MEETING BEFORE THE CALIFORNIA AIR RESOURCES BOARD BOARD HEARING ROOM 2020 L STREET SACRAMENTO, CALIFORNIA THURSDAY, MAY 30, 1996 9:40 A.M. Nadine J. Parks Shorthand Reporter PETERS SHORTHAND REPORTING CORPORATION (916) 362-2345 ii MEMBERS PRESENT John D. Dunlap, III, Chairman Eugene A. Boston, M.D. Lynne T. Edgerton M. Patricia Hilligoss John S. Lagarias Jack C. Parnell Barbara Riordan Ron Roberts James W. Wilva Doug Vagim Staff Present and Participating: Jim Boyd, Executive Officer Tom Cackette, Chief Deputy Executive Officer Mike Scheible, Deputy Executive Officer Mike Kenny, General Counsel Artavia Edwards, Regulations Coordinator Vicky Davis, Staff Counsel, Office of Legal Affairs David Ipps, Staff, Technical Support Division Terry McGuire, Chief, TSD Rich Bradley, Chief, Air Quality Data Branch, TSD Debbie Popejoy, Manager, Air Quality Analysis Section, TSD Judith Tracy, Staff Counsel, Office of Legal Affairs John Holmes, Ph.D., Chief, Research Division Bob Barham, Assistant Chief, Research Division Tony Van Curen, Research Division Manjit Ahuja, Research Division Patricia Hutchens, Board Secretary Wendy Grandchamp, Secretary Bill Valdez, Administrative Services Division PETERS SHORTHAND REPORTING CORPORATION (916) 362-2345 iii I N D E X PAGE Proceedings 1 Call to Order 1 Pledge of Allegiance led by Jack Lagarias 1 Roll Call 1, 2 Presentation of Certificate by Dr. Boston for 10 years of service on Board 2 Presentation of Award to ARB by SCAQMD through Dr. Boston 3 AGENDA ITEMS; 96-4-1 Public Hearing to Consider the Repeal of Sections 2201 and 2202, Title 13, California code of Regulations; Repeal of Sections 93301-93355 and Appendices A to E, Title 17, CCR, and Addition of Section 93300.5, Title 17, CCR Introductory Remarks by Chairman Dunlap 4 Staff Presentation: Jim Boyd, Executive Officer 5 Vicky Davis Staff Counsel Office of Legal Affairs 6 Questions/Comments 17 PUBLIC COMMENT: Cindy Tuck CCEEB 20 PETERS SHORTHAND REPORTING CORPORATION (916) 362-2345 iv INDEX, continued. . . PAGE 96-4-1 Questions/Comments 24 (Direction to Staff by Chairman) 32 Questions/Comments 32 Written Submissions Entered into Record 36 Questions/Comments 36 Record Officially Closed by Chairman 42 Motion by Roberts to Approve Resolution 96-19 42 Board Action 43 96-4-2 Public Hearing to Consider Amendments to Divide the Southeast Desert Air Basin into Two Air Basins and Modify Boundary of the South Coast Air Basin and Amendments to the Related Agricultural Burning Regulations Introductory Remarks by Chairman Dunlap 43 Staff Presentation: Jim Boyd Executive Officer 44 David Ipps Staff Technical Support Division 45 Written Comments Entered into Official Record by Debbie Popejoy 65 PETERS SHORTHAND REPORTING CORPORATION (916) 362-2345 v INDEX, continued. . . PAGE AGENDA ITEMS: 96-4-2 PUBLIC COMMENTS: Mike Rothschild City of Victorville 68 Questions/Comments 71 Douglas Y. Mac Iver Doug Mac Iver Consulting 72 Questions/Comments 77 Ron Wilcox Citizen Big Bear Lake 92 Closing Summary by Jim Boyd 97 Questions/Comments 100 (Direction to Staff) 112 Ex Parte Communications Disclosure 113 Record Officially Closed 113 Motion by Riordan to Adopt Resolution 96-20 with Addendum 113, 114 Board Action 114 96-4-3 Public Meeting to Consider Report on Progress of the Grand Canyon Visibility Transport Commission Introductory Remarks by Chairman Dunlap 114 Staff Presentation: Jim Boyd Executive Officer 116 PETERS SHORTHAND REPORTING CORPORATION (916) 362-2345 vi INDEX, continued. . . PAGE AGENDA ITEMS: 96-4-3 John Holmes, Ph.D. Chief Research Division 122 Questions/Comments 128 Continued Report by Dr. Holmes 130 Closing Remarks by Mr. Boyd 134 Questions/Comments 141 96-4-4 Research Proposals Discussion 146 Motion by Dr. Boston to Approve all proposals, except for Item 8 146 Board Action 147 Discussion of Item 8 147 Direction to Staff by Chairman 159 Questions/Comments 160 Further Public Comment: J. E. Winkler Mammoth Lake 163 Questions/Comments 167 Adjournment 170 Certificate of Reporter 171 PETERS SHORTHAND REPORTING CORPORATION (916) 362-2345 1 1 P R O C E E D I N G S 2 --o0o-- 3 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: Will the May meeting of the 4 California Air Resources Board please come to order. 5 At this point, I'd like to ask Mr. Lagarias to 6 lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance. So, would you please 7 rise? 8 MR. LAGARIAS: Would you all join me? 9 (Thereupon, the Pledge of Allegiance was 10 recited by all in the Hearing Room.) 11 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: Thank you, Jack. 12 Would the Board Secretary please call the roll. 13 MS. HUTCHENS: Boston? 14 DR. BOSTON: Here. 15 MS. HUTCHENS: Calhoun? 16 Edgerton? 17 MS. EDGERTON: Here. 18 MS. HUTCHENS: Hilligoss? 19 MAYOR HILLIGOSS: Here. 20 MS. HUTCHENS: Lagarias? 21 MR. LAGARIAS: Here. 22 MS. HUTCHENS: Parnell? 23 MR. PARNELL: Here. 24 MS. HUTCHENS: Riordan? 25 SUPERVISOR RIORDAN: Here. PETERS SHORTHAND REPORTING CORPORATION (916) 362-2345 2 1 MS. HUTCHENS: Roberts? 2 Silva? 3 SUPERVISOR SILVA: Here. 4 MS. HUTCHENS: Vagim? 5 SUPERVISOR VAGIM: Here. 6 MS. HUTCHENS: Chairman Dunlap. 7 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: Here. Thank you. 8 Good morning. Before begin with today's agenda 9 items, I'd like to make an announcement. Last month, we 10 acknowledged the marking of ten years of service on this 11 Board by two of its members -- Jack Lagarias and Dr. Eugene 12 Boston. 13 We presented a certificate of Jack to commemorate 14 his 10 years of service; but, unfortunately, Dr. Boston 15 wasn't able to be with us. But he's here today. So, Gene, 16 in lieu of a ten-year pin, the Board would like to 17 acknowledge your distinguished service on the Board and to 18 the citizens of California by presenting you with a 19 certificate for outstanding public service. 20 So, if I could ask you to join Mr. Lagarias -- 21 I've asked him to present it to you over at the podium -- 22 we'll present it to you and shake your hand. We'll have you 23 work around the Board line here, and give you a moment to 24 say a few words if you'd like. 25 MR. LAGARIAS: Dr. Boston, this certificate is PETERS SHORTHAND REPORTING CORPORATION (916) 362-2345 3 1 presented to you for ten years of outstanding service to the 2 State of California's Air Resources Board. Congratulations. 3 (Applause.) 4 DR. BOSTON: Thank you very much, Board members, 5 and Mr. Dunlap, and members of the community. This is 6 really a surprise. I had no idea this was coming. It's 7 certainly been a short and quick passing ten years. I can't 8 really believe it's ten years already. 9 But it has been very challenging, and I've really 10 enjoyed every year of it. 11 While I have the microphone right now, I'd like to 12 present to Mr. Dunlap an award that I received on behalf of 13 the Board two weeks ago down at the South Coast District. 14 And this award was for some work that the staff did in 15 preparing a compendium of teaching materials. 16 And this was awarded to the Air Resources Board by 17 the South Coast Air Quality Management District. It's a 18 very beautiful presentation. And on behalf of the Board, I 19 accepted it, and would like to now present it to Mr. Dunlap. 20 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: Thank you very much. I 21 appreciate it. 22 DR. BOSTON: Thank you. 23 (Applause.) 24 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: Pass it down the line. 25 (Thereupon, the engraved presentation was PETERS SHORTHAND REPORTING CORPORATION (916) 362-2345 4 1 exhibited to the Board members, and then 2 presented to the Executive Officer.) 3 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: Thank you, Gene. I appreciate 4 you covering that event. South Coast has had the Clean Air 5 Awards now for seven or eight years. And I know Bill 6 Lockett of the staff serves as one of the folks that screens 7 the potential winners. So, he must have put in a good word 8 for our work here. 9 DR. BOSTON: I forgot to mention that the 10 presenter was our own Supervisor Jim Silva -- 11 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: Oh, terrific. 12 DR. BOSTON: -- who presented it to us. 13 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: Thank you, Jim. 14 DR. BOSTON: It was nice to see him there. 15 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: Well, we'll begin with our first 16 agenda item, 96-4-1. And I'd like to remind those of you in 17 the audience who would like to present testimony to the 18 Board on any of today's agenda items to please see our Board 19 Secretary, who sits to my left. And if you have written 20 comments, please provide us 20 copies, so that we can all 21 have the written material. 22 The first item on the agenda today is a public 23 hearing to consider the repeal of Sections 2201 and 2202, 24 Title 13, of the California Code of Regulations; a repeal of 25 Sections 93301-93355, and Appendices A to E, Title 17, PETERS SHORTHAND REPORTING CORPORATION (916) 362-2345 5 1 California Code of Regulations; and addition of Section 2 93300.5, Title 17, of the California Code of Regulations. 3 This item presents for the Board's consideration 4 the repeal of regulations as part of the ARB's ongoing 5 efforts to implement the Governor's Executive Order 6 W-127-95, which orders all State agencies to eliminate 7 unnecessary regulations. 8 And I would like to encourage the Board to pay 9 particular attention to this item. Mr. Kenny and Mr. Boyd's 10 team have spent a great deal of time and effort to make sure 11 that we not only complied with the intent of the Governor's 12 Executive Order, but were sure to make sure that we were 13 able to retain core regulatory responsibilities and 14 authority. 15 So, with that, I'd like to ask Mr. Boyd to 16 introduce the item. Jim? 17 MR. BOYD: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Good morning, 18 Board members, and good morning to members of the public in 19 the audience. 20 In the summer of 1995, all State agencies were 21 directed to review their regulations with the object of 22 identifying either unnecessary and/or duplicative 23 regulations which could be eliminated from the books. 24 The ARB, along with other Cal-EPA boards and 25 departments were directed to develop a plan in furtherance PETERS SHORTHAND REPORTING CORPORATION (916) 362-2345 6 1 of this review. And the ARB's regulation review plan was 2 coordinated primarily, as you indicated, Mr. Chairman, by 3 the Office of Legal Affairs. 4 The review process included fairly extensive 5 internal reviews, and then we had a public workshop on the 6 subject. 7 We feel we implemented our plan expeditiously, met 8 all of the deadlines and other requirements that were 9 established. And, frankly, it has been recognized by -- the 10 effort has been recognized by Cal-EPA for the high quality 11 of the review process and the results that were obtained 12 from the process. 13 Artavia, who is our Regulations Coordinator, and 14 Victoria Davis, who is a staff counsel -- both of our Office 15 of Legal Affairs -- will now provide more detail about the 16 item. 17 Ladies? 18 MS. DAVIS: Good morning, Mr. Chairman and members 19 of the Board. I'm Victoria Davis, Staff Counsel, and with 20 me -- as Mr. Boyd said -- is Artavia Edwards, our Regulation 21 Coordinator. 22 The item presented for your consideration this 23 morning has two parts. The first part is the repeal of two 24 regulations from Title 13 of the California Code of 25 Regulations. PETERS SHORTHAND REPORTING CORPORATION (916) 362-2345 7 1 The second part is the removal of another group of 2 regulations from Title 17 of the California Code of 3 Regulations into a separate document, which would be 4 incorporated by reference. 5 I think we're a slide ahead here. We worked very 6 hard on this slide presentation, so. . . Can you back up? 7 So much for the limitations of technology. 8 (Pause.) 9 MS. DAVIS: It appears that the technology is not 10 going to cooperate here. So, I'm going to plow forward. 11 I will address the specifics of the proposed 12 action in a moment. But before I do so, I would like to 13 give you a little more background information so that you 14 may consider this item in its appropriate context. Mr. Boyd 15 has already alluded to some of that. 16 Last summer, the Governor issued Executive Order 17 W-127-95. This order required all State agencies to review 18 their regulations with an eye toward eliminating unnecessary 19 regulations and reducing the regulatory burden where 20 possible. 21 In response to the Governor's order, Cal-EPA 22 required each of its constituent agencies to develop a 23 regulatory review plan. The ARB's plan, in brief, was as 24 follows: 25 First, each ARB division reviewed the regulations PETERS SHORTHAND REPORTING CORPORATION (916) 362-2345 8 1 it administers, and made a list of regulations which could 2 be eliminated or modified to reduce the regulatory burden. 3 Each Division Chief appointed one or more staff 4 members to oversee the division's review process. 5 Regulations which could be eliminated were identified within 6 each division, and were then compiled into a master list, 7 which was sent to all divisions. 8 This was done so that each division could review 9 the proposals made by the other divisions and ensure that 10 none of the proposed actions would adversely impact another 11 division's operations. 12 The division review team leaders then held 13 meetings to work out any concerns that were raised during 14 the review process. 15 Following the thorough in-house review, the final 16 list of regulations was made public, and we held a workshop 17 to receive comments from the public. Notice of workshop was 18 sent to more than 2,000 persons and entities. 19 Based on comments received at the workshop, which 20 was held last October, three of the 81 regulations that had 21 been identified for elimination were, in fact, retained. 22 Most of the remaining 78 regulations targeted for 23 elimination were removed administratively, using a process 24 that permits such removal in specified circumstances. 25 In the ARB's case, most of the regulations removed PETERS SHORTHAND REPORTING CORPORATION (916) 362-2345 9 1 this way were ones that had either been superseded by newer 2 regulations or which had expired by their own terms. 3 For example, motor vehicle regulations that 4 applied to new model years for past vehicle years were taken 5 care of this way. In addition to the ARB's regulations that 6 are found in Titles 13 and 17, a substantial number of ARB's 7 regulations are also duplicated in Title 26. 8 Title 26 was created to contain Cal-EPA's 9 regulations, although the regulations also appeared in other 10 titles. In response to the Governor's order to eliminate 11 duplicative regulations and in part because members of the 12 regulated community stated that they did not use Title 26, 13 Cal-EPA has also taken action to eliminate Title 26 by this 14 same administrative process. 15 I would like to add that Cal-EPA's action was 16 coordinated by Artavia Edwards. She was chosen to 17 coordinate Cal-EPA's effort, in part, because Cal-EPA had 18 already identified the ARB's regulation review process as 19 the model to be followed. 20 The remaining two Title 13 regulations -- next 21 slide; yes, there they are -- which are part of the item 22 presented for your consideration today, are ones that set 23 forth formally adopted Board policy. 24 While removing these regulations from the Code of 25 Regulations will have no regulatory effect, we believe that PETERS SHORTHAND REPORTING CORPORATION (916) 362-2345 10 1 the Board should take the action to repeal the regulations. 2 The reason that the removal of these regulations 3 will have no regulatory effect is that they are, in essence, 4 restatements of statutes that remain in the Health and 5 Safety Code. In other words, these regulations do not add 6 anything to what is already required by law. 7 The first section -- I think we're one ahead. 8 There we go (remarking on slide choice). 9 Title 13, California Code of Regulations, Section 10 2201, reads as follows: 11 "It shall be the general policy of the State 12 Board to evaluate all ideas, proposals, 13 devices, and fuel additives submitted to the 14 staff of the State Board as possible means 15 of reducing vehicular pollution. In the 16 review of such submittals, the State Board 17 staff shall provide courteous, prompt, and 18 reasonable evaluation, but at the same time, 19 the staff is not to be subjected to unnecessary 20 diversions that would be caused by review of 21 proposals which are either clearly incapable 22 of producing solutions to any air pollution 23 problems or have been subject to previous 24 exhaustive test programs." 25 Certainly, no one would disagree with this statement of PETERS SHORTHAND REPORTING CORPORATION (916) 362-2345 11 1 policy. However, we do not believe that it needs to be in a 2 regulation. There are several reasons for this. 3 The first is that it duplicates what the Board 4 and staff already are required to do by statute. Several 5 sections of the Health and Safety Code require the Board to 6 adopt and implement emission standards for motor vehicles. 7 Specifically, Health and Code Sections 43011, 8 43600, 43603, and 43610 require the Board to adopt criteria 9 for certification of emission control devices. 10 Section 43833 requires the Board to establish 11 criteria for the evaluation of motor vehicle fuels and fuel 12 additives. 13 The Board has already adopted substantive 14 regulation for the implementation of these statutes. In 15 addition, the repeal of the regulation does not mean that 16 the policy is repealed. 17 The same reasoning applies to the proposed 18 elimination of Title 13, California Code of Regulations, 19 Section 2202, which reads as follows: 20 "Subject to the (sic) other provisions of 21 this chapter, applicable test procedures, 22 if any, adopted by the State Board will be 23 used in the evaluation process. The 24 performance of each control device or fuel 25 additive will be evaluated to determine its PETERS SHORTHAND REPORTING CORPORATION (916) 362-2345 12 1 effectiveness in reducing vehicular emissions 2 and compliance with the applicable emission 3 standards." 4 In addition to the reasons I mentioned in support of the 5 repeal of the other section, this section does no more than 6 state the obvious requirement of law. Any reasonable 7 evaluation process must include applicable test procedures. 8 As a practical matter, the substantive regulations 9 dealing with the evaluation of devices, fuels, and fuel 10 additives include the applicable test procedures. This must 11 be done to ensure that the evaluation is technically sound 12 and to ensure that all applicants are treated equally. 13 Thus, we believe that the Board can repeal these 14 regulations and contribute to the downsizing of the 15 California Code of Regulations. 16 Overall, the ARB's regulation review process has 17 eliminated 33 pages from the Code of Regulations. 18 The second part of today's proposal is that the 19 air toxics hot spots emission inventory criteria and 20 guidelines be taken out of Title 17 of the Code of 21 Regulations and be placed in a separate document, which 22 would be incorporated by reference. 23 Incorporation by reference is a tool that the ARB 24 often uses with motor vehicle regulations, where extensive 25 engineering procedures must be set forth in detail. PETERS SHORTHAND REPORTING CORPORATION (916) 362-2345 13 1 Incorporation by reference is a tool which allows the ARB to 2 take regulatory action that does not burden the Code of 3 Regulations with hundreds of pages of material that is of 4 interest to a relatively small audience. 5 Although the document which is incorporated by 6 reference is not in the Code of Regulations, the material in 7 the document has the full force and effect of regulations. 8 I would like to stress that the material in the incorporated 9 document cannot be changed without following the same 10 procedures required for regulations. 11 I would also like to stress that no changes, other 12 than the location, are proposed for the air toxics hot spots 13 emission inventory criteria and guidelines at this time. 14 The Technical Support Division is presently 15 working on revisions to the regulations, which will be 16 proposed to the Board in the future. But those revisions 17 are not a part of the proposal before the Board today. 18 Staff believes that the placing of the hot spots 19 guidelines in a separate document will have a number of 20 benefits. First, the document will be available from the 21 ARB for essentially no cost. At present, those who want the 22 hot spots guidelines must subscribe to the Code of 23 Regulations at a cost of several hundred dollars. 24 If it is in a separate document, it will be 25 available from the ARB upon request and can also be made PETERS SHORTHAND REPORTING CORPORATION (916) 362-2345 14 1 available at local air district offices. 2 Second, the criteria and guidelines comprise more 3 than 100 pages of Title 17. This means that those who are 4 using Title 17 for regulations other than the hot spots 5 guidelines must wade through those 100 pages to find what 6 they're looking for. Title 17 will be much easier to use if 7 it's a hundred pages shorter. 8 Finally, the ARB may not currently put the hot 9 spots criteria and guidelines on the Internet due to 10 copyright issues. However, if the criteria and guidelines 11 are removed from the Code of Regulations and placed in an 12 incorporated document, they may be put on the ARB's Internet 13 site, which would permit access at virtually no cost. 14 For all of these reasons, the staff recommends 15 that the Board approve the removal of the air toxics hot 16 spots emission inventory criteria and guidelines from Title 17 17 of the California Code of regulations, and the placement 18 into a separate document to be incorporated by reference, 19 and entitled, "The Air Toxics Hot Spots Emission Inventory 20 Criteria and Guidelines Report." 21 That almost all fits on there (speaking of slide 22 display). 23 The place in Title 17 where the guidelines are at 24 present would be replaced by a single new regulation, which 25 states that the guidelines are in a separate document and PETERS SHORTHAND REPORTING CORPORATION (916) 362-2345 15 1 incorporated by reference. 2 The regulation also states how the guidelines may 3 be obtained. 4 In terms of comments on this item, we have 5 received I believe three written comments to this time, 6 unless another one has come in when I was not looking. 7 We've had a number of telephone contacts mostly 8 from people seeking further information or clarification. 9 In terms of those callers who expressed an opinion on this 10 proposal, the results are mixed. I should add that all of 11 the comments have to do with the hot spots portion of this 12 proposal and no one said anything about the repeal of the 13 two regulations from Title 13. 14 In terms of the opinions expressed, the results 15 are mixed. Some callers have expressed reservations about 16 the removal of the hot spots regulations from Title 17. 17 Part of their reservations seems to be based on a belief 18 that if the material is removed from the code book, then 19 staff will be able to make changes at will. 20 As I've already explained, this belief is not 21 correct. 22 Some callers seemed to have objections which are 23 more philosophically based than anything else. They believe 24 that regulations should be in the Code of Regulations. I 25 believe all the written comments received also take this PETERS SHORTHAND REPORTING CORPORATION (916) 362-2345 16 1 view. 2 On the other hand, some of the callers have been 3 quite excited about the possibility of having this material 4 available economically and easily on the Internet. Many of 5 the callers expressing objections or reservations are with 6 very large entities which already subscribe to the Code of 7 Regulations for several different regulation titles and/or 8 have in-house attorneys who would have such documents. 9 The callers who are enthusiastic about the 10 proposal to remove the hot spots materials into a separate 11 document are more likely to be from smaller entities for 12 whom the expenditure of several hundred dollars for 13 regulations may be a more significant expense. 14 In conclusion, the staff recommends that the Air 15 Resources Board approve the following: 16 One, repeal Sections 2201 and 2202 of Title 13 of 17 the California Code of Regulations; and, two, adopt new 18 Section 93300.5, which incorporates by reference the 19 document entitled, "Air Toxics Hot Spots Emission Inventory 20 Criteria and Guidelines Report," and repeal present Sections 21 93301 and 93355 of Title 17. 22 I would also like to add that, in addition to the 23 text of the proposed new regulation that was provided to you 24 in your Board books, there was some new language added and 25 the new version is available on the back table for anyone PETERS SHORTHAND REPORTING CORPORATION (916) 362-2345 17 1 who didn't get it. It's nonsubstantive language that gives 2 more detail on how to obtain the new document. 3 If you have any questions, I'll do my best to 4 answer them now. 5 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: Okay. Thank you. Any questions 6 of staff on this item? 7 Dr. Boston. 8 DR. BOSTON: Could you explain to me what's going 9 to happen to these appendices? Do they get incorporated 10 into the new regulation? 11 MS. DAVIS: They will be part of the new report, 12 the separate document. 13 DR. BOSTON: Some of these appendices are really 14 good. The listing of various materials to be looked for 15 from various plants, and so complete and easy to use that 16 I'd like to see it kept someplace. I find it very helpful. 17 MS. DAVIS: Yes. Everything that is currently in 18 the criteria and guidelines, including the appendices, will 19 all be in the separate document. 20 DR. BOSTON: Thank you. 21 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: Okay. Ms. Edgerton, did you 22 have any questions of staff on this item at all? The reason 23 I'm looking to you is it's a legal matter, much of it, and I 24 do want to draw out any issues. 25 MS. EDGERTON: Thank you. Well, actually, I had a PETERS SHORTHAND REPORTING CORPORATION (916) 362-2345 18 1 very good conversation with staff, but -- and I'm 2 comfortable with the proposal, with the understanding that 3 the staff intends to put a clarification or a preface in the 4 front of our blue book. 5 Mr. Kenny can speak to exactly what that's going 6 to look like, but I think something that will facilitate 7 finding all of the -- 8 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: Material? 9 MS. EDGERTON: -- material, and also something 10 that will provide an additional assurance to any citizen, or 11 attorney, or professional -- 12 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: Right. 13 MS. EDGERTON: -- who's trying to make sure they 14 have all of the information, that they do. 15 Mr. Kenny? 16 MR. KENNY: Yes. Ms. Edgerton had raised, as an 17 issue to us, the fact that it would be very helpful to have, 18 maybe as a preface in the blue book, an identification of 19 all of those statutes and regulations that are really 20 applicable to air pollution control. And so, it would 21 include not only simply the regulations that are found in 22 Titles 13 and 17, but also be incorporated by reference 23 documents. 24 And so, in addition to this document that we're 25 speaking about right now, there are also things like the PETERS SHORTHAND REPORTING CORPORATION (916) 362-2345 19 1 assembly line test procedures. And so, the proposal would 2 be -- 3 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: Mike, can I just stop you? Do 4 you have the blue book with you? 5 MR. KENNY: Yes. 6 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: Could you hold it up? I imagine 7 Supervisor Silva and some of the others that are newer might 8 not know exactly what you're referring to when you say the 9 "blue book." 10 MR. KENNY: This is the blue book (holding up 11 thick book). And what it is a compilation of all of the 12 statutes that are applicable to air pollution control in the 13 State of California. So, these are only California State 14 statutes. These are not federal statutes or local statutes. 15 We publish this on an annual basis. And what we 16 will do now is add in a preface, essentially along the lines 17 of Ms. Edgerton's suggestion, that identifies the fact that 18 the statutes are in place with regard to air pollution 19 control, the regulations, and the incorporated by reference 20 documents, and where each of these can be found. 21 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: Okay. All right. Are there any 22 other questions of staff? 23 Mr. Lagarias, please. 