assure you that we will be

19 summarizing this testimony and presenting it to the

20 Administrator of EPA, Lisa Jackson, as she moves

21 forward to make a decision on the final rule. So

22 thank you all very much for your time and dedication.

23 (Public hearing concluded at 7:44 p.m.)

24 * * * * *

25 
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1 CERTIFICATE OF NOTARY PUBLIC.

2 I, TAMARA VINSON, the officer before whom the

3 foregoing public hearing was taken, do hereby certify

4 that the proceedings in the foregoing pages was taken

5 by me in stenotype and thereafter reduced to

6 typewriting under my direction; that said

7 transcription is a true record of the proceedings

8 given by said parties; that I am neither counsel for,

9 related to, nor employed by any of the parties to the

10 action in which this public hearing was taken; and,

11 further, that I am not a relative or employee of any

12 counsel or attorney employed by the parties hereto,

13 nor financially or otherwise interested in the outcome

14 of this action.

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19 ___________________________________

 Tamara Vinson, TEXAS CSR 3015

20 Expiration Date: 12-31-2010

 Firm Registration No. 241

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 Austin, Texas 78701

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