24 MR. LAGARIAS: I'd like to point out and ask Mr. 25 Kenny, in the ten years that Dr. Boston and I have been on PETERS SHORTHAND REPORTING CORPORATION (916) 362-2345 20 1 the Board, we've noticed the thickness of the blue book go 2 from this to this (indicating). 3 Will this action help serve to make this blue book 4 smaller or is it going to fatten it again? 5 MR. KENNY: It actually won't make any difference 6 with regard to the blue book. The blue book right now only 7 contains the statutes that are adopted by the Legislature. 8 What we're really doing is sort of addressing the 9 regulations that this Board adopts and trying to shrink the 10 volume of regulations. And I think we're doing that 11 successfully. 12 MR. LAGARIAS: Fine. 13 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: So, to take that a step further, 14 Mr. Lagarias, you were going to jump Mr. Kenny about growing 15 the blue book until he pointed out it was the Legislature 16 that grew it; is that correct? 17 MR. LAGARIAS: I'm aware of that. 18 (Laughter.) 19 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: All right. If theare are no 20 other questions of staff, we'll get to our witness list. 21 Ms. Tuck, Cindy Tuck from CCEEB? 22 Good morning. You are our lone witness today, and 23 a welcome sight after the last few months. 24 MS. TUCK: Thank you. Good morning, Chairman 25 Dunlap and members. My name is Cindy Tuck, and I'm here PETERS SHORTHAND REPORTING CORPORATION (916) 362-2345 21 1 today on behalf of California Council for Environmental and 2 Economic Balance. 3 I think many of you are aware that CCEEB is a 4 tripartite coalition that has leaders from the labor 5 community, from industry, and also we have public members as 6 part of our board. 7 CCEEB works to make sure that California's 8 environmental programs benefit both the environment and 9 allow the State's economy to grow. 10 CCEEB has worked on implementation of the hot 11 spots program since the original legislation was enacted 12 back in 1987. I can't believe it's been that long. And in 13 recent years, we've worked very hard with your staff on 14 improving the regulatory program. And this is an area where 15 your staff has done an excellent job of regulatory reform 16 where they have streamlined the hot spots regulation, and we 17 really commend them for that effort. And that's still 18 ongoing at this time, and we're participating in that. 19 We do have a concern, however, about the proposal 20 that's before you today, and we have one recommendation. 21 And that recommendation is that the Board decide not to 22 repeal and replace the hot spots regulation. 23 And I'd like to explain why that is our position. 24 I think you've heard from staff that the proposal is to take 25 the regulation, which is over 100 pages, and replace that PETERS SHORTHAND REPORTING CORPORATION (916) 362-2345 22 1 with a statement of incorporation of reference. 2 However, the regulation would still exist, and it 3 would be available from the Air Resources Board and on 4 various -- probably the Internet or other services. 5 The staff is doing this pursuant to the Governor's 6 order, as you heard this morning, and that order was 7 executed on September 20th of 1995. If you look at that 8 order, what the Governor is directing is for all the State 9 agencies to look at their regulations, as the ARB has done, 10 and eliminate those or modify those that are unnecessary or 11 that impose an excessive burden on California businesses. 12 That's what that executive order is about. 13 And the proposal that's before you today would 14 delete 100 pages or more than 100 pages from the regs. The 15 volume it goes in is this thick (demonstrating) and the 16 hundred pages are about this thick (demonstrating). And 17 it's true that, as staff said, it would remove burden from 18 the regulations, the book. However, it removes no burden 19 from California businesses. 20 (Thereupon, Supervisor Roberts arrived and 21 took his place on the dais.) 22 So, this proposal before you is not really 23 accomplishing what the Governor directed. It's reducing 24 pages, but no burden. And those pages will still exist. 25 They'll just be published in a different format in a PETERS SHORTHAND REPORTING CORPORATION (916) 362-2345 23 1 different -- and available from a different source. So, in 2 our view, this isn't regulatory reform. 3 But we have a concern from a different perspective 4 as well. We have businesses who make up the business side 5 of CCEEB and, of course, they have to comply with your 6 regulations and figure out how to comply with them. 7 And these are large businesses in our organization 8 who are very sophisticated, but we also try to look at how 9 medium-sized businesses and small businesses figure out how 10 to comply with State regs. 11 What you generally do is either have in-house 12 people or external consultants or attorneys figure out what 13 are the State requirements that the companies have to comply 14 with? They go to the code and they go to the regulations. 15 And under this proposal, these people would go to 16 the regs and they wouldn't find the hot spots regs. They'd 17 find a statement of incorporation by reference, and then 18 they'd have to take further steps to find the regs. And our 19 point is -- we think, if some of the State regs are going to 20 be published with the regs and some aren't, that's going to 21 confuse California businesses on what are the State 22 regulations. 23 The bottom line for us is, as long as the hot 24 spots regulation is a regulation, we think it should be 25 published with the State regulations. So, we urge the Board PETERS SHORTHAND REPORTING CORPORATION (916) 362-2345 24 1 today to decide not to repeal the regulations and replace 2 them. 3 And I would be glad to answer any questions. 4 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: If I may, Ms. Tuck, tell me 5 about the accessibility of the information in the new form. 6 Do you feel that it will be difficult for people 7 to acquire it? We've heard a bit from staff about it being 8 posted on the Internet; also, local air districts and other 9 places would have this material that you're referencing. I 10 mean -- 11 MS. TUCK: (Interjecting) Sure, and that's a 12 positive goal that staff has to make it more accessible. 13 You know, we think that's a -- 14 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: But does it make it less -- 15 MS. TUCK: Well -- 16 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: -- accessible or more, or is it 17 a matter of just having it at your -- 18 MS. TUCK: (Interjecting) As far as the Internet 19 accessibility, I think it's important for the State to 20 know-- for example, within CCEEB, and we have very 21 sophisticated companies, not all the members that I deal 22 with are on the Internet yet. And people working on 23 compliance don't have access. 24 This may change one year down the road, two years 25 down the road. But if some of our members -- because we PETERS SHORTHAND REPORTING CORPORATION (916) 362-2345 25 1 would like to send them things by e-mail. 2 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: Right. 3 MS. TUCK: And we've checked on that. And at this 4 point in time, we can't do that within some of the most 5 sophisticated companies in California. 6 So, when you're talking -- looking at the 7 medium-sized businesses and smaller businesses, I don't 8 know. Are they going to have access? 9 They would be able to get it through ARB. I think 10 it would just be a timing question. And then, also, right 11 now, when you use Barkley's, there's more of a -- you're 12 used to getting an update in the mail, that kind of thing. 13 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: Right. 14 MS. TUCK: It's a formal process. 15 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: Mr. Kenny, can you speak to the 16 accessibility relative to someone calling us and asking for 17 the material? I mean, tell me how that will play out? 18 MR. KENNY: The way that we had envisioned this is 19 that we would actually create a separate document, and it 20 would be available essentially to anyone who requests that 21 document. 22 If they wish to call the Public Information 23 Office, the document could be -- 24 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: Right. 25 MR. KENNY: -- sent to them. If they wanted to PETERS SHORTHAND REPORTING CORPORATION (916) 362-2345 26 1 come in to the Public Information Office, it would be 2 available at the desk for a pick-up. 3 We do anticipate the Internet actually, though, 4 will be one of the major points of access. We do think that 5 it's a point of access that is substantially cheaper for 6 businesses in California than the current access points, 7 which are basically through Barkley's. 8 You must subscribe if you want the Barkley's 9 versions. The subscriptions cost several hundred dollars a 10 year. 11 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: Right. 12 MR. KENNY: And under our approach, we think that 13 basically you would not need to basically acquire this 14 document from Barkley's. You could simply obtain it from 15 the ARB at little or no cost. 16 The primary benefit we saw in that was simply the 17 ease of access to the public and the cost to the public. 18 So, that was why we were proposing this particular type of 19 transfer. 20 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: Okay. Thank you. 21 One final comment, maybe to clarify something. 22 This Board takes very seriously directives from the 23 Governor, and Executive Orders, and the like. And we do all 24 that we can to comply with them quickly. 25 At the same time, we also ask our staff to be PETERS SHORTHAND REPORTING CORPORATION (916) 362-2345 27 1 efficient, extra efficient, if possible, in how we 2 communicate, not just the regulatory requirements, but other 3 elements of our program -- public education elements and the 4 like. 5 We desperately want to participate in 6 communication streamlining. We don't think it makes sense 7 to lug around a lot of paper and regulation that's more or 8 less support or background material that people can, you 9 know, pick up the phone, or send an e-mail note to us, or 10 whatever and get the material. 11 So, just to caution you. This isn't -- we're 12 looking always to streamline, always to become more 13 efficient. And if this strayed perhaps from the hard 14 definition of the exec order, it wasn't the intent, I can 15 assure you, of the staff to mislead you or anyone else about 16 that, but to make the whole operation more efficient. 17 So, I'm concerned when you assert that perhaps 18 this won't make it more efficient relative to compliance. 19 That worries me a bit. 20 Well, I'm just trying to assert that it doesn't 21 delete one requirement that applies to California business. 22 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: Right. Okay. 23 MR. KENNY: If I could respond to that, also. The 24 staff of the Technical Support Division right now is 25 actually reviewing the document itself in terms of trying to PETERS SHORTHAND REPORTING CORPORATION (916) 362-2345 28 1 make that document substantively different. 2 We're not proposing that today. The proposal 3 today is simply a change in location for this particular 4 document. But an actual substantive revision will be 5 brought to this Board in, I believe, July. 6 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: Okay. Ms. Edgerton. 7 MS. EDGERTON: A point of information. First to 8 Mr. Kenny and perhaps Ms. Tuck. 9 Does Barkley's, as a matter of course, publish 10 documents which are incorporated by reference along with 11 their regulatory code? 12 MR. KENNY: No. 13 MS. EDGERTON: Since the State has the contract 14 with Barkley's, it would seem -- and it's exclusive -- it 15 would seem reasonable for us to explore whether they might 16 be -- continue publishing documents or begin to publish 17 documents that are incorporated by reference as appendices 18 that are published as a matter of course with the Barkley's 19 code; so, those people who are used to looking to the 20 Barkley's code will still be able to do that with respect to 21 these regs. Since it is, as Ms. Tuck has pointed out and as 22 you have pointed out -- since these regs will still be regs, 23 it would seem to me that Barkley's has an obligation to 24 continue publishing -- I mean to publish them, albeit as an 25 incorporated-by-reference document. PETERS SHORTHAND REPORTING CORPORATION (916) 362-2345 29 1 MR. KENNY: I think the general thought is that 2 people generally will incorporate documents by reference 3 when there's a substantial volume associated with that 4 document, and it's also directed at a particularly specific 5 audience. And so, the reason they are generally not found 6 essentially in like the main titles, is that they would 7 simply increase the volume of those titles by -- oh, it 8 could be as much as a hundred percent or more. 9 And so, because of the limited audience that uses 10 those documents, Barkley's is looking at trying to have the 11 titles themselves be as accessible as possible. A good 12 example from an ARB perspective is we have assembly line 13 test procedures for vehicles, all of which are incorporated 14 by reference into our motor vehicle regs. 15 The assembly line test procedures are incredibly 16 comprehensive and extremely voluminous. But it's necessary 17 to ensure that, in fact, we provide a proper test procedure 18 that is fair and equal to all the manufacturers who are 19 certifying vehicles in the State. 20 Barkley's doesn't publish those as appendices 21 because there's, again, a very limited audience to which 22 they're applicable. We can explore that with Barkley's and 23 see, you know, what their thoughts are on that if you'd 24 like. 25 MS. EDGERTON: Well, I would appreciate that. It PETERS SHORTHAND REPORTING CORPORATION (916) 362-2345 30 1 seems that we are obviously all part of a broader issue, as 2 the Chairman points out, and that is trying to figure out 3 the best way to get this information to the public in the 4 most accessible form. 5 It seems to me Barkley's has to -- may need to go 6 one way or the other. They either need to be publishing 7 it-- because they have an exclusive contract -- as a 8 regulation, or then they have to not have an exclusive 9 contract, and let us publish our own complete set of the 10 regulations that are just air pollution control regulations, 11 which includes the whole thing. 12 My second question is -- or I'll just make a 13 comment. I know from my service on the Environmental Law 14 Institute Board that there is a real problem in our country 15 with accessibility to State regulations in the environmental 16 field, and you can't really go yet into LEXIS, NEXIS and get 17 all of that, because they are so voluminous and specific to 18 each State. 19 So, if you want to go in and research from a -- a 20 big corporation wants to go in and research what is required 21 in every State, it's not quite the slam-dunk that you might 22 think. 23 Now, I know the Governor has a special task force 24 and the Cal-EPA has a leadership effort in the nation to 25 bring California -- well, to continue to lead and to chart a PETERS SHORTHAND REPORTING CORPORATION (916) 362-2345 31 1 course for us to make it easy on the Internet. 2 I'm troubled that -- well, not -- well, one 3 concern is that -- it's not really troubled, because I know 4 the people are moving as fast as they can, getting into the 5 computer age is, you know, something for all of us. 6 But if Barkley's -- if those regs -- if Barkley's 7 not prepared to put all of California's regs -- certainly on 8 air pollution, which is our jurisdiction or Cal-EPA -- on 9 the Internet, then, if that's not their call, then it seems 10 we ought to be able to put them all on the Internet, 11 including the whole ball of wax. 12 I mean just -- maybe we need a little task force 13 to figure out how we respond to Ms. Tuck with a -- you know, 14 you get a coherent plan. 15 Maybe the step-by-step is the better. I don't 16 know. 17 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: I think that's probably where 18 we're at here. 19 MS. EDGERTON: That's where we're at, clearly. 20 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: And, as a matter of fact, 21 earlier this week, I had a meeting with Mr. Boyd and his 22 management team about the Internet, trying to figure out, 23 you know -- 24 MS. TUCK: Yeah. 25 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: -- how we're transitioning to PETERS SHORTHAND REPORTING CORPORATION (916) 362-2345 32 1 it. And like everyone else, it seems, out there in 2 government and in the private sector, we're all kind of 3 feeling our way. But it's a great tool, and we all want to 4 use it. And we know that. But not everyone has access. 5 And even, as you pointed out, there's a lot of 6 companies that we think are very far along, as far as using 7 technology, computer technology, and aren't up to speed yet 8 completely. 9 It's my feeling, Mr. Kenny, that anything we do in 10 this area, we should make sure it increases access and moves 11 us closer to more clear, more complete communication. And I 12 think that's what you're hearing here. I think Ms. Edgerton 13 brings up a good point. 14 It's perhaps a bit finer point relative to the 15 legal community needs, which you're well familiar with, Ms. 16 Tuck. And though some of us on the Board are laypersons and 17 not legal experts, maybe aren't as in tune, but that's a 18 good concern and we should track that. 19 So, Mr. Kenny, make sure we don't run afoul of 20 clear, quick, complete communication. 21 MR. KENNY: Absolutely. We will, you know, 22 coordinate with essentially the Office of Administrative 23 Law, who has the contract with Barkley's. And it was the 24 Office of Administrative Law that really provided this 25 exclusive contract. PETERS SHORTHAND REPORTING CORPORATION (916) 362-2345 33 1 The system was not always this way, but it has 2 been for the last several years. And we'll see what we can 3 do to address the issue. 4 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: Okay. 5 MR. BOYD: Mr. Chairman? 6 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: Yes, Jim. I'm sorry. I 7 couldn't find you there for a moment. 8 MR. BOYD: Just to clarify for Ms. Edgerton and 9 the members of the Board one of the issues here, it is we 10 who are assuming the responsibility for putting this 11 material into the Internet. 12 So, it is not to be done -- I thought I heard 13 reference that Barkley's would put it on the Internet. I 14 may have misunderstood. But I just want to make sure that 15 everyone understands that it becomes our responsibility then 16 to put this material on the Internet. And we are doing that 17 with our regulations on a more regular basis. 18 And this material would be placed by us onto the 19 Internet. 20 But just to reinforce what the Chairman and others 21 have said about the Internet, I know society is going 22 through a paradigm shift right now as to the Internet. 23 While everyone wants to be on the Internet and have access, 24 a lot of companies are having great difficulty with where to 25 draw the line and the fear of, you know -- everybody spends PETERS SHORTHAND REPORTING CORPORATION (916) 362-2345 34 1 all their time surfing the Net instead of working -- has 2 caused a lot of people to restrict Internet access. 3 So, I think Ms. Tuck pointed out that it's going 4 to take a few years to shake down policies and this, that, 5 and the other. So, there will be a transition here for all. 6 And all of users of those facilities have to wrestle -- 7 those of us in management have to wrestle with Internet 8 access, and what you put on the Internet, and what your 9 policies are. 10 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: Okay. Ms. Tuck, thank you. 11 MS. TUCK: Thank you. 12 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: Any other questions of staff? 13 If not -- Mayor Hilligoss. 14 MAYOR HILLIGOSS: Yes. I had one. I know we want 15 to make the document smaller; and, also, we want to make it 16 more economical for small business. 17 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: Right. 18 MAYOR HILLIGOSS: Why not leave it in the big one 19 and just make an extra one for the smaller businesses? 20 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: Well, if I may -- I'll turn it 21 over to Mr. Kenny, but if I may talk a bit about the hot 22 spots program in particular, it is a mature program. It's 23 one where there has been a regulatory history with just 24 about all. 25 There are some new businesses that come in that PETERS SHORTHAND REPORTING CORPORATION (916) 362-2345 35 1 would fall under the program; and, so, this would be a 2 bigger issue for me if it were a brand new program or maybe 3 just a year old. But it's been in place how many years, 4 Mike? 5 MR. KENNY: It's been in place since 1988. 6 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: So, it's been around. It's a 7 mature program. The people are on track. As a matter of 8 fact, there's been a movement in the Legislature, and Mr. 9 Boyd and his team have reduced the resources devoted to this 10 program, et cetera, et cetera. So, I'm not as concerned 11 about it, just from a policy standpoint in this case. 12 Go ahead, Mike. 13 MR. KENNY: Mayor Hilligoss, the specific, I 14 guess, problem we have with trying to simply duplicate a 15 portion of this is that we can't place it on the Internet if 16 we duplicate it. 17 Barkley's actually has the copyright on Title 17. 18 And so, as Title 17 currently exists, we are prohibited by 19 copyright laws from essentially duplicating those and 20 distributing them to anyone. 21 By removing it from Title 17, it will no longer be 22 within the copyright domain of Barkley, because they simply 23 will no longer be publishing it as an incorporated by 24 reference document. 25 So then, we can essentially put it out as an ARB PETERS SHORTHAND REPORTING CORPORATION (916) 362-2345 36 1 document, and it can be made available to anyone, and it can 2 be duplicated essentially at will. 3 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: Okay. Any other questions? 4 With that, I'll ask staff to summarize any written 5 communications that we may have received on this item. It's 6 my understanding there's one from SoCal Gas Company, which 7 we have a copy of. 8 Is that the only one? 9 MS. DAVIS: In addition to the written comment 10 provided by Ms. Tuck, we received one today from the 11 Southern California Gas Company, which states -- 12 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: Right. We all have that. 13 MS. DAVIS: -- many of the same concerns. And we 14 also received one from the Sierra Club, which also states 15 essentially the same concerns. 16 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: Okay. Very well. 17 Mr. Boyd, do you have any other comments or, Mr. 18 Kenny? 19 MR. BOYD: Well, just a passing comment. The 20 action today really, as you heard from the earlier 21 conversation, represents a comparatively small portion of 22 the activity that's going on and the review program we have 23 underway. 24 And, as indicated before, you will be receiving 25 other presentations from us on the subject in future months. PETERS SHORTHAND REPORTING CORPORATION (916) 362-2345 37 1 I believe Mr. Kenny mentioned July is probably our next 2 approach to the Board relative to this subject. 3 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: Right. Okay. 4 MS. EDGERTON: May I make one other point? 5 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: Sure. Ms. Edgerton. 6 MS. EDGERTON: Mr. Kenny, I was just glancing 7 through the California Gas Company letter, and -- do you 8 have it in front of you? 9 The very last paragraph. 10 MR. KENNY: All right. 11 MS. EDGERTON: Thanks. It says, "If the air 12 toxics guideline documents are removed from this updating 13 system (sic), we will have no assurance that the version of 14 the regulation we are relying on for determining compliance 15 is the most recent and up to date. Unless (sic) another 16 equally effective venue for providing updates is 17 established, such as publication on the Internet, we believe 18 the regulations should remain in the CCR." 19 You know, that's something I hadn't -- 20 MR. KENNY: We actually contemplated that issue. 21 And so, when we are proposing the removal of this document 22 as a whole and incorporating by reference, it is going to be 23 replaced by a separate regulatory section. 24 That section, in addition to incorporating this 25 document by reference, it will also specifically identify PETERS SHORTHAND REPORTING CORPORATION (916) 362-2345 38 1 when the last amendment to the document occurred. And so, 2 you can look at the Title 17 regulation. You can see what 3 the date of the last amendment is, and you can make sure 4 that the document that you're holding in your hand matches 5 up in terms of a date. 6 If it doesn't for some reason -- maybe you have an 7 older version -- it'll also have in the section that's in 8 Title 17 a specific location where you can obtain the latest 9 copy. 10 So, you know, we'll have basically both the ARB 11 address and an ARB phone number. So, it's available that 12 way. 13 MS. EDGERTON: Mr. Kenny, if I understand 14 correctly, though, there will be an unanswered question for 15 any competent professional. 16 For example -- and maybe Ms. Davis can listen 17 carefully, also. 18 If I went to look this up as an attorney, and then 19 I ran across the incorporation by reference, and hopefully I 20 wouldn't have to -- I wouldn't have been doing the usual 21 lawyer procrastinating and need to have this the next day, 22 then I'd have to ask for it Federal Express. 23 But if I had it in my office, the document, it 24 wouldn't be enough for me to have then looked at my 25 document. I would then have to call you up to make sure I PETERS SHORTHAND REPORTING CORPORATION (916) 362-2345 39 1 had the last publication that the ARB had or even to ensure 2 that the ARB had included all updates in the most recent 3 publication the ARB had. 4 I mean it doesn't work like there's no Shepherds, 5 there's no -- 6 MR. KENNY: There is. Because what will happen is 7 that you are still going to be using Title 17, because there 8 are still things in Title 17 relevant to the hot spots 9 requirements. This is just simply removing a guidance 10 document that has regulatory effect, that has broad 11 application for the specific hot spot sources. 12 If you're using Title 17, and you get to this 13 point where you need this particular document, you're going 14 to see in Title 17 incorporation by --- 15 MS. EDGERTON: A different date. 16 MR. KENNY: -- reference. And you're going to 17 see, when you look at that section, that the incorporated by 18 reference document was last amended, for example, on May 19 30th, 1996. 20 You will have that incorporated by reference 21 document in your hand. If you don't have the May 30th, 1996 22 version, you know right then that you've got an improper 23 version. 24 MS. EDGERTON: And the one that is governing for 25 purposes of law will be the one that's referenced in the PETERS SHORTHAND REPORTING CORPORATION (916) 362-2345 40 1 statute? 2 MR. KENNY: Correct. 3 MS. EDGERTON: Consequently -- 4 MR. KENNY: In the regulation. 5 MS. EDGERTON: -- any -- in regulations. 6 Consequently, all changes would be then reflected in the 7 regulations or statutory documents. 8 So, whatever you were being referred to, you could 9 match up right there, even if you were -- 10 MR. KENNY: Yes, it will be a very simple match. 11 If you look at the regulation and you don't have the matched 12 document, you know you -- 13 MS. EDGERTON: Right. 14 MR. KENNY: -- need to get the latest version, and 15 we'll tell you where you can get it. 16 MS. EDGERTON: All right. That's the point of 17 mentioning it in the -- in the new replacement. 18 MR. KENNY: Yes. 19 MS. EDGERTON: Thank you. 20 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: Okay. 21 MS. DAVIS: Ms. Edgerton, in addition, the 22 regulation will list the prior adoption dates, so that 23 you'll be able to see that, "Oh, I have an old version. 24 They've got a new one out." 25 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: Yes. Okay. Are there are any PETERS SHORTHAND REPORTING CORPORATION (916) 362-2345 41 1 other comments? 2 MR. LAGARIAS: Yes. 3 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: Okay. Mr. Lagarias. 4 MR. LAGARIAS: You correctly pointed out, Mr. 5 Chairman, that the thickness of the blue book is due to 6 legislative action every year with the new laws coming 7 about. 8 It would seem appropriate that everytime there's 9 new legislation, if it calls for elimination or reduction of 10 regulations, that's very straightforward. But where it 11 imposes additional demands on the public or on industry, it 12 would seem that we should review the regulations to see 13 which regulations are superseded by the new requirement and 14 eliminate those older regulations, which I think was the 15 intent of the Governor's action. 16 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: Right. 17 MR. LAGARIAS: So, I think it's appropriate to do 18 that everytime it's time to review the entire legislative 19 program. 20 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: Right. That's good. 21 I know Chris Reynolds, our Lege Director, spent 22 some significant time with Mr. Kenny to try to determine 23 where we could get some clean-up language for the blue book 24 to make it match up better. 25 Okay. With that, we've received all testimony, PETERS SHORTHAND REPORTING CORPORATION (916) 362-2345 42 1 written submissions, and staff comments for this item, and 2 they've been entered into the record, and the Board has not 3 granted an extension of the comment period. I'm officially 4 closing the record on this portion of Agenda Item 96-4-1. 5 Written or oral comments received after the 6 comment period has been closed will not be accepted as part 7 of the official record on this agenda item. 8 Also, as a reminder to my Board member colleagues, 9 we have to report ex parte communications on this item. Do 10 we have anything to report? 11 (Thereupon, there was no response.) 12 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: Okay. We have before is 13 Resolution 96-19. We've had it for a few moments. I'll 14 give you a moment to pause to review it. After that, I'd 15 welcome a motion to move this item. 16 (Thereupon, there was a pause in the 17 proceedings to allow the members to 18 peruse the resolution.) 19 SUPERVISOR ROBERTS: Mr. Chairman, I move 20 approval. 21 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: Thank you, Mr. Roberts. 22 Is there a second? 23 SUPERVISOR SILVA: Second. 24 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: Mr. Silva, thank you. 25 I think what we'll do is take a voice vote on this PETERS SHORTHAND REPORTING CORPORATION (916) 362-2345 43 1 item. All those in favor of Resolution 96-19, please say 2 aye? 3 (Ayes.) 4 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: Any opposed? Very well. Motion 5 carries. 6 Thank you, staff, very much. Mr. Kenny, thank you 7 to you and your team. 8 The second item today is 96-4-2. It's a public 9 hearing to consider amendments to divide the Southeast 10 Desert Air Basin into two air basins, and to modify the 11 boundary of the South Coast Air Basin, and amendments to the 12 related agricultural burning regulations. 13 In this item, the staff is proposing that the 14 Board establish two new air basins. The staff's proposal is 15 in response to Assembly Bill 421 of 1995, which directs the 16 Board to divide the Southeast Desert Air Basin into two 17 parts. 18 Also, the South Coast Air Quality Management 19 District has asked the Board to make a slight change in the 20 boundary between the South Coast and Southeast Desert Air 21 Basins. 22 The staff, as directed by law, has examined the 23 existing basin boundaries and recommends that the Board 24 create two new air basins to replace the Southeast Desert 25 Air Basin. PETERS SHORTHAND REPORTING CORPORATION (916) 362-2345 44 1 In addition, staff concurs with the suggestions of 2 the South Coast District and recommends that the Board 3 modify slightly the boundary of that South Coast Air Basin. 4 At this point, I'd like to ask Mr. Boyd to 5 introduce the item and also at the proper junction to cover 6 the related ag burning reg reference as well. 7 Mr. Boyd. 8 MR. BOYD: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. As the 9 Chairman mentioned, we are proposing amendments to air basin 10 boundaries in the State of California. 11 The aforementioned Assembly bill did indeed 12 require the Air Resources Board adopt regulations by January 13 1 of 1997, to divide the Southeast Desert Air Basin. And, 14 as indicated, we are proposing two new air basins and 15 proposing to retire the name of the Southeast Desert Air 16 Basin. 17 Unrelated to the requirements of this legislation, 18 the South Coast Air Quality Management District has made a 19 written request asking that the Air Resources Board realign 20 air basin boundaries to make the San Gorgonio Pass area a 21 part of the South Coast Air Basin. 22 The area is already a part of the district, and it 23 shares the same air mass as the South Coast Air Basin 24 itself; therefore, we propose that the Board concur with the 25 district's request and make the realignment. PETERS SHORTHAND REPORTING CORPORATION (916) 362-2345 45 1 And, as indicated, we're also proposing minor 2 updates to the related agricultural burning regulations to 3 make these regulations consistent with the new boundary 4 definitions. 5 As part of the presentation, the staff will 6 briefly discuss how the boundary change would affect air 7 quality planning in the general Mojave Desert area. 8 And with that introduction, I'd like to call upon 9 Mr. David Ipps of the Air Quality Analysis Section of our 10 Technical Support Division to make the presentation. 11 Mr. Ipps? 12 MR. IPPS: Thank you, Mr. Boyd. Good morning, 13 Chairman Dunlap and members of the Board. 14 As Mr. Boyd mentioned, there are two separate 15 reasons that bring us here today. First, Assembly Bill 421 16 requires that the Air Resources Board divide the Southeast 17 Desert Air Basin into two air basins. 18 Second, the South Coast Air Quality Management 19 District has requested that the ARB realign air basin 20 boundaries. 21 I'll discuss each of these two reasons in just a 22 moment. But first, let's go over some basics. 23 As required by Health and Safety Code, California 24 is divided geographically into air basins for the purpose of 25 studying the State's air quality on a regional basis. Areas PETERS SHORTHAND REPORTING CORPORATION (916) 362-2345 46 1 within an air basin are considered to share the same air 2 masses and therefore expected to have similar air quality. 3 There are currently 14 air basins in California. 4 An air basin may consist of one or more counties or portions 5 of counties. And a number of counties in the State have 6 portions in two or three air basins. 7 Two of the air basins in the State -- the 8 Southeast Desert and the South Coast -- are affected by our 9 proposal today. This map shows their current boundaries. 10 The Southeast Desert Air Basin, as shown on this map in 11 pink, currently consists of a portion each of Kern, Los 12 Angeles, San Bernardino, and Riverside Counties, and all of 13 Imperial County. 14 Besides air basins, the State is also divided into 15 34 air pollution control districts and air quality 16 management districts. I'll refer to them as "air districts" 17 for short. 18 Air districts are county or regional governing 19 authorities that have primary responsibility for controlling 20 air pollution from stationary sources. Air district 21 boundaries are often, but not always, drawn along the 22 boundary lines of counties and air basins. Some districts 23 are responsible for a single county, while other districts 24 are responsible for several counties. 25 This map shows the jurisdictions of air districts PETERS SHORTHAND REPORTING CORPORATION (916) 362-2345 47 1 in the Southeast Desert Air Basin, which include the Mojave 2 Desert and South Coast Air Quality Management Districts and 3 the Imperial County and Kern County Air Pollution Control 4 Districts. 5 The areas under the jurisdiction of the Mojave 6 Desert District, as shown in yellow on this map, currently 7 include the Southeast Desert Air Basin portion of San 8 Bernardino County and an easterly segment of the desert 9 portion of Riverside County. The remainder of Riverside 10 County is under the jurisdiction of the South Coast 11 District. 12 Keep in mind that the air basin boundaries and air 13 district boundaries are independent of each other. Changes 14 in air basin boundaries, for example, do not necessarily 15 have any impact directly on the boundaries of air districts. 16 In addition, air basins may not necessarily be 17 used as the basis for determining the designations and 18 classifications of areas. A given area's designation 19 indicates whether the area meets the air quality standards. 20 An area would have a designation of nonattainment 21 if the area does not meet the standards. Nonattainment 22 areas are further grouped into different classifications, 23 which indicate the level of severity of nonattainment, 24 degrees of emission controls needed, and the required time 25 frame for attainment. PETERS SHORTHAND REPORTING CORPORATION (916) 362-2345 48 1 The geographical boundaries of nonattainment areas 2 and their classifications are determined by many different 3 factors and are not limited to air basin boundaries. 4 Federal nonattainment areas and classifications are 5 promulgated in the federal law, and any changes must be made 6 at the federal level and are beyond the jurisdiction of the 7 State Air Resources Board. 8 Now that we have covered the basic terms and 9 concepts, let's take a look at Assembly Bill 421. The bill 10 was authored by Assemblyman Olberg and signed into law by 11 Governor Wilson last year. 12 The bill added Section 39606.1 to the Health and 13 Safety Code. In the remainder of my presentation, I will 14 just refer to this section of the Code simply as "the Olberg 15 bill." 16 The Olberg bill requires that the ARB divide the 17 Southeast Desert Air Basin into air basins. It also 18 specifies that one of the two air basins be named the Mojave 19 Desert Air Basin, which must include at least the Southeast 20 Desert portions of Kern and Los Angeles Counties and all 21 areas under the jurisdiction of the Mojave Desert Air 22 Quality Management District. 23 The Olberg bill also authorizes the ARB to include 24 into the new Mojave Desert Air Basin any additional areas 25 contiguous to the areas I mentioned earlier that the ARB PETERS SHORTHAND REPORTING CORPORATION (916) 362-2345 49 1 determines as appropriate, based on similar meteorological 2 and geographical conditions, and consideration for political 3 boundary lines. 4 Those areas of the current Southeast Desert Air 5 Basin that are not included by the ARB in the new Mojave 6 Desert Air Basin would form a second new air basin. The 7 Olberg bill simply indicates that these areas would remain 8 in the Southeast Desert Air Basin. 9 A close look at the Southeast Desert Air Basin 10 reveals that it consists of two distinct geographical 11 regions -- the high desert and the low desert. This table 12 shows that there are distinguishable differences between the 13 two regions of the air basin. As the names imply, areas in 14 the high desert are typically at elevations several thousand 15 feet higher than most areas in the low desert. 16 In terms of meteorology, while the entire air 17 basin is dry, the high desert receives twice as much 18 precipitation as the low desert. 19 The high desert is also about 10 degrees cooler 20 than the low desert, measured in terms of either the maximum 21 temperatures in the summer or the minimum temperatures in 22 the winter. 23 In terms of air quality, all or most of the basin 24 is currently designated as nonattainment of the State and 25 national ambient air quality standards for both ozone and PETERS SHORTHAND REPORTING CORPORATION (916) 362-2345 50 1 PM10. Comparing the high desert and the low desert, ozone 2 concentrations are higher in the high desert, but PM10 3 concentrations are higher in the low desert. 4 The patterns in air pollution emissions are 5 similar. Emissions of the ozone precursors, oxides of 6 nitrogen and reactive organic gases, are both higher in the 7 high desert. However, emissions of direct PM10 are much 8 higher in the low desert. 9 The data we have seen demonstrate that there is a 10 perceptible difference between the high desert and the low 11 desert regions of the Southeast Desert Air Basin. 12 Therefore, the staff believes that it would be most 13 appropriate to divide the existing air basin along a 14 geographical line that best separates the high desert from 15 the low desert. 16 Under the guidelines of the Olberg bill, the staff 17 has determined that the current Southeast Desert portions of 18 San Bernardino, Kern, and Los Angeles Counties can be 19 considered as completely within the high desert, and all of 20 Imperial County can be considered as within the low desert. 21 However, the Southeast Desert portions of 22 Riverside County is less straightforward, because the 23 eastern part of the county belongs to the high desert, while 24 the western part belongs to the low desert. 25 Now, these two parts of the desert portion of PETERS SHORTHAND REPORTING CORPORATION (916) 362-2345 51 1 Riverside County are quite different from each other. The 2 eastern half has a mixed terrain of valleys and mountain 3 ranges, with elevations ranging from about 500 feet to about 4 5,000 feet. It has a small population and a low level of 5 pollutant emissions. 6 In contrast, the western half consists mainly of 7 the low desert of Coachella Valley, with elevations that are 8 mostly around sea level. It has a string of well-populated 9 desert communities and a relatively high level of associated 10 emissions. 11 After reviewing the available geographical lines 12 in the area, the staff believes that a hydrologic unit 13 boundary line in central Riverside County would best 14 separate the high desert and the low desert and, therefore, 15 most appropriately serve as a border between the new -- the 16 two new air basins. 17 Hydrologic unit boundary lines are determined by 18 the U.S. Geological Survey, and are based on its study of 19 the water drainage patterns in the United States. 20 Hydrologic boundary lines are suitable for use in 21 defining air basins, because the concept of a hydrologic 22 unit is similar to the concept of an air basin. Unlike 23 water, which always flows downhill, air masses sometimes 24 move upwards and into other air basins. However, since 25 hydrologic unit boundary lines are drawn along the ridge PETERS SHORTHAND REPORTING CORPORATION (916) 362-2345 52 1 lines of mountains, they also define the probable barriers 2 separating the air masses of different regions of the State. 3 The hydrologic unit boundary line that the staff 4 is proposing to use is related to the geographical features 5 of the area. It connects the ridge lines of the Little San 6 Bernardino Mountains and the Chuckwalla Mountains in 7 Riverside County. 8 The line runs generally in a northwest to 9 southeast direction, and it divides the desert portion of 10 the county into two approximately equal parts. 11 This boundary line is also the same as the eastern 12 boundary line of the Federal Planning Area of Coachella 13 Valley -- used for the national PM10 standards. Having an 14 air basin boundary which is the same as the planning area 15 boundary will facilitate air quality planning efforts for 16 the State and national standards. 17 With this boundary line, the staff proposes to 18 include that part of Riverside County, which lies east of 19 this line, in the Mojave Desert Air Basin; and that part of 20 the desert portion of Riverside County, which lies west of 21 this line, in the air basin representing the low desert. 22 We have now divided the Southeast Desert Air 23 Basin, but you might notice that we haven't got a name for 24 the air basin in the low desert. Recall that the Olberg 25 bill specifies the name of "Mojave Desert Air Basin" for the PETERS SHORTHAND REPORTING CORPORATION (916) 362-2345 53 1 high desert, but only indicates that the other areas would 2 remain in the Southeast Desert Air Basin. 3 The staff believes that using the name of 4 "Southeast Desert Air Basin" to represent the low desert 5 could potentially cause ambiguity and confusion, because the 6 new name -- because the name now refers to a different area 7 than before. Therefore, the staff proposes that the Board 8 adopt a new name for this second air basin. 9 The staff proposes to use the name of "Salton Sea 10 Air Basin" for the new air basin representing the low 11 desert. The Salton Sea is the largest geographical feature 12 in this new air basin. The staff believes that this name 13 would uniquely identify this area of the State. 14 Now that we have seen the first reason why we're 15 here, let's go on to the second reason. 16 In a November, 1995, letter, the South Coast Air 17 Quality Management District requested that the Board realign 18 air basin boundaries, such that the San Gorgonio Pass area, 19 which is currently located in the Southeast Desert Air 20 Basin, would become a part of the South Coast Air Basin. 21 The South Coast District's rationale for this 22 request is that the San Gorgonio Pass area is more similar, 23 in terms of both geography and meteorology, to adjacent of 24 the South Coast Air Basin than to areas in the Southeast 25 Desert Air Basin. PETERS SHORTHAND REPORTING CORPORATION (916) 362-2345 54 1 The district's conclusion is based on an analysis 2 of the topography and climate of these areas. 3 The San Gorgonio Pass is shown as the shaded area 4 on this map. The blue line indicates the current air basin 5 boundary between the Southeast Desert Air Basins. The South 6 Coast District requests that the basin boundary be realigned 7 to be the north and south line that marks the eastern 8 boundary of the San Gorgonio Pass area, as indicated by the 9 dash line on this map. 10 The San Gorgonio Pass is a small canyon in 11 northwestern Riverside County and is one of three major 12 mountain passes between the South Coast and Southeast Desert 13 Air Basins. It is located about halfway between the City of 14 Riverside to the west and the City of Palm Springs to the 15 east. The area includes the incorporated cities of Banning 16 and Beaumont and a number of smaller communities. 17 The staff has reviewed the district's request and 18 the supporting data and analysis. The staff has determined 19 that while the San Gorgonio Pass area is not completely 20 similar to either the South Coast or the Southeast Desert 21 Air Basin, it is more similar to the South Coast. And since 22 the ARB is mandated to divide the State into air basins by 23 grouping together contiguous areas that have similar 24 geography and meteorology, the staff proposes that the Board 25 support the South Coast District's request and make the San PETERS SHORTHAND REPORTING CORPORATION (916) 362-2345 55 1 Gorgonio Pass area a part of the South Coast Air Basin. 2 Now that I have completed describing the proposed 3 changes to the air basin boundaries, let's take a look at 4 four other related items: 5 In a 1991 federal regulation, all of Kern County 6 was incorrectly included in the San Joaquin Valley ozone 7 nonattainment area. Ozone concentrations in the desert 8 portion of Kern County are not as high as those in the San 9 Joaquin Valley portion. 10 The staff supports the Kern County District's 11 efforts to make the desert portion of the county a separate 12 federal nonattainment area from the San Joaquin Valley. 13 Upon your approval of the proposed boundary changes, the 14 desert portion of Kern County would be a part of the Mojave 15 Desert Air Basin. 16 Two other related regulations -- the area 17 designations for the State standards and the transport 18 couple identification and mitigation -- would be affected by 19 the proposed boundary changes. 20 The staff plans to propose amendments to the 21 regulations in both of these areas to incorporate the name 22 changes at a public hearing later this year. 23 The fourth related area is the agricultural 24 burning regulations, to which the staff is proposing minor 25 changes today. PETERS SHORTHAND REPORTING CORPORATION (916) 362-2345 56 1 The Board's agricultural burning regulations 2 establish meteorological criteria for the purpose of 3 declaring permissive burn days in each air basin of the 4 State. These ag burn criteria are specific to each air 5 basin. 6 Since we are making changes to the air basin 7 boundaries, we must also update the ag burn regulations in 8 order to provide a set of criteria for each of the new air 9 basins. 10 The staff is proposing only minor changes to the 11 text of the regulations, mainly to make them consistent with 12 the new air basins. We are not proposing any substantive 13 changes to the criteria. 14 Most of the agricultural activities in the 15 Southeast Desert Air Basin occur in the areas that would now 16 become the Salton Sea Air Basin. Therefore, the staff 17 proposes to use the existing criteria of the Southeast 18 Desert Air Basin in their entirety, without any changes, for 19 the new Salton Sea Air Basin. 20 For the new Mojave Desert Air Basin, the staff 21 also proposes to use the existing criteria of the Southeast 22 Desert Air Basin, except to delete one criterion on wind 23 direction that does not apply to the high desert. 24 The change in the South Coast Air Basin's boundary 25 is relatively minor, and the staff does not propose any PETERS SHORTHAND REPORTING CORPORATION (916) 362-2345 57 1 changes in the existing ag burn criteria for that air basin. 2 Now that you have heard all the proposed changes, 3 I would like to go over the comments that the staff has 4 received. The staff held a public consultation meeting at 5 Victorville in February, 1996, to present the draft 6 proposal. 7 At that meeting, a majority of the participants 8 who gave oral comments were in support of the staff 9 proposal. The staff also received other comments in writing 10 after the meeting. Those who have expressed support for the 11 staff proposal include Assemblyman Olberg's office, the 12 Mojave Desert District, the South Coast District, the 13 Coachella Valley Association of Governments, the Sierra 14 Club, and a number of others. 15 There are two issues that might suggest a 16 deviation from the staff proposal. First, several 17 individuals requested that the Big Bear Lake area, which is 18 currently in the South Coast Air Basin, be made a part of 19 the new Mojave Desert Air Basin. 20 They believe that the area is more similar to the 21 Mojave Desert than the South Coast in terms of the 22 mountainous terrain, sparse population, and other factors. 23 This request is unrelated to fulfilling the requirements of 24 the Olberg bill, but they believe that this is an 25 opportunity to change air basin boundaries. PETERS SHORTHAND REPORTING CORPORATION (916) 362-2345 58 1 The second issue is that the City of Banning 2 passed a resolution to oppose making Banning a part of the 3 South Coast Air Basin. Among the reasons cited in the 4 resolution, the city council that Banning has such unique 5 topography and meteorology that the city should be in its 6 own air basin, and that placing Banning in the South Coast 7 Air Basin would stigmatize the city and impede its economic 8 development. 9 In response to the Big Bear Lake boundary issue, 10 the staff believes that there is not a compelling case for 11 changing the current boundary for a number of reasons. 12 This map shows the location of the Big Bear Lake 13 area. The blue line indicates the current air basin 14 boundary, which approximates the boundary line of the 15 hydrologic unit -- which, in turn, is indicated by the red 16 line. 17 As this map shows, the Big Bear Lake area is 18 completely within the same watershed as the San Bernardino 19 area of the South Coast Air Basin. The geographical 20 features that guide the drainage of water would also channel 21 the interchange of air masses between the Big Bear Lake area 22 and the rest of the South Coast Air Basin. 23 Further, based on available information, the Big 24 Bear Lake area is more of a receptor area of emission 25 sources in the South Coast Air Basin than of sources in the PETERS SHORTHAND REPORTING CORPORATION (916) 362-2345 59 1 Mojave Desert. It is appropriate to associate the area with 2 the air basin which contributes the most to its air quality. 3 In addition, the Big Bear Lake area is more 4 similar to areas in the South Coast Air Basin than to the 5 Mojave Desert Air Basin. Its geography is similar to areas 6 such as Crestline and Lake Arrowhead in the South Coast Air 7 Basin. Its annual average precipitation is much higher than 8 those (sic) in the desert and is more similar to the 9 precipitation in the South Coast Air Basin. 10 Because of these reasons, the staff does not 11 recommend that the Board support the request to change the 12 air basin boundary around the Big Bear Lake area. 13 In response to the Banning issue, the staff 14 recommends that the Board support the South Coast District's 15 request, despite the opposition by the City of Banning, for 16 the following reasons: 17 First, a study of the map shows that the City of 18 Banning is located on the South Coast Air Basin side of a 19 straight line drawn between the summit of San Gorgonio 20 Mountain and the summit of San Jacinto Mountain. 21 Second, although precipitation and other 22 meteorological factors for Banning may not be exactly the 23 same as either the South Coast area or the desert, the area 24 is more similar to adjacent areas of the South Coast in 25 terms of temperature and precipitation. PETERS SHORTHAND REPORTING CORPORATION (916) 362-2345 60 1 The adjacent area of the -- the adjacent area in 2 the desert is the Coachella Valley, which is much warmer and 3 much drier than the Banning area. 4 Finally, the air quality of the Banning area is 5 more impacted by emissions from the South Coast area than 6 the desert area. The Banning area is more of a downwind 7 area of the South Coast Air Basin. Further, most residents 8 in the Banning area work and commute to and from Los Angeles 9 or other areas of the South Coast Air Basin rather than the 10 Coachella Valley or any other area of the desert. 11 Thus, the area is more affected by the emissions 12 of transportation sources in the South Coast Air Basin than 13 those in the desert. 14 Because of the above reasons, the staff proposes 15 that the Board approve the South Coast District's request to 16 include the San Gorgonio Pass area in the South Coast Air 17 Basin in spite of the opposition by the City of Banning. 18 This action would not change district boundaries, 19 because Banning is already under the jurisdiction of the 20 South Coast District. 21 This map shows -- summarizes the staff's proposed 22 boundaries for the two new air basins and the modified South 23 Coast Air Basin. 24 The new Mojave Desert Air Basin, as shown here in 25 orange, would consist of the previous Southeast Desert Air PETERS SHORTHAND REPORTING CORPORATION (916) 362-2345 61 1 Basin portions of Kern, Los Angeles, and San Bernardino 2 Counties, and also that segment of the desert portion of 3 Riverside County that lies to the east of the hydrologic 4 unit boundary line in central Riverside County. 5 The new Salton Sea Air Basin, as shown here in 6 pink, would consist of all of Imperial County and that 7 segment of the Desert portion of Riverside County that lies 8 to the west of the same hydrologic unit boundary line up to 9 the South Coast Air Basin boundary. 10 The modified South Coast Air Basin, as shown here 11 in green, would consist of all of the current territories 12 plus the San Gorgonio Pass area. 13 Incidentally, the staff proposal would put 14 Riverside County in three air basins, which is similar to 15 the situation currently in Placer County in Northern 16 California. 17 Now that you have heard the staff proposal, let's 18 take a look at how the proposed boundary changes would 19 relate to the air quality planning efforts in the desert 20 area. 21 As you may know, Assemblyman Olberg authored AB 22 421 at the request of the Mojave Desert District. The 23 district believes that its classification of Severe-17 for 24 the national ozone standard is unreasonable. Much of the 25 high desert is included in the same federal ozone PETERS SHORTHAND REPORTING CORPORATION (916) 362-2345 62 1 nonattainment area as the low desert portion of Riverside 2 County. 3 High ozone concentrations recorded in Riverside 4 County contributed to the area's current federal 5 classification. The district feels that it is being 6 unfairly penalized for the poor air quality of its 7 neighbors. 8 The district believes that the Olberg bill, by 9 placing the high desert in a different air basin than the 10 low desert, would signal that the high desert should be 11 considered a separate nonattainment area from the low 12 desert. The district has indicated its support for the 13 staff's proposal today. 14 The staff shares the Mojave Desert District's 15 concern about the federal regulatory burden on the district 16 and supports the district's efforts in seeking a more 17 appropriate federal classification that acknowledges 18 intrastate transport. However, changes in the federal 19 classification are beyond the jurisdiction of the Air 20 Resources Board. 21 Your approval of the staff's proposal today on the 22 air basin boundary changes would accomplish an initial step, 23 which is within the legal authority of the State Board. We 24 recommend that the Board prevail upon the U.S. EPA to 25 recognize intrastate transport for federal classification PETERS SHORTHAND REPORTING CORPORATION (916) 362-2345 63 1 purposes. 2 I would also like to report that the staff is 3 undertaking other efforts to address the district's concerns 4 regarding the requirements of a severe classification. But 5 before that, let's review the district's current status. 6 Mojave Desert is designated as nonattainment for 7 the State and national ozone standards. For the State 8 standard, the area is classified as moderate, after removing 9 those violations caused by interbasin transport, as allowed 10 by the California Clean Air Act. 11 In contrast, the federal classification process 12 does not account for transport within the State. As a 13 result, the area is classified as Severe-17 for the national 14 standard. 15 Current efforts to address the severe 16 classification requirements occur in the following areas: 17 Federal nonattainment areas are required to 18 prepare a State Implementation Plan, or SIP, for attaining 19 the standard. The current SIP for the desert area, although 20 not directly recognizing interbasin transport, bases its 21 attainment on the emission reductions that will occur in the 22 South Coast Air Basin. 23 Because of this strategy, the emission sources in 24 the local desert area are subject only to existing control 25 programs. PETERS SHORTHAND REPORTING CORPORATION (916) 362-2345 64 1 In addition, the ARB has requested a federal 2 waiver of the rate-of-progress requirements for the desert 3 area. Also, the requirements for mandatory trip reductions 4 have been eliminated. Further, the staff has also been 5 working with the federal agencies to obtain increased 6 flexibility in the permitting requirements. 7 On the technical level, the staff is conducting 8 similar -- conducting studies to further evaluate the 9 contribution of transport to the ozone problem in the 10 desert, such as using radar profilers to better understand 11 transport aloft. 12 We will also participate in a future revision of 13 the South Coast attainment plan to determine its impacts on 14 the desert's attainment prospects. 15 In conclusion, I would like to summarize the 16 staff's proposal today, which is threefold. 17 One, to divide the Southeast Desert Air Basin into 18 two air basins called the Mojave Desert Air Basin and the 19 Salton Sea Air Basin. Upon your approval, there would be a 20 total of 15 air basins in California, and there would no 21 longer be an air basin called the Southeast Desert Air 22 Basin; two, to slightly change the boundary of the South 23 Coast Air Basin so that it also includes the San Gorgonio 24 Pass area; and, three, to update the related agricultural 25 burning regulations to make them consistent with the new air PETERS SHORTHAND REPORTING CORPORATION (916) 362-2345 65 1 basins. 2 That concludes my presentation. Ms. Debbie 3 Popejoy will now summarize the comments that we have 4 received since we sent out the public notice on this item. 5 Staff will be available to answer questions after 6 Ms. Popejoy concludes her summary. Debbie? 7 MS. POPEJOY: Thank you, David. We have received 8 four comment letters during the public notice period. We 9 have received one letter from Mr. Fryxell, the Air Pollution 10 Control Officer of the Mojave Desert AQMD, and one letter 11 from Mr. Rothschild, the Chairman of the Mojave Desert Air 12 Quality Management District Governing Board. 13 Both Mr. Fryxell and Mr. Rothschild, at that time, 14 had requested the Board to delay action on the staff's 15 proposal, because they believe there were still two 16 unresolved issues that needed further consideration. 17 These issues are: (1) The Big Bear Lake area 18 request be part of the new Mojave Desert Air Basin; and (2) 19 failure to implement the intent of Assembly Bill 421. 20 I believe the staff has reviewed all the available 21 technical information with regards to the Big Bear Lake area 22 and a delay would not provide more information to consider. 23 In addition, we heard from some commenters at the 24 workshop that they did not want the Big Bear Lake issue to 25 delay implementation of Assembly Bill 421. PETERS SHORTHAND REPORTING CORPORATION (916) 362-2345 66 1 Regarding the failure the implement the intent of 2 Assembly Bill 421, the district feels that the bill was 3 supposed to address the inappropriateness of the district's 4 Severe-17 classification for the national ozone standard. 5 Staff believes that the proposed resolution you 6 have before you today should satisfy the district's 7 concerns. 8 The third letter we received is from a Ms. Rusche, 9 a resident of Chiriaco Summit, a small community in 10 Riverside County. 11 Staff's proposal would include this community in 12 the Salton Sea Air Basin. Ms. Rusche believes that the 13 Chiriaco Summit should be on the eastern side of the 14 hydrologic boundary, placing it in the Mojave Desert Air 15 Basin. 16 We have double-checked the hydrologic boundary 17 line, which is determined by the U.S. Geological Survey, and 18 this community is, in fact, west of the boundary line and 19 appropriately placed in the Salton Sea Air Basin. 20 The fourth letter is from Mr. Billheimer from the 21 City of Riverside. He is in support of the staff's proposal 22 to divide the Southeast Desert Air Basin. He is also in 23 support of including the Big Bear Lake area in the new 24 Mojave Air Basin. 25 He believes that further review of other areas, PETERS SHORTHAND REPORTING CORPORATION (916) 362-2345 67 1 such as Lake Arrowhead and Crestline, would warrant 2 inclusion of these areas also in the Mojave Desert Air 3 Basin. 4 As stated in the presentation, staff does not 5 believe that the technical information warrants changes to 6 the air basin boundaries to include the Big Bear Lake area 7 in the Mojave Desert Air Basin. 8 If you have any questions, we'd be happy to answer 9 them. 10 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: Okay. Any questions of staff? 11 If not, we'll hop into the witness list. 12 Okay. Thank you. I know there's a lot of 13 information there. 14 Jim, at some point -- maybe after we hear from the 15 witnesses -- if you would maybe give us a couple minutes' 16 historical overview of what you've kind of seen happening 17 relative to air basin boundaries over the last couple 18 decades, I think it'd be helpful for some of the newer 19 members to hear that. 20 Mr. Rothschild -- Chairman Rothschild of the 21 Mojave District, please come forward. Mr. Mac Iver and Mr. 22 Wilcox, if you'd move to the forward row of seats, we'll 23 have you follow Chairman Rothschild. 24 Good morning. Welcome to Sacramento. 25 MR. ROTHSCHILD: Thank you, Chairman Dunlap and PETERS SHORTHAND REPORTING CORPORATION (916) 362-2345 68 1 members of the Board. I'm pleased to be here to represent 2 the Mojave Desert Air Quality Management District. I have 3 served as Chairman for the last three years. And in that 4 process, the learning curve has been tremendous as I imagine 5 it would be at this level as well. 6 About three years ago, when I first came on board, 7 I knew I breathed the air up there, but I didn't know quite 8 what I was getting into. But, very quickly, we realized 9 that there was some serious problems that needed to be 10 addressed, one of which was the nature of the air quality 11 designation in the high desert as opposed to, say, Los 12 Angeles. 13 When we started looking around at our stationary 14 sources, we realized that much of our problem had to do with 15 transport air -- a term that I had learned coming on the 16 board as well. 17 And, at that time, about three years ago, I asked 18 what could we do about it. Can we -- is there any way to 19 create a new basin? I understood the difference between 20 district and basin, but I also realized that we didn't have 21 a unique basin in the high desert region. 22 Staff indicated that there was a lot that needed 23 to be done, but, yes, you could create this basin. 24 Fortunately, we had Assemblyman Olberg work closely with us, 25 and we helped create the basin bill, which was signed into PETERS SHORTHAND REPORTING CORPORATION (916) 362-2345 69 1 law by Governor Wilson last year. And now we're in Phase 2 2 of that process: You're designating our boundaries for us. 3 But to the heart of that issue is the -- the issue 4 of the culpability of the Severe 17 that was imposed on us 5 as opposed to the uniqueness of our high desert, and that's 6 where the work came in with your Board and your staff here. 7 And before I get into just touch on the heart of that point, 8 I do want to thank this Board for its fast and efficient 9 work. I can't imagine you addressing an issue as 10 complicated in such a short period of time. And I can't 11 give you thanks without obviously giving the staff thanks. 12 I know that your attorney -- is it Mr. Kenny? -- 13 and Lynn Terry, and Paul Buttner, all three worked many 14 hours on the technical aspects and the legal aspects of 15 this. It could not have happened without their work and 16 time invested in that process. 17 And the thing I want to really emphasize the most 18 is that, as we move down the line and move towards working 19 with the EPA, which may be even a far greater challenge than 20 what we've got before us today, is that we all recognize 21 that there are two levels of concerns here. One is the 22 emission inventory that we have in the high desert. And I 23 submit that, if you took the worst polluting industry in the 24 Los Angeles Basin and parked it in the high desert region, 25 we would still be a full attainment district -- basin, PETERS SHORTHAND REPORTING CORPORATION (916) 362-2345 70 1 inasmuch as we've got some 20,000 square miles to disperse 2 that type of air problem. 3 So, the issue is really are we an attainment area; 4 and, if so, give us a fair chance to grow in that 5 environment and not in the more restrictive environment that 6 Los Angeles has to work in. 7 And so, in conclusion, not to belabor the point -- 8 I think technical staff and the presentation was excellent, 9 and I do agree with the conclusions, the concluding comments 10 of staff on the two points of my letter that I'd sent about 11 two weeks ago; I agree with both of them -- that we want to 12 emphasize emission inventory for the high desert and less 13 the technical data of the transport problem that we have 14 coming out of Los Angeles, and emphasize that to the EPA, 15 that that problem needs to be recognized. 16 And our Board has not taken an official position 17 on the Big Bear issue. So, I am not prepared to stand here 18 and suggest anything to you, other than what staff has 19 suggested to you at this time. 20 So, with that, again, I want to again offer the 21 board's thanks, Assemblyman Olberg's thanks in his years on 22 this (sic), and hope that we can move ahead working with the 23 EPA for Phase 3 of getting a more moderate rating for the 24 high desert region. 25 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: Okay. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. PETERS SHORTHAND REPORTING CORPORATION (916) 362-2345 71 1 Supervisor Riordan, do you have anything to add? 2 SUPERVISOR RIORDAN: Well, I just would couple on 3 our Chairman's remarks for staff working with us, and we 4 really appreciate that. It seems to me this is a 5 complicated procedure. It is technical and somewhat 6 political. 7 But I would remind the Board that the measurements 8 that were taken to give to the Mojave area its designation 9 were taken in the Banning Pass. And that, in and of itself, 10 creates the big problem, because they are so nonrelated. I 11 mean, if you have any sense of what we call -- the natives 12 call it the Banning Pass. Those of you who look at it from 13 afar, it's the San Gorgonio Pass. But it's very much 14 separated from what I would call the Mojave Air Quality -- 15 the Mojave Air Basin. 16 So, the staff recommendation to move that is, I 17 think, a significant step in reevaluating the Mojave Air 18 Quality District issues and what we have before us. 19 So, that, in and of itself, is very helpful to us 20 out there, as well as, again, I want to thank the staff. 21 Thank you. 22 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: Okay. Well done. Thank you. 23 Mr. Mac Iver, followed again by Mr. Wilcox. 24 MR. MAC IVER: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I'd like 25 to ask your staff to move this easel up where you can see PETERS SHORTHAND REPORTING CORPORATION (916) 362-2345 72 1 it. I have a couple of maps there that I think shed some 2 light that would be interesting to you. 3 My name is Doug Mac Iver. I'm here as a private 4 citizen representing myself. I am semi-retired. I do have 5 a consulting business on the side. 6 I worked for Southwestern Cement, which has been 7 succeeded by Southdown (phonetic) for many years. I was, 8 when I retired, the manager of environmental engineering for 9 Southdown. 10 Way back in -- we got in the air pollution control 11 business back about 1970, and I was on the advisory 12 committee for the San Bernardino Air Pollution Control 13 District at the time. 14 And the Air Resources Board -- I don't know how it 15 came about -- proposed the State law to draw these air basin 16 boundaries. At that time, San Bernardino County was all in 17 one district, the whole county -- the desert and the basin. 18 I went up to South Lake Tahoe to an ARB meeting at 19 that time -- I think it was in the early seventies; I'm not 20 sure of the date -- and asked the ARB at that time to 21 separate the desert part of the county from the Los Angeles 22 Basin part of the county. And they did that. 23 And that's, in part, how we come about the 24 Southeast Desert Air Basin. 25 I have served on the Scientific and Technical PETERS SHORTHAND REPORTING CORPORATION (916) 362-2345 73 1 Advisory Committee for several iterations of these districts 2 as applied to San Bernardino County. I'm not on the 3 Technical Advisory Committee for the Mojave Desert Air 4 Quality Management District. 5 I did send a letter in. It's in your Board 6 package now. And what I'm asking is that the Air Resources 7 Board move the present boundaries of the Southeast Desert 8 Air Basin to the south to include the Big Bear Lake Valley 9 when they determine the boundaries of the South Coast Air 10 Basin and the New Mojave Desert Air Basin. 11 This can be conveniently done by moving the basin 12 south six miles to the east/west line common to Township 1 13 North and 2 North, and continuing it west about 12 miles to 14 the North-South line between Range 1 West and 2 West, and 15 thence north to their present boundaries. 16 And I'd like to show you that on this map, on this 17 lower -- 18 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: So, you're talking about a 19 six-mile shift; is that -- 20 MR. MAC IVER: Yes. 21 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: Okay. 22 MR. MAC IVER: A six-mile shift to the south and 23 12 miles -- this is the present boundary here (indicating on 24 map). After I ask the -- and some others -- the ARB way 25 back then to draw the boundaries, I didn't pay any more PETERS SHORTHAND REPORTING CORPORATION (916) 362-2345 74 1 attention to how they drew the boundaries, and I don't know 2 how that came about as a matter of fact. 3 But they did draw the boundaries across here in a 4 straight line (indicating). 5 (Thereupon, the reporter requested the 6 witness speak into the microphone.) 7 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: We're having a -- 8 MR. MAC IVER: I'm sorry. I have trouble reaching 9 this. Can we get that a little closer? Oh, that'd be 10 great. 11 (Thereupon, a wireless microphone was 12 provided to the witness.) 13 MR. MAC IVER: Hear me now? This slide is 60 14 miles here straight across over on the other side of Los 15 Angeles County, goes right over the top of Mount San 16 Antonio, probably the high point in the San Gorgonio or the 17 San Gabriel range here, and continues to the west, and it 18 jogs up like this (indicating) on the other mountains. 19 This is the area that I would say should be -- I 20 propose that you change. Not a major change overall. 21 The hydrologic boundary they showed early on the 22 map, you can see right about here, the Big Bear Airport, 23 water flows to the west or to the east into the Southeast 24 Desert or Mojave Desert Air Basin. This does flow to the 25 west. PETERS SHORTHAND REPORTING CORPORATION (916) 362-2345 75 1 So, we have a confusing picture on hydrologic 2 boundaries. And I would like to quote to you the State law 3 that doesn't say anything about hydrologic boundaries, but 4 it does say -- where did it go here -- Part 39606 says 5 (reading) the state board shall (a) based on similar 6 meteorological and geographic conditions, and consideration 7 for political boundary lines wherever practicable, divide 8 the State into air basins to fulfill the purposes of this 9 division. 10 And part of the old Board bill (sic), 39606.1, 11 Part (a)(4), says (reading) Any area, contiguous to the 12 areas indicated in paragraphs 1 to 3 inclusive, that the 13 Board determines by a preponderance of evidence is 14 appropriate for inclusion (sic). 15 So, on this map under "political considerations," 16 there are several special districts in Big Bear Lake. This 17 is the boundaries of the municipal water district. That 18 southern boundary here is essentially what I've listed on 19 here. I think that's along Township -- I've got to look it 20 up. I can't remember that. 1 North and 2 South, or it's in 21 my letter to the staff under "Proposal A" anyway. 22 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: Okay. 23 MR. MAC IVER: And it comes along here. These are 24 the range lines and the township lines that are easy to 25 define geographically or legally. It could also be -- PETERS SHORTHAND REPORTING CORPORATION (916) 362-2345 76 1 define a boundary like this, the special district boundary. 2 That's easy to do as well. And those are available for 3 several districts here that could be defined. 4 One of our special districts is the Big Bear Area 5 Regional Wastewater Agency. They have proposed to build a 6 waste to energy plant in the Big Bear area. It'd be a small 7 plant. Big Bear Lake is at 6750 feet approximately. That's 8 a mile above San Bernardino. Any emissions from this basin 9 are very low and have no practical effect on either Mojave 10 Desert Air Basin or the South Coast Air Basin. 11 Here's their landfill site right up here just 12 across into the Mojave Desert Air Basin now, and are in the 13 Mojave Desert AQMD. And they've talked with those people 14 about building this plant. And they've come to Big Bear. 15 Okay. The Big Bear Lake Valley and South Coast 16 Air Basin really have very little in common. Big Bear is 17 sparsely populated, does not have any heavy industry. It's 18 basically a mountain recreation area. It does not have the 19 severe inversion layer that is found during parts of the 20 year in the relatively low lying South Coast Air Basin, 21 which ranges from sea level in the west to about 1500 feet 22 in elevation east of San Bernardino, not including the 23 surrounding mountains, which enclose the South Coast Air 24 Basin. 25 And, in fact, as I said, Big Bear is more than a PETERS SHORTHAND REPORTING CORPORATION (916) 362-2345 77 1 mile high above San Bernardino. There are many features of 2 Big Bear which are more similar to the high desert than the 3 South Coast, especially the elevation of the mountain 4 boundaries, such as at Holcomb Valley (phonetic), which is 5 right up here, the area of Wrightwood, which is on over 6 here. It doesn't show on this map. 7 There are many areas -- well, Wrightwood's right 8 in here, this high area of mountains here. 9 The areas along the mountain boundaries of the San 10 Gabriel Mountains, the Tehachapi Mountains, the eastern 11 flank of the Sierra Nevada Mountains all have elevations 12 equal or higher than in Big Bear. 13 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: Can I ask you to go back and 14 cover a point for me? 15 MR. MAC IVER: Sure. 16 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: Go back to the hydrologic 17 boundary again. Is that the full six mile shift? How much 18 of that is shifted? 19 MR. MAC IVER: The hydrologic boundary, as I can 20 see here, it comes right -- 21 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: That's primarily the 22 unincorporated area, correct? 23 MR. MAC IVER: Well, that's right. 24 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: Okay. 25 MR. MAC IVER: But there are several special PETERS SHORTHAND REPORTING CORPORATION (916) 362-2345 78 1 districts in that area. 2 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: But those special districts have 3 no bearing on the hydrologic boundary, though, do they? 4 MR. MAC IVER: That's true. 5 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: Okay. 6 MR. MAC IVER: That's right. 7 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: So, characterize for me orally, 8 if you can, what kind of a shift we're talking about to 9 follow the true hydrologic boundary. 10 MR. MAC IVER: Well -- 11 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: Can you characterize it for me? 12 MR. MAC IVER: I think it would come right across 13 here, and this eastern part of the boundary (indicating) 14 would be on the -- would flow into the -- 15 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: Mojave. 16 MR. MAC IVER: -- Mojave Desert Air Basin or 17 SEDAB. 18 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: Okay. 19 MR. MAC IVER: The eastern part does flow into the 20 San Bernardino or Santa Ana River. 21 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: South Coast. Okay. 22 MR. MAC IVER: No doubt about that. If you look 23 up here at this map -- I would invite you to come look at 24 this close, if you would -- you can see that Big Bear is up 25 there kind of like an island sitting up there above most of PETERS SHORTHAND REPORTING CORPORATION (916) 362-2345 79 1 this down here (indicating). 2 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: Okay. Big Bear City would be in 3 the South Coast Air Basin if you followed the hydrologic 4 boundary, correct? 5 MR. MAC IVER: Well, I'm not absolutely sure about 6 that. Mel Zelden, who's here from the South Coast AQMD, had 7 a map when he was up at Big Bear Lake -- 8 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: Okay. Mel? 9 MR. MAC IVER: -- that showed Big Bear sitting on 10 one side and Big Bear Lake -- City of Big Bear Lake on the 11 other side of that boundary. 12 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: Okay. May we ask Mr. Zelden to 13 join on your nickel, sir? 14 MR. MAC IVER: Sure. 15 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: Mel, why don't you introduce 16 yourself for our court reporter. 17 MR. ZELDEN: Okay. My name is Mel Zelden. I'm 18 Planning Manager with the South Coast Air Quality Management 19 District, and I'm glad to be here this morning. 20 I believe that one of the charts that David Ipps 21 had presented showed the boundary of the hydrologic unit 22 superimposed on the existing air basin boundary, and that's 23 probably as good a picture as can be drawn. 24 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: Okay. Can staff characterize or 25 can you, Mel, the distance shift. PETERS SHORTHAND REPORTING CORPORATION (916) 362-2345 80 1 MR. ZELDEN: The boundary itself includes much of 2 the Big Bear area within the South Coast drainage unit. 3 It's a funny type of hydrologic boundary. And I think the 4 graph probably depicts it better than anything I can 5 describe. I don't know if it's possible, perhaps, to put it 6 back up on the screen. 7 But areas such as Crestline, Running Springs exist 8 in the Mojave -- not the Mojave, excuse me -- the Southeast 9 Desert drainage basin; whereas, Big Bear is in the South 10 Coast drainage basin. 11 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: Is that different or consistent 12 with the hydrologic boundary? 13 MR. ZELDEN: That is the hydrologic boundary. 14 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: Okay. 15 MR. ZELDEN: It does not exactly parallel the 16 existing basin boundary divider, which is more or less a 17 straight line for -- probably for convenience purposes 18 rather than having some sort of jagged line defining the 19 difference between the two air basins. 20 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: I guess -- think it's my mike 21 that's doing that (speaking of microphone cutting in and 22 out). So, I'll just have to speak loud then. 23 There needs to be a logic presented here that we 24 can grasp readily relative to deviating from the staff 25 recommendation. There's a lot of information here about -- PETERS SHORTHAND REPORTING CORPORATION (916) 362-2345 81 1 that you're presenting about hydrologic boundaries and other 2 such considerations. 3 But if you can concisely summarize it and give us 4 some logic behind it, we'll be happy to discuss it and 5 consider it. But I'm having a hard time getting my arms 6 around it right now. 7 So, staff, or Mr. Mac Iver, or Mel, if you could 8 help with that, I'd be grateful. 9 MR. ZELDEN: Let me just say that I believe the 10 staff has been able to put up that map again. 11 The areas included in Big Bear Lake south and west 12 of that red line are part of the South Coast hydrologic 13 drainage basin. And areas to the north and east of that red 14 line are in the Southeast Desert drainage basin. And you 15 can see the blue line, which represents the current boundary 16 and how that relates to the hydrologic boundary. 17 But Big Bear Lake, Big Bear City, by hydrologic 18 unit, is in the South Coast drainage. 19 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: Okay. 20 SUPERVISOR RIORDAN: I'm going to interrupt, Mr. 21 Chairman, if I might, through you, the Chair. 22 You know, I'm going to disagree with you. And I'm 23 not in any way a hydrologist. But I would tell you, as the 24 representative of that area and up there a great deal of the 25 time -- plus looking at the USGS maps -- if, indeed -- and PETERS SHORTHAND REPORTING CORPORATION (916) 362-2345 82 1 you'll have to help me -- for instance, Baldwin Lake, if it 2 drained -- which it really doesn't, because it's sort of in 3 and of itself -- but if it drained, it's going to go down 4 the Mojave side of those mountains. And, in fact, if you 5 look at some of the USGS maps, you could come almost to 6 Greenway to see where that drainage goes down. 7 And I can't tell by this map. And tell me, is 8 Baldwin Lake on this map, staff? 9 MS. POPEJOY: No. 10 SUPERVISOR RIORDAN: Where would Baldwin Lake be? 11 MR. MC GUIRE: It is not on this map. It is on a 12 smaller, more detailed map that I'm looking at. It is north 13 and east of Big Bear and, in fact, is right on the 14 hydrologic boundary. 15 SUPERVISOR RIORDAN: Right. So, I guess what I -- 16 because I don't know that this is a map that we'd ever say 17 is to scale, am I right or am I wrong? 18 MR. MC GUIRE: That's correct. That's for 19 illustration purposes. 20 SUPERVISOR RIORDAN: That's for illustration 21 purposes. And I think what I'd like to tell the Board is 22 that probably Mr. Mac Iver's map, which is difficult to see 23 at best right now, would actually take that re d line back 24 to a short part of what is called Big Bear Lake, that blue 25 area that appears to be the lake. PETERS SHORTHAND REPORTING CORPORATION (916) 362-2345 83 1 And it would kind of cut off a tip of that, not a 2 very big tip. But that's really where that hydrologic line 3 is according to the USGS maps that I've seen. 4 So, I just want to draw your attention. I'm not 5 trying to be argumentative, but I think this is more just 6 sort of an illustration. And if we really want to get 7 technical, it comes down a little bit. 8 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: Mr. McGuire? 9 MR. MC GUIRE: The map is indeed accurate and is 10 drawn to scale with respect to the USGS boundaries. The 11 hydrologic boundary is exactly there, and Big Bear is 12 clearly south and west of it from the more detailed map that 13 we have. 14 SUPERVISOR RIORDAN: Well, then, where would 15 Baldwin Lake be? 16 MR. MC GUIRE: Baldwin Lake would be located just 17 about up there where the blue line intersects that little 18 tip on the right of the red line. 19 In other words, Baldwin Lake is -- according to 20 the map that I'm looking at -- just at the boundary. And it 21 would be not illogical to expect it to drain almost either 22 direction from the scale of the map that I see. 23 SUPERVISOR RIORDAN: All right. Okay. Well, so, 24 what you're saying is that the -- then, coming into the lake 25 area, that wouldn't drain that way either, just a short PETERS SHORTHAND REPORTING CORPORATION (916) 362-2345 84 1 portion of it? 2 MR. MC GUIRE: Big Bear Lake, according to the 3 USGS, would drain to the south and the west; in other words, 4 to the South Coast Air Basin. 5 SUPERVISOR RIORDAN: Well, the lake does. I agree 6 with you. The lake does. But there is a portion of that 7 lake that is closest to Baldwin that, in my opinion, would 8 never drain down the other side. 9 First of all, there's some impediment, but that it 10 just sort of seeps down. It's just kind of a -- it doesn't 11 actually drain out of that area. 12 MR. MC GUIRE: The map scale, it is about -- 13 David, correct me if I am wrong. 14 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: Terry? Terry, hold a moment, 15 please. We need to change the court reporter's tape. 16 (Thereupon, there was a brief pause in 17 the proceedings.) 18 MR. MAC IVER: Mr. Chairman? 19 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: Terry? Oh, I'm sorry. Who was 20 speaking? Mr. Mac Iver? 21 MR. MC GUIRE: If you're ready, I would just like 22 to say, for purpose of scale, it is probably about three 23 miles from the tip of Big Bear Lake up to the red line, 24 which is the hydrologic boundary. 25 I would like to mention one other thing that could PETERS SHORTHAND REPORTING CORPORATION (916) 362-2345 85 1 be germane to your consideration, too, and that is, if this 2 boundary line were changed, as being proposed, because of 3 the way that the Olberg bill is drafted, it would change the 4 boundary lines between the South Coast District and the 5 Mojave Desert District, such that not only would Big Bear be 6 in the Desert Air Basin, it would also become a part of the 7 Mojave Desert District. 8 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: Which would be governed then by 9 their local regulations? 10 MR. MC GUIRE: Governed by the Mojave Desert 11 District rather than the South Coast District. 12 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: Mr. Lagarias? 13 Will you yield to Mr. Lagarias, Supervisor? 14 SUPERVISOR RIORDAN: Oh, certainly. 15 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: Okay. 16 MR. LAGARIAS: Doug? Mr. Mac Iver, we've been 17 hearing about the hydrological boundaries, but we're really 18 primarily concerned with the air basin boundary. Are there 19 any emissions that go from this area into the South Coast, 20 or are the predominant emissions coming from the South Coast 21 to this area? 22 MR. MAC IVER: Well, to answer your question, the 23 predominant emissions come from the South Coast to the Big 24 Bear Valley, where the same situation that most of the 25 Mojave Desert AQMD sees in Phelan, and Hesperia, and PETERS SHORTHAND REPORTING CORPORATION (916) 362-2345 86 1 Victorville, and Barstow. It's the massive transport of 2 pollutants from the South Coast Air Basin. And that's why I 3 think that the Big Bear Valley is more properly in the 4 Mojave Desert Air Basin than in the South Coast Air Basin, 5 because they are affected just the same way as those desert 6 communities are with the transport through the Cajon Pass 7 and so forth. 8 I'd like to bring to your attention one thing 9 again. The State law that I read to you a minute ago, it 10 does not say anything about hydrologic boundaries. But it 11 does talk about political subdivisions, and I think that may 12 be a more overriding thing for this Board to consider. 13 You also got to remember that, although the air 14 may flow up through drainages, it also can go straight over 15 the mountains, and it does at times. 16 You want me to proceed, or do you have more 17 questions? 18 MR. LAGARIAS: Go ahead. 19 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: Please, continue. 20 MR. MAC IVER: Can I get a light (speaking of 21 house lights). 22 I'm sorry I don't have nice slides like the staff 23 has presented to you here, but I'm doing this on my own time 24 at my own expense, and I just ran out of things. And this 25 last map here, I just did last night before I came here. PETERS SHORTHAND REPORTING CORPORATION (916) 362-2345 87 1 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: You're doing fine. 2 MR. MAC IVER: Thank you. Okay. Let's see. We 3 covered some of these. 4 The South Coast AQMD has recognized that the Big 5 Bear Valley is different and is in a different situation by 6 granting special exemption to the South Coast Rule 1110.2, 7 emissions form internal combustion engines for the ski 8 resort operators. 9 They also exempted the ski resort operators from 10 the South Coast AQMD's regional clean air market, or 11 RECLAIM, program. If Big Bear stays in the South Coast, are 12 we supposed to go down there every time a new regulation is 13 adopted and ask for the Big Bear area to be exempted? 14 It seems to me that that is -- well, they say 15 they've made special dispensations to those operators, and 16 some of those have big diesel generators that they operate. 17 They're seasonal in the wintertime. It's not fulltime. But 18 that's a consideration. 19 Precipitation was mentioned by the staff. 20 Precipitation varies widely in Big Bear from down at the dam 21 here, which is the heaviest. Out to the west is relatively 22 low. And the precipitation at the west end of the -- or the 23 east end of the valley is very similar to that of the 24 adjoining parts of the Mojave Desert Air Basin and the many 25 other areas of same elevation. PETERS SHORTHAND REPORTING CORPORATION (916) 362-2345 88 1 I think I mentioned that Big Bear is 2 geographically very similar to areas in the Southeast Desert 3 Air Basin or the new Mojave Desert Air Basin, notably those 4 along the east slope of the Sierras (sic) and Tehachapis, 5 the San Gabriel Mountains, and the Wrightwood area. 6 Public support -- last Tuesday, just this week, 7 June 28th (sic), the Big Bear Community Service District 8 adopted a resolution supporting this change. The following 9 special districts have placed proposed resolutions on their 10 agenda for consideration. Big Bear Municipal Water District 11 -- and that's this boundary here -- on June 20th (sic); the 12 Airport District, June 6th (sic); the Big Bear Lake Chamber 13 of Commerce Board of Directors, representing about 520 14 businesses has sent a letter to the ARB, and it's in your 15 Board package, supporting this move. 16 Business reasons -- the Mojave Desert AQMD, if we 17 get into that, we could still be into the Mojave Desert Air 18 Basin in the South Coast AQMD, although maybe that's not 19 what -- that's not what they're saying. 20 You get into one, you get into both; is that 21 right? 22 MS. TRACY: I can talk about that a little bit. 23 That's specific to these two air districts and the 24 definitions of the air districts in the Health and Safety 25 Code, because the South Coast -- because the South Coast PETERS SHORTHAND REPORTING CORPORATION (916) 362-2345 89 1 District is defined as -- it includes those portions of San 2 Bernardino County that are within the South Coast Air Basin 3 as that air basin is described in our own regulations in 4 Title 17. 5 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: You need to state your name, 6 please, for the court reporter. She doesn't see a 7 nameplate. 8 MS. TRACY: I'm sorry. My name is Judy Tracy from 9 the Office of Legal Affairs. 10 And the Mojave Desert District is also defined in 11 the Health and Safety Code to include those portions of San 12 Bernardino County that are not in the South Coast District. 13 So, for these two districts, if the air basin 14 boundary change was in effect, then that would change the 15 district boundaries as well. 16 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: Okay. Mr. Mac Iver, can you 17 wrap this up? 18 MR. MAC IVER: Yeah. Okay. There would be 19 advantages to the businesses to be in the Mojave Desert 20 AQMD. They have no emission fees, permit fees are lower, 21 less stringent rules. That's not necessarily true, but I 22 think future rules will be less stringent. 23 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: Well, it does sound on that 24 point, it does sound as if the South Coast has bent perhaps 25 over backwards to try to accommodate them, from a regulatory PETERS SHORTHAND REPORTING CORPORATION (916) 362-2345 90 1 perspective, relative to providing exemptions and special 2 consideration, right? Is that -- 3 MR. MAC IVER: I would agree with that, yeah. 4 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: Okay. All right. 5 MR. MAC IVER: It's much easier for somebody from 6 Big Bear Lake to get to the Mojave Desert AQMD headquarters 7 to process permits or whatever. It's 54 miles from my 8 house, and I live at the west end of Big Bear Lake, the 9 hardest way to get there. It's 80 or 90 miles to Diamond 10 Bar through a lot of traffic. 11 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: But, as I recall, there's a 12 permit assistance center in Ontario, not far from the Cajon 13 Pass area. It's a fully functioning -- 14 MR. MAC IVER: (Interjecting) Well, it's 60 miles 15 to Ontario. 16 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: Okay. 17 MR. MAC IVER: And Big Bear has low emissions. 18 They're high up, so they don't bother anybody. They could 19 drift either way. 20 Emissions, there's been no monitoring station at 21 Big Bear since 1985. They did get some high ozone readings. 22 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: Right. 23 MR. MAC IVER: But they're lower than they get at 24 Crestline; and perhaps more significantly, they had many 25 fewer hours of high ozone readings. PETERS SHORTHAND REPORTING CORPORATION (916) 362-2345 91 1 That's what I have to say, except I would ask the 2 Board to seriously consider moving the Big Bear Valley into 3 the Mojave Desert Air Basin. 4 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: Okay. 5 MR. MAC IVER: Be glad to answer any questions. 6 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: All right. Thank you very much. 7 I appreciate your comments. 8 Supervisor Riordan. 9 SUPERVISOR RIORDAN: Just a quick question, Mr. 10 Mac Iver. Do you know whether or not the City of Big Bear 11 Lake went on record with any request? I'm unaware, but I 12 thought maybe you might know, living there. 13 MR. MAC IVER: I think they made a request to the 14 Mojave Desert AQMD. 15 SUPERVISOR RIORDAN: No. No. 16 MR. MAC IVER: Well, they had to put it on the -- 17 SUPERVISOR RIORDAN: That was the Community 18 Services District that spoke to -- 19 MR. MAC IVER: No. 20 SUPERVISOR RIORDAN: -- Mojave, but not the city. 21 MR. MAC IVER: I thought they talked to the -- I 22 thought Russ Carlson came down and talked to the Board 23 perhaps in April. I couldn't be there. I had a knee 24 operation. You were there. I wasn't. 25 SUPERVISOR RIORDAN: Yeah. PETERS SHORTHAND REPORTING CORPORATION (916) 362-2345 92 1 MR. MAC IVER: But Big Bear Lake has not done 2 anything. 3 SUPERVISOR RIORDAN: Okay. 4 MR. MAC IVER: They are on the matter of getting 5 their budget together and that's taking all their time and 6 energy. 7 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: Okay. Thank you very much. 8 MR. MAC IVER: You're welcome. 9 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: Our final witness, Mr. Wilcox. 10 Mr. Wilcox, I know that I have a letter from you here that 11 I've had an opportunity to read, and I know my Board member 12 colleagues do as well. 13 MR. WILCOX: I gave you a written statement, which 14 I hope that you've examined. 15 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: Okay. 16 MR. WILCOX: Mr. Chairman, Barbara Riordan, my 17 Supervisor; members of the Board, staff, thank you for 18 letting me speak to you. 19 I live in Big Bear Lake. My name is Ron Wilcox. 20 I live at 898 Andrew Lane, Big Bear Lake. And I'm coming 21 here as a private resident, although a number of my 22 neighbors and friends are very much against this proposal to 23 take the Big Bear Valley out of the South Coast Air Quality 24 Management District. 25 There was a lot of thought here about -- and talk PETERS SHORTHAND REPORTING CORPORATION (916) 362-2345 93 1 about the -- where the water runs. Water doesn't run 2 uphill. Big Bear Valley is a highland valley at the 6700 to 3 7,000 feet. Most of the people that live there live above 4 7,000 feet. 5 We have some information here in the staff's 6 proposal to divide the Southeast Desert, and it brings up 7 about removing Big Bear Lake from the South Coast Air 8 District. 9 The thing I want to bring out about this -- 10 there's three letters in the back of the book. I think it's 11 about F-7 or something like that. One is from Mr. Mac Iver, 12 one is from the Cushenberry Mine Trust, which was formally 13 Kaiser Steel, and one is from the Big Bear Chamber of 14 Commerce. 15 There are a lot of inaccuracies in there. They're 16 suggesting that Big Bear Lake has more in common with the 17 high desert than it does with the South Coast Air Basin. 18 That's patently wrong. 19 Big Bear Lake, to start with, is at 6747 feet. 20 Most of the residents between the distance of 6700 to 7,500 21 feet above sea level. They say that it's sparsely 22 populated. We have 16,000 fulltime residents, 5,000 23 part-time residents. And I just checked with the Chamber of 24 Commerce last week, and they said that we have an average of 25 5 million visitors a year to Big Bear Valley. PETERS SHORTHAND REPORTING CORPORATION (916) 362-2345 94 1 Now, that's hardly sparsely populated. 2 In talking about the valley where the water flows, 3 all the water flows down the Bear Canyon Creek to the Santa 4 Ana River watershed. It doesn't run uphill. There's a 5 ridge line between Big Bear Valley and the Mojave Desert. 6 It's just a cup up in the mountains. 7 And the ridge line east of Baldwin Lake is much 8 higher than Baldwin Lake. So, Baldwin Lake, if it were to 9 ever fill up, which it doesn't -- sometimes it's dry -- it 10 would flow into Big Bear Lake and down the valley to -- 11 through San Bernardino/Riverside. 12 There are some other inaccuracies there. Big Bear 13 Valley is much more similar to San Bernardino and the many 14 groves and fruit trees down there than it is to the Mojave 15 Desert. The mountains are forested with Jeffrey pines. 16 That's that tree that has a vanilla flavor when you put your 17 nose to the bark. 18 The South Coast Air Quality District has many 19 groves and trees. There's a lot of similarity there. 20 The air also flows down -- it's cold mountain air, 21 and it flows down the mountainside into San Bernardino and 22 Riverside, Redlands, and that area. And, yes, we do get an 23 inversion; temperatures come up and bring the smog up into 24 the valley. 25 Sometimes what is not said is maybe more important PETERS SHORTHAND REPORTING CORPORATION (916) 362-2345 95 1 than what is said. I haven't heard anywhere here mentioning 2 about an incinerator being built in Big Bear Valley to burn 3 the trash and the sewer sludge. 4 These things are infamously dirty. Of the 60 some 5 that have been built in the State of California, there's 6 only maybe six or eight still in operation today. 7 I ask you to deny this request and not take Big 8 Bear Valley out of the South Coast Air Quality District, 9 because they have the personnel and the experience that the 10 Mojave Desert doesn't have in controlling pollution. 11 In my closing remarks, I'd like to state to you 12 that I want to compliment you on the fantastic job that 13 you've done in reducing pollution in Southern California. 14 Although I do want to bring to your attention where you're 15 falling down on the job, and that's not informing the public 16 of the good job that you're doing. 17 I absolutely get sick and tired of hearing on the 18 talk radio shows, in the newspapers, at the Chamber of 19 Commerce meetings that you're killing jobs. I came to 20 Southern California and settled in Glendale in 1954. If I 21 didn't have a map, I wouldn't know that the San Gabriel 22 Mountains were behind Glendale. 23 Today, most of the year, you can see the 24 mountains, you can see clear across the valley. I admit 25 there's some bad days. We have a lot of problems and a long PETERS SHORTHAND REPORTING CORPORATION (916) 362-2345 96 1 way to go. Back then -- now, we have maybe three times the 2 population, at least four times the vehicular traffic, yet 3 our air is so much cleaner. And we have you folks to thank 4 for that, and particularly the strict enforcement of the 5 South Coast Air Quality District. 6 And I do thank you. And I ask that you not take 7 the valley out of the South Coast District. Thank you. 8 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: Thank you, sir, for your 9 comments. 10 MR. WILCOX: By the way, while I'm here, I might 11 as well do a little public relations. Big Bear Lake is a 12 fantastic place. In fact, it's the most unique place in the 13 State of California, if not in the world. 14 Now, you folks take vacations, don't you? 15 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: We try to. 16 MR. WILCOX: I invite you to come down. Now, if 17 you can't find a hotel or motel, come to my house. We have 18 room. The first 12 people get the beds and the rest sleep 19 on the floor. 20 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: Thank you. 21 MR. WILCOX: Come down. It'll be the best tourist 22 dollar that you ever spent. And I assure you, when it's 23 winter, we have the best ski areas. Snow Summit is one of 24 the most unique skiing resorts in the nation. So, come 25 visit us. PETERS SHORTHAND REPORTING CORPORATION (916) 362-2345 97 1 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: Thank you. 2 MR. WILCOX: You know, people in the South say, 3 you all come. 4 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: All right. Appreciate it. I 5 visited the Holcomb Valley Boy Scout Ranch a couple of 6 times, and it's beautiful up there. 7 DR. BOSTON: May we adjourn and meet there 8 tomorrow? 9 (Laughter.) 10 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: I think Supervisor Roberts is 11 going to have some competition for the tourist dollar it 12 appears. 13 Thank you, sir. 14 Well, we have heard from the witnesses. We've 15 heard the summary from staff of the written comments. Does 16 staff have any further comments? 17 Jim, I asked you to take a minute. I don't want 18 you to -- and I know you won't -- I don't want you to 19 confuse the issue, but I want you to give a little bit of a 20 history relative to what you've seen over the couple of 21 decades with boundaries being drawn. 22 Would you do that for us? 23 MR. BOYD: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I'll try to 24 be brief. 25 You got some history from some of the previous PETERS SHORTHAND REPORTING CORPORATION (916) 362-2345 98 1 witnesses. But in the beginning, which was the year 1969, 2 the new Air Resources Board divided the State up into 11 air 3 basins. But one must remember that, in the beginning, there 4 were fewer than 20 million of us in the State as well. 5 There haven't been a lot of changes, and air basin 6 boundaries don't change often. In the mid-70s, we created 7 the Mountain Counties Air Basin, Lake Tahoe, and Lake County 8 Air Basins. In the later seventies, we did some adjustments 9 to San Diego and the northeast plateau, and the South Coast, 10 South Central Coast, and minor changes in the San Joaquin 11 Valley-Southeast Desert as late as last year. 12 But these have all been very minor. 13 Traditionally, air basin boundaries, as you've heard, are 14 set around meteorological criteria that tend to govern the 15 movement and containment of air masses. And that's the 16 business we're in. 17 As you've heard today, almost excessively, is the 18 fact that there is consideration with regard to hydrologic 19 issues, and certainly topographic and geographic issues 20 enter into it; and the topographic/geographic issues 21 certainly influence meteorology. 22 But there's a correlation, of course, amongst them 23 all. There have been considerations, although very minor 24 considerations, in the past to what I will choose to call 25 geopolitical issues, and that really has been when a PETERS SHORTHAND REPORTING CORPORATION (916) 362-2345 99 1 resolution of an air basin boundary could lead to helping 2 solve air quality issues or expedite the resolution of air 3 quality issues by one area or another being able to provide 4 better organizational responsibility for an area's air 5 quality. 6 And those are the only instances I can remember in 7 the last couple of decades where a boundary change might 8 have been made just to facilitate additional activities for 9 air quality. Otherwise, meteorology has been the key issue, 10 and I think meteorology is certainly the key issue in the 11 discussion of Big Bear, Banning, and what have you. 12 That's just kind of a quick capsule summary, not a 13 lot of traffic in dealing with that; a little more activity 14 in dealing with the creation of districts and how they would 15 address issues. And the South Coast Air Basin once included 16 Ventura County. But because of geopolitical issues that I 17 mentioned, it was carved off. Ventura County was authorized 18 to pursue its own issue, because it demonstrated ability to 19 have an aggressive program and to deal with the local folks. 20 Those are the four instances that we've had in the 21 past. 22 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: Okay. 23 MR. LAGARIAS: Mr. Chairman? 24 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: Thank you, Mr. Boyd. Mr. 25 Lagarias. PETERS SHORTHAND REPORTING CORPORATION (916) 362-2345 100 1 MR. LAGARIAS: Mr. Chairman, I have a couple 2 questions, that would help me understand this better, of the 3 staff. 4 The proposed or suggested change involves moving 5 an area by geological boundaries, county lines; is that 6 correct? 7 MR. MC GUIRE: Actually, it would be moving air 8 basin lines. 9 MR. LAGARIAS: An area of how many square miles 10 are we talking about? 11 MR. MC GUIRE: Is this the Big Bear? 12 MR. LAGARIAS: The Big Bear issue. 13 MR. MC GUIRE: An area of about -- let's see, 14 about 6 x 18 miles, say a hundred and some-odd square miles. 15 MR. LAGARIAS: All right. Now, in your response 16 to the Big Bear Lake issue, you raised three points, saying 17 that the current -- changing the boundary is not warranted, 18 and the first one is that the area is in the same watershed 19 as the South Coast Air Basin. But we're really talking 20 about the air basin rather than the watershed. Is that 21 correct? 22 MR. MC GUIRE: That is correct. 23 MR. LAGARIAS: So, those are just general 24 guidelines. 25 MR. MC GUIRE: Yeah. Other than we do believe PETERS SHORTHAND REPORTING CORPORATION (916) 362-2345 101 1 that the law says we are supposed to consider geographic and 2 I believe topographic features. And certainly, we think 3 that the ridges are the most compelling of those. 4 MR. LAGARIAS: All right. And then you say the 5 receptor area of emission sources is in the South Coast. 6 What exactly do you mean? 7 Do you mean that this area is impacting on the 8 South Coast are the South Coast is impacting on it? 9 MR. MC GUIRE: Both. We believe both. 10 The emissions in this area are probably very small 11 compared to the South Coast. But what is emitted in the Big 12 Bear area during the time that the 5 million tourists are up 13 there is surely moving back into the South Coast. But even 14 probably importantly, the Big Bear area is a receptor of 15 emissions from the South Coast. 16 MR. LAGARIAS: Well, everybody knows the South 17 Coast is an 1100 pound gorilla, and it's going to impact 18 more than anything else. 19 So, really, I don't understand what you're saying. 20 What difference does it make? 21 MR. MC GUIRE: Well, typically, we try and make an 22 air basin include the sources and the receptor areas so that 23 they can be treated together. And certainly, that can't be 24 done with bright lines, but we believe that it does make a 25 lot better sense to include the Big Bear area with the South PETERS SHORTHAND REPORTING CORPORATION (916) 362-2345 102 1 Coast rather than with the -- 2 MR. LAGARIAS: Well, it's going to hit anyway. 3 But it would be transport rather than emission sources 4 within the South Coast. 5 MR. MC GUIRE: That's true. 6 MR. LAGARIAS: And then you say it's similar 7 geography and meteorology as the South Coast. I envision 8 the South Coast, when we generally talk about it, as a huge 9 downtown, heavily populated area that dominates our thinking 10 in terms of air quality. 11 I don't see how you can say it's similar to the 12 South Coast. 13 MR. MC GUIRE: It would be more accurate, I think, 14 to have said that, as you move to the easterly parts of the 15 South Coast Air Basin, as shown by Mr. Mac Iver's 16 topographic relief map, it's our view that there is a pretty 17 distinct change when you go from the low desert across that 18 hydrologic boundary into the high desert. 19 MR. LAGARIAS: You're saying it's more similar to 20 the high desert than it is to the -- 21 MR. MC GUIRE: No. We think that there is a 22 fairly abrupt change as you go across the hydrologic 23 boundary, so that things that are in the high desert, in our 24 view, are topographically quite a bit different from what we 25 find in the Big Bear area. PETERS SHORTHAND REPORTING CORPORATION (916) 362-2345 103 1 MR. LAGARIAS: All right. 2 MR. MC GUIRE: In other words, they're just on the 3 other side of the hydrologic divide. That's sort of the 4 point where we believe that if you had to say, "Here's where 5 the high desert. . ." -- 6 MR. LAGARIAS: We're in a gray area. 7 MR. MC GUIRE: Yes, we are. 8 MR. LAGARIAS: But the question is, is the Bear 9 Lake area more similar to the Mojave area than it is to the 10 South Coast Area? 11 MR. MC GUIRE: Deborah, would you like to -- 12 MR. LAGARIAS: Because that's what you're saying. 13 MS. POPEJOY: Well, the South Coast area is really 14 diverse. But you have a lot of foothill or mountain 15 communities in the South Coast that are very similar to the 16 Big Bear area. We've got Hemet. You've got Crestline. 17 You've got Baldy Village. You've got Lake Arrowhead. 18 You've got The Rim of the World. So, we're not talking 19 about it being similar to Ontario or Azusa. But it's more 20 similar to the other mountain communities in the South 21 Coast, more so than the communities in the Southeast Desert. 22 MR. LAGARIAS: All right. And I haven't heard 23 anything from the South Coast on the Bear Lake issue. Is 24 there -- 25 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: I'll call Mel. Mel, can we put PETERS SHORTHAND REPORTING CORPORATION (916) 362-2345 104 1 you on the spot yet again? Jack, you'll recognize him. 2 This is Mel Zelden, who's one of the Planning Managers, and 3 has become over the years quite the expert on particulate 4 matter. So, we'll be working closely with him in a few 5 short months. 6 Mel, can you? 7 MR. ZELDEN: Yes. I wasn't really prepared to 8 offer any direct testimony. I just want to say that our 9 staff supports fully the staff report presented by ARB 10 staff. Our board has not taken any position on this. 11 However, Councilman Paulitz, who represents the 12 Cities of San Bernardino County on our district board, has 13 examined the relevant material on meteorology, topography, 14 and he also believes that it's appropriate to leave the Big 15 Bear area within the current boundaries within the South 16 Coast. 17 The other thing I would like to draw out. Staff 18 had indicated that it's hard to single out Big Bear from the 19 mountain communities in general. When you look at a basin, 20 the mountains ring the basin. And the question is, do you 21 include that ring within or without, and how can you say one 22 specific spot is out, but the others are in? 23 And consistently, I believe, the ARB has, in 24 looking at mountains and how it relates to air basins, has 25 included the mountains as part of the basin area itself. PETERS SHORTHAND REPORTING CORPORATION (916) 362-2345 105 1 Again, looking at air basin boundaries, if you look at the 2 Southern Sierras (sic), those are included, for example, 3 within the San Joaquin Valley. They're not part of the 4 desert portion, but they're part of the San Joaquin Valley 5 because of the same types of analogies and determinations 6 that show that the mountain areas really belong within the 7 basin that they ring rather than the exterior of that basin. 8 MR. LAGARIAS: All right. So, apparently, the 9 South Coast Air Quality Management District has recognized 10 the uniqueness of the Big Bear Lake area by giving them 11 special recognition in the regulations they adopt. 12 MR. ZELDEN: That's correct, because -- 13 MR. LAGARIAS: So, they already have a mechanism. 14 MR. ZELDEN: That is correct. 15 MR. LAGARIAS: Thank you. 16 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: Mel, have you guys been doing 17 some outreach, working with the Chamber and the business 18 groups up there in particular? You've been doing some -- 19 MR. ZELDEN: We have. We've met with the City 20 Council, made a presentation to the City Council about a 21 month ago, and answered their questions that they had on 22 that. 23 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: Okay. There's always a concern, 24 Mel, as I know you know, with any board or commission about 25 the policies. Maybe a more friendly policy shown towards a PETERS SHORTHAND REPORTING CORPORATION (916) 362-2345 106 1 given area or a certain segment of a business community. Do 2 you see kind of some staying power for this special 3 consideration that the South Coast District has given the -- 4 MR. ZELDEN: (Interjecting) I think the district 5 in general will look at unique areas, as we have already 6 done for the ski resorts, and certain allowances for the 7 rules, because they operate in the wintertime, primarily 8 when pollution levels are not high at all. 9 And those sorts of considerations have been done 10 in the past, and I would presume, where appropriate, they'll 11 be done again in the future. 12 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: Okay. So, there weren't any 13 comments like this is the last time we're going to do 14 anything unique, or special, or unusual for you? 15 MR. ZELDEN: No. 16 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: Okay. So, the door is open, and 17 people are traversing back and forth. Okay. 18 MR. ZELDEN: That's correct. 19 SUPERVISOR VAGIM: Mr. Chairman? 20 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: Supervisor Vagim. 21 SUPERVISOR VAGIM: Thank you. This is definitely 22 an issue that's on the cusp. And so, don't walk too far 23 away. We talked about the topography and the hydrological 24 drainage, and we did talk a little bit about the wind 25 currents. PETERS SHORTHAND REPORTING CORPORATION (916) 362-2345 107 1 Can you give me more definitive -- where are the 2 wind currents? I mean, typically, when I look at the map, I 3 see these little arrows. I don't see it on this particular 4 item. 5 MR. ZELDEN: Typically, the mountain areas are 6 receptor sites for the South Coast Air Basin. 7 SUPERVISOR VAGIM: And the prevailing winds don't 8 come down from the desert? 9 MR. ZELDEN: They go primarily from the ocean, 10 sweep across the South Coast, move up the mountain slopes, 11 escape or vent through the pass areas into the deserts. 12 Sometimes they actually go up and over the tops of the 13 crests of the mountains. 14 SUPERVISOR VAGIM: And so, typically, when you 15 stand in the deserts or anyplace in California, the winds 16 are coming from the north to the southeast, and that doesn't 17 happen here? 18 MR. ZELDEN: Moving from the north, they will on 19 occasion, primarily in the fall and the winter when we have 20 offshore flows that sweep down -- 21 SUPERVISOR VAGIM: (Interjecting) They come up 22 from the desert down --- 23 MR. ZELDEN: -- desert, across the mountains, and 24 then down into the -- 25 SUPERVISOR VAGIM: (Interjecting) Is that 50 PETERS SHORTHAND REPORTING CORPORATION (916) 362-2345 108 1 percent of the year, or 25 percent of the year, or -- 2 MR. ZELDEN: (Interjecting) I would say 3 prevailing winds, probably about 60 to 70 percent of the 4 time come in off the ocean and sweep up the slopes and into 5 the mountains. 6 In the wintertime, primarily because of cold air, 7 which tends to pool and flow downhill, you can get flows 8 from the mountains coming down into the basin, but they're 9 generally weak. And it's during the time of the year that 10 we generally don't have a lot of pollution. 11 SUPERVISOR VAGIM: Right. Thank you very much. 12 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: Any other questions? Supervisor 13 Silva. 14 (Thereupon, there was a pause in the 15 proceedings to allow the reporter to 16 replenish her Stenograph paper.) 17 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: Go ahead, Jim. 18 SUPERVISOR SILVA: Over the -- actually the years 19 of my life, Big Bear's always been a nice recreational area 20 for Southern California, and I've enjoyed skiing up there, 21 and water skiing. As a kid, my family took vacations up 22 there. 23 And in this situation, I think that I would 24 probably have to refer to Director Paulitz on AQMD Board, 25 and also our Director here. Barbara, you know the area much PETERS SHORTHAND REPORTING CORPORATION (916) 362-2345 109 1 better than any of us here. And I would really defer to 2 your recommendations. 3 SUPERVISOR RIORDAN: Thank you, Supervisor Silva. 4 I appreciate that. 5 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: There's some real heat on you 6 right now, Supervisor. 7 SUPERVISOR RIORDAN: I think it is a very 8 difficult one. And I think Mr. Boyd summed it up very well, 9 that you have topographical issues, and you have geographic 10 issues, and you have meteorologic issues, and then you have 11 political issues. 12 And we're dealing with an area that is really 13 quite removed geographically from the basin, probably has 14 few major polluters. The biggest sources of pollution in 15 this area probably are from the generators that make snow 16 during the winter months when we have the cleanest part of 17 the air, and then you have the regular businesses, service 18 stations, et cetera. 19 What it is, I think, is a perception. The people 20 who reside in Big Bear physically are so much closer to the 21 desert -- and Mr. Mac Iver, I think, brought that up. And 22 while that doesn't seem significant to you, because of, you 23 know, say 50 miles versus 60 miles, some of those miles are 24 pretty rugged miles. And it is a long way to travel. And 25 you are but a very small dot in a very big South Coast Air PETERS SHORTHAND REPORTING CORPORATION (916) 362-2345 110 1 Basin, because you have huge, huge industries and multiple 2 numbers of sources that need to be regulated. 3 And let me tell you how regulation works. And it 4 is true that South Coast has made some very nice concessions 5 to particularly the ski industry there in our mountains. 6 But it doesn't hurt that the Chair of South Coast is my 7 immediate neighbor in the logic of offices in the districts, 8 because the Supervisor of the 2nd District of the County of 9 San Bernardino is the Chairman of South Coast Air Quality 10 District. 11 So, I can go next door and I can say, "Gee, 12 Supervisor Michaels, you need to help my ski resorts, 13 because they are unique and suffering." And so, therefore, 14 we have some very nice reciprocity in terms of trying to 15 help one another. 16 And I do believe, though, that when Mr. Zelden 17 said that would go on, my hope is it really go on. But it 18 is very nice that I can have that intimate conversation 19 with the head of the South Coast Air Quality Board. 20 We've got some problems here. We're absent a 21 resolution by the city council. We're somewhat absent 22 because it was not a big issue with the Mojave Air Quality 23 District Board. And the Chairman testified to that today. 24 We are not on record taking a position. While 25 we're sympathetic to, I think, Big Bear, I still disagree PETERS SHORTHAND REPORTING CORPORATION (916) 362-2345 111 1 with this hydrologic boundary slightly. And I think what 2 happens is it basically levels out over there by Baldwin 3 Lake and drains nowhere probably. 4 But I think probably my recommendation -- back to 5 Supervisor Silva -- is to adopt the staff recommendation to 6 acknowledge some uniqueness in that Big Bear area; that the 7 lines still remain somewhat the same -- well, you are saying 8 they remain the same. I would like you to bring them about 9 two miles in, but that's only my opinion. 10 And that we extend to maybe Big Bear the 11 opportunity -- because, as I understand, you could always 12 make a request for -- 13 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: Redesignation. 14 SUPERVISOR RIORDAN: -- redesignation in terms of 15 the air basin, and maybe it would be more organized through 16 maybe the political entities that are in Big Bear. 17 We are absent that. And that's unfortunate. 18 While the business community is on record, the public 19 agencies are not on record. And I suspect part of that is 20 because, Supervisor Silva, there were concessions made to 21 those ski resorts, which I thank you for. 22 SUPERVISOR ROBERTS: I'm aware of that. 23 SUPERVISOR RIORDAN: I thank you very much for 24 that. 25 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: I am comfortable with the way PETERS SHORTHAND REPORTING CORPORATION (916) 362-2345 112 1 you've summed it up; and while leaving that door open with 2 us that, if they get organized and they present a case and 3 fill in some gasps which are very apparent relative to the 4 local political jurisdiction -- and I think, too, there's a 5 lack of consensus. I applaud Mojave District for showing 6 restraint and being above board, and appreciate Chairman 7 Rothschild coming here and saying, "Hey, we haven't -- you 8 know, we've discussed it. We're interested, but we don't 9 have a position." 10 And I appreciate that. 11 So, staff, I guess what I would ask, and if my 12 colleagues would support, would be that there be some 13 communication back to the local jurisdictions, work closely 14 with Mr. Zelden and the South Coast District, Supervisor 15 Silva, and Supervisor Riordan to ensure that we get the 16 right folks and say, "Hey, look. This was an issue at our 17 Board meeting. We spent considerable time considering your 18 plight. There's some gaps. We need to hear from you 19 further to determine whether or not this is an option you 20 desire or not." And then we'll consider it at the proper 21 time should they respond more completely. 22 So, with that, are there any -- I thank you, 23 Supervisor Riordan and Jim, thanks for kind of tying it all 24 together. 25 Any other comments? Jim, thanks for the summary PETERS SHORTHAND REPORTING CORPORATION (916) 362-2345 113 1 on the air basins. That helped me. 2 Any other questions, comments from staff? All 3 right. 4 SUPERVISOR RIORDAN: Mr. Chairman, I'll move the 5 resolution, unless we have to disclose any -- 6 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: Well, yes. Let me thank you for 7 that. Is there any ex parte communication we need to 8 disclose on this item? 9 SUPERVISOR RIORDAN: I would simply say that Mr. 10 Mac Iver met approximately one week ago for just a short 11 conversation on the testimony that he made today. Points 12 were all raised in that conversation that were made here at 13 the podium. 14 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: Okay. Then before you 15 officially made the motion, I will close the record. The 16 Board has not granted an extension of the comment period, so 17 I'll officially close the record on this portion of Agenda 18 Item No. 96-4-2. Written or oral comments received after 19 the comment period has been closed will not be accepted. We 20 covered ex parte communication. Thank you. 21 And we have a resolution before us that we've had 22 for some time. Are there any suggested changes to that 23 resolution? 24 SUPERVISOR RIORDAN: Mr. Chairman, I don't know 25 that it needs to be embodied in the resolution, but I PETERS SHORTHAND REPORTING CORPORATION (916) 362-2345 114 1 considered, if I were to make the motion to adopt, that I 2 would also add an addendum onto that motion just to say 3 that, as you so capably stated, that we continue to open the 4 door for conversations and discussions about the location of 5 the Big Bear Valley, whether it be in the South Coast Basin 6 or the Mojave Air Quality Basin. 7 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: Okay. That's certainly 8 acceptable to me. There's a motion. Is there a second? 9 SUPERVISOR SILVA: Second. 10 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: Supervisor Silva. Any 11 discussion before we vote on Resolution 96-20? 12 SUPERVISOR SILVA: Mr. Chairman, I, too, have 13 discussed the issue with Supervisor Michaels and Director 14 Paulitz. 15 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: Okay. Very good. Two members 16 of the South Coast Board. 17 All right. We'll do this via voice vote. All 18 those in favor, say aye? 19 (Ayes.) 20 Any opposed? Okay. Motion carries. Thank you. 21 All right. Jim, thank you, your team, Terry. 22 Appreciate very much the work on this item. 23 SUPERVISOR RIORDAN: Yes. We are appreciative. 24 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: Okay. The third agenda item, 25 96-4-3, public meeting to consider a report to the Board on PETERS SHORTHAND REPORTING CORPORATION (916) 362-2345 115 1 the progress of the Grand Canyon Visibility Transport 2 Commission. This is an informational item, which does not 3 require any Board action. 4 The Grand Canyon Visibility Transport Commission 5 was created by the Administrator of U.S. EPA pursuant to the 6 requirements of Section 169 of the Federal Clean Air Act of 7 1990. 8 Governor Wilson is the titular Commission member 9 for California, and he has designated me as his 10 representative on the Commission. 11 Since the Commission has nearly completed its 12 work, I have asked the staff to present this report to day 13 to inform the Board members of the Commission's activities, 14 the probable recommendation to the U.S. EPA, with special 15 emphasis on the air impacts -- excuse me -- on any impacts 16 the Commission's action may have on California's air 17 pollution control program. 18 So, I've asked Mr. Boyd to have his team, John 19 Holmes and others, who have been absolutely instrumental in 20 providing technical guidance to the Commission -- and it's 21 been extremely rewarding to me to see how highly regarded 22 our technical staff is, particularly relative to other 23 States. We have truly an outstanding team. 24 And so, Jim, if you'd introduce the item, and 25 cover it for us, I'd be grateful. PETERS SHORTHAND REPORTING CORPORATION (916) 362-2345 116 1 MR. BOYD: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And what Dr. 2 Holmes and I would like to do is provide a little history, 3 move on to discussing the Grand Canyon Commission itself, 4 and close, as you indicated, with a summary of what we've 5 learned from the Commission's efforts, and a few words on 6 the recommendations that will be put before the Commission 7 for its approval at its meeting next month, which is 8 intended to be the final meeting of the Commission. 9 The Commission, the Grand Canyon Commission is 10 itself the culmination of I'd say maybe more than 20 years 11 worth of work by a variety of public and private parties 12 who've worked to identify the causes of visibility 13 degradation, certainly in the Grand Canyon area, but even 14 more broadly in the so-called "golden triangle" of national 15 parks on the Colorado Plateau, which includes a number of 16 the premier national parks in this nation -- notably, the 17 Grand Canyon, Zion, Brice Canyon, the Canyon Lands Park, and 18 the Petrified Forest, and a large number of so-called Class 19 1 areas that are administered by the National Park Service, 20 the U.S. Forest Service, and the Bureau of Land Management, 21 and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. 22 There's been an historical recognition of haze, 23 regional haze, in that general area, as I say, for roughly 24 the 20 years. There's been a recognition of the growth of 25 the smeltering industry and the power plant industry in the PETERS SHORTHAND REPORTING CORPORATION (916) 362-2345 117 1 West. And early studies seem to implicate sulfates as a 2 problem in dealing with visibility. And there have been 3 other studies. 4 And in the 1977 Clean Air Act amendments, the 5 subject of PSD, or prevention of significant deterioration, 6 was introduced to the nation as part of the clean air 7 program. There was discussion of a national goal relative 8 to visibility. 9 There was discussion of some so-called plume 10 blight. There was an introduction of the issue of regional 11 haze. 12 In the recent history, there's been settlement on 13 the Navajo Power Plant in the Southwest that provided -- 14 although not by California standards -- very significant 15 control requirements by standards applicable in the area 16 before they were. And that began to, in some people's 17 minds, address the dilemma of reducing pollutants for not 18 only public health purposes but for the visibility issue in 19 the area. 20 But it was the Clean Air Act of 1990 that really 21 provided the impetus for what we're going to talk about 22 today. The Clean Air Act -- there are provisions in the 23 Clean Air Act that provide for the establishment of so- 24 called transport commissions. This is when the nation and 25 the Congress began to recognize that there was long-range PETERS SHORTHAND REPORTING CORPORATION (916) 362-2345 118 1 transport, something we'd been knowledgeable of and dealing 2 with for a long time in the nation State of California, but 3 the rest of the nation discovered the issue. 4 And they provided for the formation voluntarily of 5 transport commissions, but they specified the creation of 6 the so-called Grand Canyon Visibility Transport Commission. 7 And there was an EPA finding at the time that 8 dealing just with the -- the Clean Air Act mandated regional 9 haze, and EPA found shortly thereafter that dealing with 10 regional haze can't be controlled by the Clean Air Act 11 requirements of that time alone. 12 So, U.S. EPA, in 1991, created an ad hoc group, on 13 which I had the distinct pleasure of serving, to recommend 14 to the EPA how to deal with the requirement in the Clean Air 15 Act to create a Grand Canyon Commission. And they asked 16 this group to draft a charter for the Commission. 17 We did that work. It was several State air 18 directors and other federal agencies, and some 19 representatives of Indian tribes in the area. And the U.S. 20 EPA Administrator, then formally invited nine State 21 Governors to be members of a Commission. The EPA 22 Administrator further invited Indian tribes and other 23 federal agencies and, at the same time, asked the ad hoc 24 group to continue its work to recommend some kind of 25 organizational/programmatic approach to the Commission. PETERS SHORTHAND REPORTING CORPORATION (916) 362-2345 119 1 The Commission was created, and then met. Eight 2 of the nine States who were invited, by the way, accepted 3 the invitation. The State of Idaho chose to not 4 participate. 5 The Commission met for the first time in November 6 of '91, which met to the month the requirement of the law 7 that this be launched within a year. But that time was 8 taken, because the law also said within four years of the 9 creation date, the Commission had to report to the EPA 10 Administrator and make its recommendations. 11 The Commission at that time adopted its charter 12 and adopted an organizational approach and a programmatic 13 approach to dealing with the issue that Dr. Holmes will give 14 a little more detail on. 15 John Holmes has served as my right-hand person on 16 this effort since the earliest days after being named as 17 California's representative to the Operations Committee that 18 I, as I was, called upon Dr. Holmes for the help of himself 19 and his organization. 20 And, as you'll see, he has served for lo these 21 many years in a number of capacities. As the Chairman 22 indicated, the expertise of the State of California was 23 called upon to assist these folks in this effort. 24 The Commission asked for an extension till June of 25 this year to finalize its work -- otherwise, the deadline PETERS SHORTHAND REPORTING CORPORATION (916) 362-2345 120 1 date was November of last year -- one, because the work was 2 mammoth in its undertaking; (2) it was nearing success; and 3 (3) the federal budgetary crises and the closure of the 4 Federal Government several times in this past fiscal year 5 created problems for the commission in it being able to 6 finish its work. 7 And so, it was extended to June. And on June 8 10th, at the Grand Canyon, the first time the Commission has 9 returned to the Canyon since its inception in 1991, the 10 Commission will hear a report from the structure that it 11 created to address this subject, which report, if endorsed, 12 will be forwarded to the Administrator of EPA, who is to 13 consider the recommendations as U.S. EPA deals with the 14 issue of regional haze, and considers a recommendation as it 15 tries to deal with solutions to the problems in the general 16 area. 17 With that, I'd like to call upon Dr. Holmes to 18 begin the presentation and then I'd like to close a little 19 bit later with some statements about the experience and what 20 we've learned, and what it foretells for the future. 21 Because I think this has proven to be a precedent-setting 22 exercise that will not be limited to just the issue of the 23 Grand Canyon and the so-called Colorado Plateau. But I 24 think it has established a precedent for future years and 25 generations in how to deal with air quality issues that PETERS SHORTHAND REPORTING CORPORATION (916) 362-2345 121 1 affect regions as big as the West, because we knew before we 2 went into this, and we've known more as a result of this 3 exercise, that we are not an island nor are any of the 4 States; that air quality is a huge regional issue and has to 5 be addressed that way. 6 A couple of other points I would make before 7 turning it over to Dr. Holmes. Concerns that I had for the 8 State of California in moving into this process, and one 9 reason I recommended we invest some of our resources in the 10 process was that in the beginning of this process, quite 11 frankly, the limited data and assumptions being used by 12 federal agencies were that California -- and predominantly 13 Southern California -- was basically responsible for what 14 ailed the entire area; that is, Southern California's bad 15 air was being transported into the Grand Canyon and into the 16 whole Colorado Plateau. And, therefore, there was nothing 17 for anyone else to do but wait for California to clean up 18 its act. 19 The other dilemma that I recognized was that, 20 since air quality is regional, that the international 21 boundary at Mexico precluded Mexico from being considered, 22 and that had to be entered into the equation. And it has 23 been now. 24 With that, I'll call upon Dr. Holmes to address t 25 he issue. PETERS SHORTHAND REPORTING CORPORATION (916) 362-2345 122 1 DR. HOLMES: Thank you, Mr. Boyd. I'm glad you 2 don't have to go on any longer. 3 (Laughter.) 4 DR. HOLMES: But my colleague, Tony Van Curen, and 5 I will try to give you some of the flavor and the details of 6 how this four-and-a-half-year long process, how it worked 7 and what we found out. 8 Let me pay special tribute to Tony. If I've been 9 Jim's right-hand man, Tony has been my right-hand man, and 10 he has committed even more time than I have by a wide margin 11 to make this whole thing work and to keep it on the right 12 track to protect California's interest. And I can't thank 13 him enough for all the work he's done to make this work out 14 for us, for you, the Board, and for the State of California. 15 Before we start, let me take a moment, actually 12 16 minutes, to show you a short video that will try to put this 17 whole thing in perspective, what the problem is and how 18 we're going about dealing with. 19 If you could push the button that starts the 20 video, I would appreciate it very much. This was produced 21 for the Grand Canyon Commission by Colorado State 22 University, and it's very professionally done. I was 23 pleased with it. 24 (Thereupon, the video production was played 25 for the members and the audience.) PETERS SHORTHAND REPORTING CORPORATION (916) 362-2345 123 1 DR. HOLMES: Okay. Now, if we could go over to 2 the slides, we can get on with the meat of the presentation. 3 That video was shown around the Western States 4 last fall and the spring at a number of public meetings. 5 So, the part about public input was met very earnestly, and 6 we did have dozens and dozens of meetings around the West 7 that Mr. Boyd and the Chairman participated in. That was a 8 part of the plan. 9 Now, as for the Commission itself, the 10 organization that was established by Mr. Boyd and the 11 organizing committee, the Commission itself, the Operations 12 Committee, who were made up largely of air directors and 13 representatives -- air directors of the States and 14 representatives from the federal land management agencies, 15 along with tribes. 16 And the Public Advisory Committee, which is 17 answerable to the Commission as status alongside the Op Com, 18 they are the ones who worked so hard to draft these 19 recommendations that are now before the Commission itself. 20 The Technical Committee, the committee that I 21 chaired, was responsible for gathering all of the data that 22 was to be used in analyzing visibility in the Far West, its 23 sources, causes, the severity of the problem in various 24 parts of the West, and pointing the way to solutions. 25 We were very fortunate to have some excellent PETERS SHORTHAND REPORTING CORPORATION (916) 362-2345 124 1 people on that committee and the subcommittees. 2 The other committee, the Alternative Assessment 3 Committee, was charged with taking the products that the 4 Technical Committee produced, putting them together into an 5 air quality model, and developing various possible 6 regulatory approaches to reducing regional haze in the West. 7 And it didn't stop there. They looked at the 8 economic impacts of any regulatory measure that might be 9 implemented. They looked at equity issues. They looked at 10 secondary benefits that might accrue as a result of 11 increasing visual range, such as improved public health, 12 less damage to crops and forests, this sort of thing. 13 So, it was a big job for the Assessment Committee, 14 and it was done largely by the people who served on the 15 Assessment Subcommittee, and that includes my colleague Tony 16 Van Curen. 17 We could go on to -- and then there were a number 18 of contractors and so-called co-operators, who also helped, 19 too. California's participation in this was heavy. I'll go 20 through this very quickly. 21 On the Public Advisory Committee, we had Mike 22 Connolly from Acompo. The Acompo Band is a tribe of Indians 23 who are in the South Coast -- rather in Eastern San Diego 24 County. Mike Connolly is one of the few people among the 25 tribes in the West that has a good background in air quality PETERS SHORTHAND REPORTING CORPORATION (916) 362-2345 125 1 issues. 2 Alan Lloyd from the South Coast, very, very 3 valuable member. He was appointed by California to be on 4 the PAC. Now he's with Desert Research in Nevada; so, he's 5 representing Region IX of EPA. 6 Rich Somerville, the Air Director in San Diego; 7 John White, appointed by Region IX. He was probably one of 8 the most outspoken members of our delegation to the Public 9 Advisory Committee. 10 Bob Zweig, a physician from Riverside County, who 11 has kept current on air quality issues over many, many 12 years. 13 Eldon Cotton, and later John Schumann from LADWP`; 14 Mike Gage from CALSTART, the electric vehicle consortium in 15 Southern California; and then Ann Shen Smith from SoCal Gas 16 in Los Angeles. 17 These people were held together by the ongoing 18 activities of the Chairman and Jim Boyd. It took a lot of 19 work, but these people wound up all singing from the same 20 page of the hymnal, and became fairly strong advocates for 21 the solutions that were proposed by the committee as a 22 whole. 23 Next slide, please. 24 On the technical side, myself, as Chair of the 25 Technical Committee; Terry McGuire from our Technical PETERS SHORTHAND REPORTING CORPORATION (916) 362-2345 126 1 Support Division was on the -- the Chair of the Emissions 2 Committee for a while at the beginning. 3 Bill Lockett was very active on the Communications 4 Committee. The Communications Committee, which I didn't get 5 into that background, was responsible for keeping the public 6 informed as to the activities of the Commission. They were 7 the ones who organized and convened the 60 or 65 meetings 8 that were held at various places around the West as the 9 Commission's work progressed. 10 Tony Van Curen is the only guy in this whole thing 11 who was indispensable, in my view. Bart Croes from my 12 Division was active in the modeling efforts. 13 Dale Weirman from California Department of 14 Forestry and Fire Protection, active in the fire emissions 15 area. 16 Lowell Ashbaugh, who used to work for us here, was 17 on the Meteorology Subcommittee. 18 And others, Jodean Geise, Ed Freudenburg from 19 LADWP, and Mike Connolly again. 20 The Technical Assessment Group included a lot of 21 industry representatives as well. Veronica Kuhn from the 22 Natural Resources Defense Council, Cathy Reheis from WSPA, 23 Michelle Nuttall, Rob Farber, Vince Mirabella from SoCal 24 Edison, and others were active either as members of 25 committees or as contractors. PETERS SHORTHAND REPORTING CORPORATION (916) 362-2345 127 1 They come from a wide range of organizations over 2 the entire State, as you can see from this slide. 3 The work that was carried out by the people on 4 these committees and many, many others from other States and 5 federal agencies is on the next slide here. 6 The goal of all this is the integrated assessment 7 system, which is a very large air quality model, coupled to 8 various kinds of economic models that will look into the 9 whole question of what not only the air quality impacts of 10 possible regulatory approaches to reducing the regional 11 haze, but also the impacts on business, industry, 12 individuals, and in particular on tourism. 13 So, there is a lot of information that had to be 14 gathered to go into this integrated assessment system. That 15 type is a little bit small, but we're looking at various 16 emission control scenarios, the term we use, from all of 17 these different aspects. And a lot of the information that 18 goes into this was gathered either by the technical 19 committees or by contractors. 20 The next slide, please. 21 Just to give you an example of what went into 22 this. My committee was responsible for gathering emission 23 inventory information over a 12-State area. The Commission 24 is eight States, but the emissions that affect the eight- 25 State area and the "golden circle" are actually principally PETERS SHORTHAND REPORTING CORPORATION (916) 362-2345 128 1 from 12 States. 2 This is the largest, as far as I know anyway, the 3 largest and most comprehensive inventory effort that's every 4 been mounted, a billion square miles, plus literally tens of 5 thousands of sources, area sources and mobile sources. 6 You can see here where the sulfur emissions occur, 7 where the PM2.5 emissions occur. 8 Next slide, please. 9 We also looked into the question of fire 10 emissions. This is very important now, as it turns out, but 11 it may become even more important in the future as the 12 federal land managers around the West push hard to increase 13 the amount of controlled burns as they every year. And we 14 are working with our Department of Forestry to try to ensure 15 that maximum consideration be given to air quality issues as 16 a part of this program of enhanced burning. It's very 17 important. 18 The next slide, please. 19 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: John, on that point, Dr. Holmes, 20 did the fire issue surprise you a little bit as it emerged 21 as an issue with the Commission? I mean, did that surprise 22 you at all? 23 DR. HOLMES: Well, I think the current baseline 24 was probably not as big a surprise as the projections of 25 emissions into the future. They're looking at a -- Tony, PETERS SHORTHAND REPORTING CORPORATION (916) 362-2345 129 1 was it a six or seven-fold increase in the rate of 2 prescribed burns. 3 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: Okay. 4 DR. HOLMES: And that has major impacts, not just 5 on visibility in the region, but also for us on the 6 attainment of air quality standards. 7 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: Okay. So, the baseline needed 8 to be revised. Correct? 9 DR. HOLMES: Yes. 10 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: Okay. 11 MR. BOYD: Mr. Chairman, let me just supplement 12 John's comments. In the early days of this Commission's 13 work four years ago, fire was recognized from the very 14 beginning as an issue. 15 But it turns out, outside of California, inventory 16 data was almost nonexistent. And initially, fire was put 17 aside as an issue that couldn't be dealt with because there 18 wasn't enough data. In the last year, as we got all these 19 issues to a kind of a policy level within this hierarchy of 20 the Commission, Operations Committee and the Public Advisory 21 Committee, it was recognized by many of us that you could 22 not -- the public wouldn't tolerate the idea of ignoring 23 this question, because it was recognized in the public's eye 24 as being fairly significant. 25 So, a renewed effort, a Herculean effort, was made PETERS SHORTHAND REPORTING CORPORATION (916) 362-2345 130 1 to reintroduce the subject, get more data. This is an area 2 where Tony Van Curen put a tremendous amount of personal 3 time into developing, frankly, a model that was used. And 4 the land managers, the federal land managers, and other 5 States made a huge effort to get more data and to make this 6 a player of proper stature in the issue. And, yes, it is 7 recognized in this final report as a very significant issue. 8 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: Today, do other States have burn 9 days, no-burn days as far as controlled burns? 10 MR. BOYD: The State of Oregon has, and I think 11 perhaps Washington State, some programs like this. I'm not 12 aware that there are programs that -- 13 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: Like we have. 14 MR. BOYD: -- are anywhere near California's 15 program. 16 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: Okay. 17 MR. BOYD: Many of the other States have local 18 fire department programs and what have you, but not much 19 from an air quality perspective. 20 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: Okay. Dr. Holmes, I'm sorry. 21 Please continue. 22 DR. HOLMES: Yes. I think it's very important. 23 This will be a subject that I'm sure the Board will be 24 hearing more about in the years ahead. 25 As far as modeling goes, I think this display PETERS SHORTHAND REPORTING CORPORATION (916) 362-2345 131 1 shows -- it's an illustration of the source/receptor 2 relationships around the West. Now, the receptor here -- I 3 don't know if you can see it -- the white area that's 4 enclosed by the yellow area. That's the Grand Canyon, and 5 the Hopi Point visibility monitor and station. 6 These so-called transfer coefficients represent 7 the probability that a source in any point around the West 8 will contribute to the haze problem at Hopi Point. You can 9 see that obviously the farther away it is the less it 10 contributes. But there is a directional aspect to this, 11 running from the southwest to northeast. The probabilities 12 grow -- are greatest in those directions. 13 But that doesn't tell you the whole story. You 14 have to consider the magnitude of the emissions as well. 15 There are some very large sources to the southeast -- copper 16 smelters, and activities south of the Mexican border. 17 This gives you a flavor of where it goes and how 18 frequently it goes into the air from any given point around 19 the West. 20 Another issue that was very troubling for a while, 21 if we could see the next slide, was the clean air corridor 22 issue. It's well known that, at least by the park people, 23 when the air comes to them from the northwestern quadrant, 24 they have relatively clean days, clear days. So, there was 25 some concern in Congress that if there were too much PETERS SHORTHAND REPORTING CORPORATION (916) 362-2345 132 1 development in the areas that are in the clean air corridor, 2 that even that the Grand Canyon would lose even its clean 3 days, the few that they have every year. 4 So, my Committee analyzed this very carefully to 5 find the clean air corridor area running generally from the 6 northwest to the southeast. And you recall from the 7 emission inventory map, there is not a lot of sources in 8 that area. 9 But we took it beyond that. We asked the 10 question, how much -- what would happen if growth, 11 substantial amounts of growth were to occur in the clean air 12 corridor, as shown here. 13 And the answer was not much. It turns out that, 14 although the emissions in the clean air corridor are 15 important, meteorology plays an even larger role. 16 Atmospheric turbulence and wind speed tend to make 17 pollutants that come from that direction have much lower 18 impact per ton than emissions that come from the southwest 19 or southeast. So, that was a problem that went away. 20 And I think the people who were worried about 21 that; namely, the people that want to see industrial and 22 business growth in that sector were much relieved. If that 23 hadn't turned out to be the case, I think we would have had 24 a much harder time putting all this together. 25 The next slide, please. PETERS SHORTHAND REPORTING CORPORATION (916) 362-2345 133 1 So, the general findings are basically as follows 2 here, that we can improve visibility in the West at 3 relatively moderate cost; that the cost per ton or cost per 4 unit of visibility improvement is far, far less than the 5 kinds of numbers that you folks are accustomed to dealing 6 with every month. It's relatively cheap. 7 Our SIP commitments will cause a considerable 8 amount of improvement in the Grand Canyon and, to some 9 extent, elsewhere in the Rocky Mountain West. But it's not 10 just California as Mr. Boyd pointed out. 11 It is all of us in the West who are contributing 12 various constituents from various directions at various 13 times of the year. The improvement cannot be -- they can't 14 count on Los Angeles for all -- the full solution to the 15 problem. 16 Fires, as mentioned, has to become a major issue 17 for us. And then, finally, the Mexican sources contribute 18 substantially to the haze, particularly in the southern part 19 of the region. This is beyond the powers even of the mighty 20 U.S. EPA. This is going to have to be negotiated with the 21 Mexican government. 22 This has begun with some work that's being done by 23 the Border Commission, which the Chairman's familiar with, 24 also by some work that's going on under the aegis of the 25 Western Governor's Association. We are working with the PETERS SHORTHAND REPORTING CORPORATION (916) 362-2345 134 1 Mexican Government to help -- with the help of federal 2 funds-- to show them the way toward gathering, at least 3 initially, a good, solid emission inventory so we can -- and 4 so we can and so they can get on with the job of cleaning up 5 their air. 6 We have at least a tentative commitment from the 7 Mexican EPA that they will begin this cleanup not in Mexico 8 City, but rather along the border region. Now, that's a 9 very political issue. And how long that tentative 10 commitment will last, I'm not sure. But at least we've 11 begun to get a handle on Mexican emissions and their holding 12 out the possibility that emissions in the border region can 13 be controlled. 14 So, with that, let me ask Jim to continue with the 15 recommendations that the public committee -- Public Advisory 16 Committee and the Operations Committee have worked out. And 17 these will be put before the Commission on June 10th at the 18 meting at the Grand Canyon. 19 Mr. Boyd? 20 MR. BOYD: Thank you, John. 21 Do we have a slide? 22 DR. HOLMES: Yes, there was one more slide. 23 MR. BOYD: Let's have the next slide, please. 24 Thank you. 25 As you can see from this slide, there's some PETERS SHORTHAND REPORTING CORPORATION (916) 362-2345 135 1 pretty heady recommendations involved in the final consensus 2 report of the Public Advisory Committee and Operations 3 Committee that was just released yesterday as a matter of 4 fact. One copy was received in the mail late last night. 5 And we will obtain additional copies for anyone who would be 6 interested in it. 7 As Dr. Holmes indicated, California we don't see 8 as significantly impacted, but the other regions of the West 9 have now got a fairly tall order to deal with, and are 10 mutually agreeing to deal with this issue. 11 There was a finding and an agreement by the 12 collective federal, State, tribal, and 13 industry/environmental representatives to the action points 14 you see up there. There's no question that SO2 and sulfates 15 are of primary concern in the issue of visibility 16 degradation. And there was a fairly significant commitment 17 on the part of the affected industries to further action 18 should the existing requirements of the Clean Air Act not 19 provide adequate reductions and visibility improvement, 20 which many people feel would not be the case. 21 And interesting, why this was a good forum for us 22 was the ability to get support from a broad body of people 23 for the vehicle programs that we have been encouraging the 24 federal government to undertake as part of our SIP, as well 25 as embracing of a lot of the vehicle issues that the State PETERS SHORTHAND REPORTING CORPORATION (916) 362-2345 136 1 of California has been dealing with for quite some time. 2 A heavy endorsement of the concept of pollution 3 prevention and conservation, use of incentives and incentive 4 fees, and the fire issue that we've just discussed before 5 was brought back to the floor, and a very significant 6 commitment on the part of the federal land managers to try 7 to deal more with the issue of fire, as well as Indian 8 tribes. And I can't underscore enough the complexity of 9 this project and the multiplicity of individuals who are 10 involved, but particularly Indian tribes. 11 I mean, we're dealing with the United States 12 federal agencies, we're dealing with the individual States, 13 we're dealing with Indian nations or tribes that have 14 sovereignty as nations or states. And then we're dealing 15 with industry. This is the most significant public/private 16 partnership that I've ever witnessed and proved to be quite 17 significant in the fact that agreement could be reached. 18 The Public Advisory Committee has over 80 members 19 and, quite candidly, in the early years, to me, they seemed 20 to be drifting off into space. And I was quite concerned 21 that we would not be able to come to grips with this issue. 22 But the Operations Committee, working with the 23 Chair of the Public Advisory Committee, Dr. Bill Auberly 24 (phonetic), professor at Northern Arizona State University, 25 who deserves tremendous credit, pulled all of this together PETERS SHORTHAND REPORTING CORPORATION (916) 362-2345 137 1 and we actually got consensus. 2 Let me just kind of say in closing, and try to 3 highlight what, you know, what's in this for California? 4 What have we gained from our participation? 5 We've come to understand that it's not only 6 California, but the collective "we," for all of the 7 participants. Everyone has come to understand the West's 8 air pollution problem as more of a regional problem. You 9 cannot separate this issue of haze and visibility from a 10 host of the other issues we're going to be dealing with or 11 are dealing with at the present time. 12 Ozone precursors or precursors to visibility 13 problems, PM10, PMX for the future, whatever it should 14 happen to be, is integrated into this. And this whole 15 effort is a precursor to what will have to happen as we 16 address a new federal particulate standard as well as 17 whatever final rulings EPA has on haze, on regional haze. 18 But what everybody learned is that the problems 19 that we here have in California with regard to our cities 20 are repeated, frankly, in all the urban areas across the 21 West. And our experience in that arena has proven helpful 22 and will be helpful in the future to these other Western 23 States and these cities as they continue to grow, and as 24 they begin to confront the problems that you've been dealing 25 with and we've been dealing with for years. PETERS SHORTHAND REPORTING CORPORATION (916) 362-2345 138 1 Secondly, and most important perhaps to many, is 2 that we've gotten the West, the collective West, past the 3 point of blaming California emissions for most of the 4 problems. We all -- that's a collective "we" -- know now 5 that regional haze is everyone's problem in the West and 6 that it can't be controlled just by fingering one type of 7 source or one source region, which historically had been 8 California. 9 There are tangible benefits that come from this 10 tremendous programmatic cooperation among the Western 11 States, a broadened basis of support for our efforts in 12 bringing the federal mobile source program more in line with 13 California's. And, finally, we've also gained valuable 14 understanding of what we all have in common with the other 15 Western States. And we've eliminated a great deal of mutual 16 suspicion which, frankly, has haunted our relationship with 17 our less populace neighbors and with federal land managers 18 and, in particular, with tribal leaders, and with the 19 industrial folks of the West. 20 Personally, I believe that this learning to work 21 together heralds significant future opportunities for 22 further cooperation in areas that I've already mentioned, 23 such as developing better PM10, or PM2.5, or what have you 24 control programs and in this issue of smoke management, and 25 a host of other areas as well. And in this regard, I think PETERS SHORTHAND REPORTING CORPORATION (916) 362-2345 139 1 California has been richly rewarded for our significant 2 in-kind contribution of staff time and resources to this 3 effort. 4 And just let me say that it's been an extremely 5 rewarding experience for everyone involved to see in four 6 long but short years the incredible movement of a huge body 7 of people who started out with the majority, with no 8 knowledge and no desire to work together, to end up working 9 together and coming up with a consensus recommendation. 10 It was hard fought. It was difficult. It is 11 consensus and involves a lot of compromise. But I think the 12 recommendations that are going forward to the Commission 13 provide for very significant activity and improvement in the 14 future. And there's been a general agreement and a calling 15 upon EPA in this report that some kind of structure be 16 continued in the future to see that the report's 17 recommendations and findings are indeed implemented, and 18 that we assure that there will be equity amongst all the 19 States. 20 Again, I can't underscore enough the amount of 21 cooperation and knowledge that were gained by all the 22 people. I mean, this program did not have a lot of money, 23 and the amount of contributed resource, particularly by 24 people in the industry -- the utilities outside of 25 California and the other industries -- made a significant PETERS SHORTHAND REPORTING CORPORATION (916) 362-2345 140 1 effort and brought themselves from virtually zero knowledge 2 to a huge degree of knowledge in this issue. 3 Copper companies, and a smeltering company, the 4 incredible investment; they gave of their time and their 5 resources, and their computer capability and what have you 6 has greatly aided this. And the ability of the people to 7 come together has been extremely significant. 8 So, utilizing the Western Governor's Association 9 as an umbrella for this operation turned out to be a very 10 significant and wise move, because it is an organization 11 common to the Western Governor's and assured them of some 12 continuity of effort and mutuality of understanding, and 13 such that this model has led to the fact that the Western 14 Governors in the last year have on more than one occasion 15 voted resolutions to continue looking at these kinds of 16 approaches to solutions to air quality problems in the West. 17 And there are other activities underway, as we speak, to try 18 to deal with how SIPs in the future might be formulated, how 19 we might simplify the interaction between the federal 20 government and the States, how the States, quite frankly, 21 can be given more responsibility, and EPA -- their processes 22 simplified and their role be more one of checking progress 23 again plan and overseeing and letting the States carry out 24 more of the programs. And we would avoid the problems we 25 had with the 1994 SIP. PETERS SHORTHAND REPORTING CORPORATION (916) 362-2345 141 1 So, there's a legacy left over from this as well 2 as addressing the visibility problems, I think, for the 3 future resolution of issues in the Western United States. 4 And pardon me for dwelling on this, but this is only the 5 second time in four years we've been able to present this to 6 you. And this should be our concluding report on the 7 subject if the Commission adopts the report. 8 So, I wanted to just point out a lot of the effort 9 that's been underway by this Board for quite a number of 10 years and through three chairpersons. 11 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: It's been significant. And 12 again, I want to commend the staff for really providing 13 technical capabilities to the work of the Commission. And 14 it's been appreciated and acknowledged by them, and 15 certainly by me. 16 SUPERVISOR VAGIM: Mr. Chairman. 17 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: Supervisor Vagim. 18 SUPERVISOR VAGIM: Just a quick question and maybe 19 a comment, or a combination of both. 20 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: Sure. 21 SUPERVISOR VAGIM: Is this kind of a formation of 22 the federal indirect source rule, and is it a precursor to 23 this type of thing? Of course, we have it in our own State 24 Clean Air Act that we don't seem to want to get around to 25 doing. PETERS SHORTHAND REPORTING CORPORATION (916) 362-2345 142 1 Will this have some -- let's say breaking the ice 2 for that particular eventuality when the State -- the 3 districts will probably be under more pressure to begin that 4 process? 5 MR. BOYD: I think, Supervisor Vagim, only 6 indirectly. The issue of indirect source rules is but one 7 of the many, many control strategies that were addressed by 8 this group. And the subject is no better received in the 9 entire West than it has been received within the State of 10 California. 11 So, it's on the menu of control issues. But the 12 approach that was taken here was, besides dealing with some 13 specific stationary source issues, to try to emphasize the 14 importance of local agencies and even communities to deal 15 with the problems that they generate. And there's more 16 emphasis on caps and cap trading programs and decisions 17 being made in the local regional areas as to how they want 18 to allocate the responsibility for reductions. 19 So, indirect sources is just but one on their 20 menu. And I don't think it gives EPA any more clout or 21 access. 22 SUPERVISOR VAGIM: Does this become, though, a 23 method of indirect FIPing if some State doesn't want to get 24 on with it? If Idaho doesn't participate, for example, and 25 their clean air somehow is no longer as clean as it was PETERS SHORTHAND REPORTING CORPORATION (916) 362-2345 143 1 under the assessment or the inventory, are they going to be 2 raided by EPA and have a FIP around their neck? 3 MR. BOYD: I doubt this is a precursor to that as 4 well, because we States were very jealous of our sovereignty 5 and our rights. And while mutually pledging to work 6 together and have a regional plan, SIPs are still local 7 State issues. The other issue -- I mean the issue of 8 locking up clean air was one that was of great concern to 9 many of those States that don't have much dirty air and a 10 lot of clean air. 11 As Dr. Holmes mentioned, the findings were that 12 there's no need to take any action on that issue of clean 13 air corridors or locking that air up in the long foreseeable 14 future, so States like Wyoming or -- or maybe Wyoming acting 15 for Idaho in their absence, were satisfied that there's not 16 going to be any federal takeover of their responsibilities. 17 And, as I indicated, there's a much stronger 18 emphasis here to let we, the Western States, work together 19 to solve our problem and have less -- you know, I mean, 20 there's always the federal hammer there, but less direct 21 federal programmatic participation, except in those areas 22 where the federal government has to take action, just like 23 we recognize in our SIP the need to take action. 24 And there was a strong embracing of the 25 California-EPA agreement on heavy-duty vehicles. There's a PETERS SHORTHAND REPORTING CORPORATION (916) 362-2345 144 1 strong endorsement of this Board's ZEV finding as it related 2 to the national LEV program. There's a footnote that I 3 personally added here just in the last few weeks. I didn't 4 add that they had a consensus drafting group here working 5 the last three months with just two States, myself and Utah, 6 represented as well as some Indian tribes and some federal 7 people that had to pull this together. 8 So, we've striven to have area/regional wide 9 cooperation, but we're still interested in doing it 10 ourselves, but we'll make better progress. 11 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: Any other questions? Ms. 12 Edgerton. 13 MS. EDGERTON: I just wanted to add my 14 congratulations, and compliments, and appreciation to Tony, 15 Jim, and John, and everyone who worked on the Commission. I 16 have been very pleased to see the people who were working on 17 the this important issue. And I hope to be able to go to 18 the Grand Canyon some day when it's in the top 10 percent as 19 opposed to in the bottom 10 percent. 20 I had one comment. I think we've got FIPs, we've 21 got SIPs, it could be a transport implementation program 22 which would be a TRIP. 23 (Laughter.) 24 MS. EDGERTON: Thank you very much. 25 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: Well, we coined the new Salton PETERS SHORTHAND REPORTING CORPORATION (916) 362-2345 145 1 Sea Air Basin, we can come up with a TRIP or two, Lynne, I 2 guess. 3 All right. Is there anything else on the Grand 4 Canyon? 5 MR. PARNELL: Only one thing, Mr. Chairman. 6 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: Mr. Parnell, you are the last 7 person I expected to hear from. 8 MR. PARNELL: I want to try to get us beyond 1:30 9 if I possibly can, because of a prior -- 10 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: Commitment on my part. 11 MR. PARNELL: -- commitment on your part. 12 I only wanted to make one statement, and I think 13 it is significant that Mr. Boyd raised it as an issue. And 14 that is, in the process, the result that was obtained, i.e., 15 people in other States who historically addressed issues, or 16 people of other regions coming together and ultimately 17 recognizing that this is a bigger problem than just one 18 State. That's a phenomenal revelation that will lead us one 19 step closer to recognizing that polluting water is done by 20 all of us, polluting air is done by all of us, regardless of 21 where we live, and in various increments. 22 And that's a phenomenal beginning. And I just 23 wanted to emphasize that. 24 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: Well said. All right. If 25 there's nothing else, we'll move to the next item. No one PETERS SHORTHAND REPORTING CORPORATION (916) 362-2345 146 1 has signed up to testify. It's not a regulatory item, so I 2 don't need to close it. So, we'll just move to the fourth 3 and final item, which are 14 research proposals. 4 And I know that each of the Board members has had 5 an opportunity to review the proposals, because they're 6 submitted to us in advance. 7 Are there any issues or concerns? Again, I teased 8 Supervisor Roberts about this all the time everytime we 9 bring a contract forward, but I've been very pleased with 10 how seriously Dr. Holmes and his team has taken the overhead 11 rate issue. They continue to do so. 12 And while not every contractor is able to put 13 their percentage in the box that we deem most defensible, we 14 certainly have done more than nudged and pushed, and are 15 getting some response to our concerns in that area. 16 So, with that, I'll let you all have a shot at it. 17 Dr. Boston? 18 DR. BOSTON: Mr. Chairman, I'd like to propose 19 adoption of all of those proposals, with the exception of 20 Item No. 8, which I'd like to withdraw for discussion. 21 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: Okay. 22 SUPERVISOR RIORDAN: I'll second the motion. 23 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: Any other discussion on this 24 item? 25 Seeing no one raising a hand, I guess we'll do a PETERS SHORTHAND REPORTING CORPORATION (916) 362-2345 147 1 voice vote. Why don't we move the motion, and we'll deal 2 with Item 8, is it, Dr. Boston? 3 We'll do a voice vote. All those in favor, say 4 aye? 5 (Ayes.) 6 Any opposed? The motion carries. 7 Dr. Boston, Item 8. Can you give us a page number 8 by the way? 9 DR. BOSTON: Item 8 is on page 319 in our Board 10 book. And it is a proposal to assess the feasibility of a 11 transponder to be used on an automobile, apparently in an 12 OBD III type of situation, where a vehicle passing by a 13 certain station could be detected, and the transponder would 14 indicate to the receiving station whether or not all the 15 smog equipment on that automobile was working. 16 I have a problem with that particular issue, in 17 that, number one, it would probably be about 50 years before 18 all the cars could have transponders that would be 19 effective, since we're still dealing with 1940's cars on our 20 roads. And we've just gotten through the OBD II system, 21 which took considerable effort by the automobile companies, 22 and now we would be asking them to start an OBD III program, 23 which would be like asking for reformulated gasoline III, I 24 believe. And we know what problem we had there. 25 And secondly, I don't think it would tell us what PETERS SHORTHAND REPORTING CORPORATION (916) 362-2345 148 1 the tailpipe emissions really were. It might tell you that 2 all the little pieces were there and that the lights lit up 3 and said they were working. But it wouldn't tell you 4 anything about the tailpipe emissions actually coming out of 5 the automobile. 6 Also, if you see the Los Angeles freeways, and see 7 the hundreds of cars lined up in a row, trying to have all 8 those transponders picked up in a particular station maybe 9 can be done, but I can tell you it's going to be very 10 difficult to do that with so many cars in one place at one 11 time. 12 And, thirdly or fourthly, this is an 18-month 13 study. And we're, at that time, going to be into electric 14 vehicles, and alternate fuel vehicles, and we're not really 15 sure what the mix of cars are going to be. It may only be a 16 small portion of the cars that would really be affected by 17 this particular type of inspection. 18 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: Okay. 19 DR. BOSTON: And furthermore, I don't think I 20 would want some transponder to initiate a letter going to my 21 home telling my wife that I was on Highway 5 at three 22 o'clock in the afternoon with two blondes in my car that 23 weighed 110 pounds. 24 (Laughter.) 25 DR. BOSTON: I think that's a terrible invasion of PETERS SHORTHAND REPORTING CORPORATION (916) 362-2345 149 1 my personal rights. And certainly, I don't think this study 2 is worth $549,000 at this time. 3 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: Well, I'm certain someone will 4 send a transcript of those comments to your home, Gene. 5 (Laughter.) 6 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: I think there are certainly some 7 legitimate concerns there. Tom, could you or Dr. Holmes try 8 to respond to that? 9 MR. CACKETTE: Yeah, I sure can. Maybe with just 10 the one -- Dr. Boston's looked at this a little bit more, 11 but with just the one page summary, so I can give you a 12 little more context of why the proposal has been made. 13 We've been concerned since OBD was first 14 envisioned back in the eighties that our vision is that cars 15 are going to be cleaner, and that there will be fewer, as a 16 percentage of cars, that will fail as we go through time. 17 Right now, smog check fails about 30 percent of t 18 he cars legitimately. If it was more precise in its testing 19 ability, it might fail 50 or 60 percent of the cars. That's 20 not the vision of the future. We see the future being a lot 21 of clean cars, relatively small number of dirty cars. 22 We don't ever see being able to get zero dirty 23 cars, but the objective is to get it as low as possible. 24 With that vision, the current concept of smog check, which 25 is test every car every year, two years, whatever, becomes PETERS SHORTHAND REPORTING CORPORATION (916) 362-2345 150 1 increasingly a program of payment of large amounts of money 2 for testing clean cars in order to find just a few dirty 3 cars. 4 And right now, even in the current program, the 5 cost of inspections is on the same order of magnitude of the 6 cost of repairs, with most of the inspections being with 7 clean cars. 8 So, when we envisioned OBD II, one of the main 9 principles, or even with the OBD I, was to try to set it for 10 an alternative way of identifying dirty cars and getting 11 them repaired. And we looked at it, even as early as the 12 mid-eighties, as a potential replacement of the smog check 13 program, which could save, in our view, at least a couple 14 hundred million dollars a year to the public by having some 15 alternative way of looking at vehicle emissions. 16 With OBD I, Dr. Boston's point about it won't tell 17 you the tailpipe emissions was true. It told you if a 18 component was broken or okay. With OBD II, every system is 19 targeted to turn the warning light on when the FTP or when 20 the on-road emissions are one and a half times the standard. 21 And so, in fact, when the light comes on, it is a 22 direct measurement -- or an indirect measurement of a 23 correlated to emissions measurement of tailpipe emissions. 24 We've done enough looking at it to conclude that 25 it is far more precise and far more comprehensive in being PETERS SHORTHAND REPORTING CORPORATION (916) 362-2345 151 1 able to determine if a car has high emissions or not than 2 the smog check test of today and the smog check test that 3 we're implementing in our enhanced program. 4 So, we think that, if there's a mechanism for 5 determining on the car that that warning light has been 6 turned on, that the diagnostics says you got high emissions, 7 then that could substitute completely, more effectively, and 8 with far less cost than the current smog check program. 9 So, our desire, as a first stage, is to be able to 10 get a way in which you could do your smog check program with 11 a transponder on your car. It would be on the new cars; it 12 wouldn't be on old cars. And you could just choose, if you 13 wanted to, in lieu of a smog check, to drive by an unmanned 14 monitor; cost a few bucks probably, the cost of the part on 15 the car being in the order of 25, no more than $50, quickly 16 paid back by them not having to pay $25 smog check fees. 17 You can just drive by someplace and your choice, 18 if you did this, you could have your smog check done 19 electronically. As long as you were clean, you would never 20 have to go in for a regular smog check. That's number one. 21 As the cars get cleaner and cleaner, it may be 22 possible to completely replace that and just have a system 23 of identifying the cars that are on the road that are dirty. 24 And one of the visions, for example -- this raises the issue 25 of the invasion of privacy, and I want to contrast that in PETERS SHORTHAND REPORTING CORPORATION (916) 362-2345 152 1 two ways. 2 Right now, when you drive through Los Angeles this 3 week, there's a camera beside the road at ten different 4 locations to take a picture of your license plate and 5 whether -- using remote sensing. And I don't know if it 6 will tell hair color or not, but it's going to say that you 7 were on Sepulveda Boulevard and you were polluting or you 8 weren't polluting. 9 That's part of State law that the BAR is 10 implementing. The mechanism is pretty imprecise. But in 11 one context, that kind of thing is happening now, and, yeah, 12 I guess people could consider it invasion of privacy. So 13 far, there has not been any kind of outcry over it. 14 But it's part of the smog check program that's 15 mandated. 16 The other context is that, if we could pick out 17 only those cars that have high emissions, then we could 18 abandon the idea of having to go to a smog check, but it 19 would just would have, when a car's identified with high 20 emissions and no OBD, you'll get a notice either soon or 21 maybe at the next annual registration that your car has to 22 go for a smog check. But none of the clean cars have to. 23 And that could be done in a number of ways to 24 protect invasion of privacy. For example, the car might be 25 queried, a system that would communicate to the roadside PETERS SHORTHAND REPORTING CORPORATION (916) 362-2345 153 1 might only come on if the light's on. In other words, if 2 you're clean and driving by, the car will never -- there 3 will be no communication, no one will know where you are. 4 But if your car's dirty, then you become 5 identified and having to get your car fixed, which is what 6 the objective is. 7 So, one of the purposes of this proposal is to 8 look at these four or five different emerging technologies 9 and try to see how they would work, go through a thorough 10 evaluation of, you know, when and where and how they're 11 going to develop; look at the issue of invasion of privacy, 12 try to minimize those kinds of impacts, and then take the 13 most promising system and devise a way it can be used. And 14 then put out a bunch of cars, ten cars or so, and see if it 15 works. 16 That's the objective of the program. And it has 17 some of the problems that you suggest, but it also, on the 18 other hand, some tremendous potential in our minds to save 19 money and do a better job. And this is not a regulatory 20 program; this is just an investigation to balance those two 21 pros and cons, so that we can ultimately decide if this will 22 be useful technology to help win our clean air battle and to 23 reduce costs. 24 MR. BOYD: Let me just add to what Mr. Cackette 25 has said, Dr. Boston. A humorous note, the invasion of PETERS SHORTHAND REPORTING CORPORATION (916) 362-2345 154 1 privacy under the new enhanced smog check, as Tom's already 2 indicated, is more pressing than it would be under some 3 futuristic program like this, because, as Tom indicated, 4 they're taking pictures now. This is an electronic signal. 5 But on a serious note -- 6 DR. BOSTON: They can spray paint those in the 7 L.A. area. 8 (Laughter.) 9 MR. BOYD: You mean your license plate will be 10 graffitied up so bad that -- 11 DR. BOSTON: The camera will be. 12 (Laughter.) 13 MR. BOYD: These are portable with human beings 14 manning the system, so if you have longer waits at your 15 onramps in the morning and notice those vans alongside the 16 road, and we've had it for a long time here in Sacramento 17 now, it's the enhanced smog check. And they're taking your 18 car's picture and your license plate. 19 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: Are they doing a pilot now? I 20 thought I saw one on 80. 21 MR. BOYD: Yes. It's been going on here for some 22 time. 23 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: Yes, did you see it coming in, 24 Jim, or were you going too fast? 25 MR. CACKETTE: They're starting up the program by PETERS SHORTHAND REPORTING CORPORATION (916) 362-2345 155 1 roving these sets of equipment around the State. And I 2 think they are doing Los Angeles right now, also. 3 SUPERVISOR RIORDAN: What triggers it? 4 MR. CACKETTE: In this case, the one that they're 5 using for the current smog check program, there's a beam of 6 infrared light that's shot across your tailpipe. And it's 7 able to give a rough measurement of your emissions, at least 8 on a couple of the pollutants. And at the same time, they 9 use a strobe light and take a picture of the license plate. 10 And the two coordinated. 11 In the current smog check program, it is 12 envisioned that if you have high emissions on that, you will 13 get a letter that says to go to a smog check station and get 14 your car fixed. 15 Right now, that system is really only kind of 16 geared for the grossest of the emitting cars. And it's not 17 good enough to be able to replace you also having to go in 18 every two years and pay 25 or so dollars to get your car put 19 on a dynamometer, and all the things that are going through 20 here. 21 And, of course, every car -- 22 MR. BOYD: Each car that goes through gets this 23 exercise. 24 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: Mr. Lagarias has something to 25 add. PETERS SHORTHAND REPORTING CORPORATION (916) 362-2345 156 1 MR. LAGARIAS: This is an issue that I have 2 discussed with the staff a number of times, because I've 3 been concerned about it, too, primarily from a 4 self-incrimination point of view more than anything else. 5 But if you present it as a future alternative to 6 I&M, we're already developing remote sensing, and that's 7 well along. And I would think that maybe to accelerate our 8 identifying the polluters, we ought to push I & M or remote 9 sensing more than this technology, especially since this -- 10 if it's going to replace I & M, may be generations down the 11 road. 12 Further, the new cars are going to be considerably 13 cleaner, and just time alone will get most of the major 14 polluters off the road. And even though there may be a few 15 of the newer cars that are problem areas, the problem may 16 have been reduced to such a magnitude that this type of 17 sensing may not be appropriate. 18 There are two major problems. Are the sensors on 19 board going to be -- if the signal's strong enough that they 20 can be then sent out like a cellular call to the receivers; 21 and, secondly, how are the data going to be used? 22 MR. CACKETTE: I can answer the first question 23 about the technology. It's actually, virtually off-the- 24 shelf technology right now. It's being used for automated 25 toll collection, for example. It's the same kind of thing PETERS SHORTHAND REPORTING CORPORATION (916) 362-2345 157 1 where you put a little bit band-aid like transmitter on your 2 windshield. And when you go by a toll booth on one of the 3 private roads, you automatically get the fee sent to you. 4 This same technology is able to broadcast to at 5 least the roadside the information about whether your 6 light's on or not, some indicator that says, you know, 7 charge you a dollar for a road toll. It says whether you're 8 okay or not okay. 9 MR. LAGARIAS: Still, you're going to have to have 10 sensors, if you're going to be measuring oxygen, or CO, or - 11 MR. CACKETTE: No, you don't have to measure 12 those. What it's going to send is a signal saying, is your 13 OBD on your car saying that you are one and a half times the 14 emission standard. That's what triggers the light to come 15 on under OBD III. And it will just give your vehicle I.D. 16 number and yes or no. If you're a no, then, you wouldn't 17 have to go through smog check under this scenario. If you 18 were a yes, then you would have to have the car fixed. 19 MR. LAGARIAS: If the technology's already 20 available, this cost seems to be excessive for what we're 21 trying to identify. 22 MR. CACKETTE: The hardware that allows 23 communication or the application of road toll collection is 24 available now, and it has to be modified to be able to send 25 the kind of information that has to be sent for OBD, and PETERS SHORTHAND REPORTING CORPORATION (916) 362-2345 158 1 then the right kind of transponder for roadside as opposed 2 to a toll collection booth. 3 But we're not trying to develop the technology. 4 What we're trying to do here is demonstrate that it works so 5 we can address some of these questions, like the invasion of 6 privacy, how can we try to prevent that. 7 MR. LAGARIAS: Is this the way we want to go? 8 That's the question. 9 MR. CACKETTE: Well, it's far more effective in 10 terms of finding dirty and clean cars than is the current 11 remote sensing technology. 12 MR. LAGARIAS: But is this the way we want to go? 13 MR. CACKETTE: That's your call. 14 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: One point, if I might just 15 interject it here. In the summary of the proposal, the 16 large paragraph, the first one reads -- I think it's well 17 put -- that the new system would be referred to as OBD III. 18 A successful demonstration of this technology by the 19 contractor would offer ARB and Cal-EPA policymakers another 20 option when dealing with the issues of I & M program 21 effectiveness and cost effectiveness, just so we don't lose 22 sight of that. 23 But here's what I would do in deference to Mr. 24 Parnell's concerns about the departure time so we might eat 25 lunch, I would propose that we ask Mr. Cackette and Dr. PETERS SHORTHAND REPORTING CORPORATION (916) 362-2345 159 1 Holmes to spend some time expanding the explanation of what 2 the ultimate use of this might be. Because I do agree with 3 my colleagues that over a half million dollars is a lot of 4 money. And there are some invasion of privacy issues. 5 There's also the practical nature of implementing this on a 6 large scale that needs to be considered and dealt with. 7 The only cautionary comment -- I would like to 8 temper what Dr. Boston said, if I may attempt, Gene. I 9 think that we want staff to lead. I mean, you're paid to be 10 leaders. You're world leaders. We want to encourage that. 11 But there are times when we may get ahead a bit relative to 12 practical application. And that's where our policy Board 13 needs to obviously -- and why we're set up this way-- 14 express our opinion: Hey, maybe we need to slow down a 15 little bit here and talk about this some more. And I think 16 that's what you're hearing from the Board today. 17 So, if it works for my colleagues, I would 18 suggest, Tom, you and Dr. Holmes get together and expand 19 your analysis, look further down the road at the ultimate 20 application of this work, the findings, et cetera, and 21 outline it more fully so that we may either get a greater 22 comfort level or say, "Let's scrap this. We're not ready to 23 do this, or it's maybe misguided at this point." 24 And with that, we can come back -- it's only two 25 weeks for the next meeting, but perhaps in July? PETERS SHORTHAND REPORTING CORPORATION (916) 362-2345 160 1 MR. CACKETTE: We'd prefer coming back next month, 2 because it's the end of the fiscal year and you get into 3 money issues as to which pot it comes out of. And if that's 4 okay with the Board, we'd be prepared to do that. 5 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: Understood. And I might also 6 suggest, Tom, I know that you and Dr. Holmes pride yourself 7 on this, of having other research projects in the queue that 8 perhaps you could move up if this one were found to be 9 unsatisfactory. That way you wouldn't lose the resources 10 and the dollars that we have allocated to do research that's 11 of benefit to our mission. 12 So, you might put one or two others as backups in 13 case the sense of the Board is that you shouldn't do this at 14 this time. 15 Okay? 16 SUPERVISOR VAGIM: Mr. Chairman? 17 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: Supervisor Vagim, I must 18 apologize, and apologize to Lynne. I've been holding her in 19 abeyance for some time. Lynne, and then Supervisor Vagim. 20 MS. EDGERTON: I'll be brief. With respect to the 21 invasion of privacy issues, I am not convinced, not sure at 22 all that there are legitimate privacy issues that would be 23 recognized under the law. Because, you know, those only 24 apply where you have a reasonable expectation of privacy. 25 And I'm not convincing that just driving around on public PETERS SHORTHAND REPORTING CORPORATION (916) 362-2345 161 1 roads, you know, you have a right to privacy driving around 2 the public roads. 3 And I'm taking that seriously, but it may not have 4 really been a serious comment. 5 But I don't really see where -- I think that would 6 need to be -- I'm not sure that that's not just a red 7 herring or blonde hairing, as the case may be. 8 (Laughter.) 9 MR. CACKETTE: May I just add that that issue from 10 a legal standpoint has been thoroughly looked into, and 11 there's not any kind of constitutional or other issues. But 12 I think it's a perception issue, which is what Dr. Boston 13 was raising. And perception's reality, so people are 14 concerned about that. 15 MS. EDGERTON: Right. And then the other point 16 is, if there's one thing I've learned through my service 17 here, it has been that the air issues are massive, air 18 pollution control issues are massive, and that we need to 19 have every quiver in our -- I mean every arrow in our 20 quiver. So, I would be very slow to reject any technology 21 which could enable us to more efficiently handle the 22 emissions problem that we have. 23 Thanks. 24 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: Okay. Is that -- 25 SUPERVISOR VAGIM: I just want to say that I don't PETERS SHORTHAND REPORTING CORPORATION (916) 362-2345 162 1 think any of us disagree with that. And frankly, if it 2 saves people from having to go in biannually, I think it 3 would pay for itself. 4 But I think the underlying issue, and I agree with 5 Dr. Boston, is that this is not an issue of actuality; it's 6 an issue of perception. I have folks in the Valley, talk 7 show hosts, et cetera, the cameras are on our freeways that 8 are there to watch the grid system from getting tied up are 9 actually Big Brother watching us. 10 And if you put transponders on cars, you're going 11 to convince these people absolutely that we've gone bonkers. 12 I think, if anything, any research proposal ought to be how 13 you control this thing and how you actually put governors on 14 them so the transponder does not go beyond a certain number 15 of inches or something; that guarantees to the public that 16 this system is not a Big Brother in the making. 17 I think we all understood today that it was 18 feasible, absolutely feasible. The issue is how do you 19 control it. If there's any research, it ought to be done on 20 that. 21 Thank you. 22 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: Good point. So, the sense is 23 that you bring it back next month, and we'll take another 24 look at it. 25 Thank you, Dr. Holmes. Congratulations. I think PETERS SHORTHAND REPORTING CORPORATION (916) 362-2345 163 1 you had 13 out of 14 research proposals approved. Well 2 done. 3 Are there any other items that need to come up 4 before the Board? 5 MR. BOYD: No further items, Mr. Chairman. 6 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: Okay. With that, we'll adjourn 7 this, the May meeting of the California Air Resources Board. 8 (Thereupon, there was a pause in the 9 proceedings at 1:45 p.m.) 10 --o0o-- 11 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: We have one gentleman here, so I 12 would like to give him an opportunity to speak. Mr. Winkler 13 from Mammoth Lakes would like to talk about Cleaner Burning 14 Gasoline. 15 Mr. Winkler, before I give you the floor, I must 16 tell you that we're planning at the next Board meeting to 17 hear an update on Cleaner Burning Gasoline from the staff. 18 I know that's probably inconvenient for you. But we're 19 going to have a more thorough presentation and discussion at 20 that time. 21 And so, I'm certainly willing and I know there's a 22 handful of my Board member colleagues that will be here to 23 listen to you. And we're glad to do that. But it might be 24 a better place to go to the next meeting, if at all 25 possible. PETERS SHORTHAND REPORTING CORPORATION (916) 362-2345 164 1 So, with that, please have your say, sir. 2 MR. WINKLER: Thank you. I'll give it a shot now 3 and then, if I can, get here for the next Board meeting. 4 As I was telling the nice attorneys from the ARB 5 that were helping me, I saw a very horrible thing at Pebble 6 Beach, where my sister, who is an attorney in San Francisco, 7 married another attorney. So, who knows what the product 8 will be. 9 But at any rate, I'm coming back from Monterey Bay 10 and Monterey Bay Aquarium, and it was convenient for me to 11 talk to the legislators and hopefully also you. 12 I've lived in California since 1935, and I've been 13 driving in California for 50 years. And I've got this 14 button that says, "Cleaner Burning Gasoline." 15 Well, we hope that there'll be some people that 16 will be able to wear a similar button that says, "We 17 survived the CBG inflationary prices of 1996." 18 In Mammoth Lakes, we have a skiing and tourist 19 economy. We've had a weak economy since 1991. Our gas 20 prices didn't go up the 5 to 8 cents a gallon as the cost of 21 the CBG would be. We went up 50 cents a gallon. So, we 22 went up from $1.35 a gallon to $1.85 a gallon, which impacts 23 our tourism, which is our practically only source of 24 revenue, and does create inflation, and is an essential 25 commodity that you have to buy unfortunately. PETERS SHORTHAND REPORTING CORPORATION (916) 362-2345 165 1 What's happened is we've enriched the petroleum 2 companies and the State of California because now they're 3 taxing at say $1.85 a gallon rather than a $1.35 a gallon. 4 They're not satisfied to tax just the petroleum cost, but 5 they also tax the gas tax per gallon, which is 37 cents a 6 gallon. So, that amounts to 3 cents a gallon. And there's 7 a couple of -- I guess just one bill now by Curt Pringle of 8 the Assembly to stop the tax on tax. 9 And what I'm personally going to do is to have the 10 auto club and AAA, who hasn't done much for the last 30 11 years, hence we have gas taxes going to other than road 12 building, and then we have a sales tax -- which came in in 13 1994 -- on gas, plus gas tax. 14 I noticed in passing that the ARCO gas at 16th and 15 W Streets is $1.47 and 9 a gallon, which is by far the 16 cheapest I've seen on my trip from Mammoth to Monterey and 17 back again. 18 And I have been pretty nice letter from Senator 19 Tim Leslie, who's a co-sponsor of the effort to get rid of 20 the tax on the tax, and the prices have increased 32 percent 21 possibly due to the CBG requirement, spending several 22 billions of dollars to change that. And for some reason, 23 California is the only State in the Union that's burning 24 CBG. So, my colleague who had car trouble is going to come 25 next month, and I may come with him, and we're going to ask PETERS SHORTHAND REPORTING CORPORATION (916) 362-2345 166 1 for an exemption for Mono County, because we have very clean 2 air. We already have an exemption on smog inspections. We 3 don't have to get smog inspections at all on our cars. And 4 that may save us some money. 5 It may not save us as much as it should. Also, I 6 know -- I think I'm a right-wing Republican, but I think 7 it's not unreasonable that we should consider putting the 8 petroleum companies under the PUC to stop their reflex, 9 automatic gouging of the citizens of California. They did 10 this before in '74, they're doing it again now. Why the ARB 11 thought, when they put in this CBG, it wouldn't happen, it 12 gave them the excuse to raise the prices. And they sure 13 took advantage of it. 14 But at any rate, the part that couldn't be 15 accounted for was 30 cents per gallon of consumer cost to 16 the oil companies. And I think we could say that was the 17 money that went to the oil companies due to oil company 18 greed, with a little bit of State greed, because now they're 19 taxing, in our case, $1.85 instead of $1.35, and they're 20 taxing the tax, too, which is a little unusual. 21 And so far, nobody over the years has ever been 22 able to prove oil company collusion, and the oil companies 23 have a very powerful lobby and have lots of money. So, if 24 we did go do battle, it would take ten years even if we 25 passed an initiative that said there would be no sales tax PETERS SHORTHAND REPORTING CORPORATION (916) 362-2345 167 1 on gasoline, which seems reasonable, because we can't wait 2 for the legislatures (sic) to do it. They don't seem to 3 move very fast. Hence, we passed Prop 13 after they said, 4 "Give us one more chance." 5 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: Mr. Winkler, what would you have 6 us do? You're covering some ground. It's interesting. Let 7 me assure you we're very well read on this issue. Do you 8 want us to support or at least be aware that you're going to 9 ask for an exemption for Mono County? 10 MR. WINKLER: Yeah, that would be the main item; 11 that next month, when Lou De Bottari's car is running 12 properly, he will make it over when it was agendized. I 13 think it was originally supposed to have been agendized for 14 this month, and then it was postponed. 15 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: What, our -- 16 MR. WINKLER: The CBG agenda item. Originally, it 17 was going to be discussed this month. This is so vital. 18 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: Well, we've been tracking the 19 issue carefully for the last two months. But, if I might 20 just come back to a point you made. You indicated you're 21 going to ask for Mono to be excluded from the CBG. 22 MR. WINKLER: Yeah, Mono, Alpine to be specific. 23 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: Well, in your case, you just 24 took a trip to -- 25 MR. WINKLER: Monterey. PETERS SHORTHAND REPORTING CORPORATION (916) 362-2345 168 1 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: -- Monterey and then up to 2 Sacramento. 3 MR. WINKLER: Right. 4 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: Would you acknowledge that 5 certainly there are vehicles that come through Mono and 6 operate elsewhere, perhaps in air basins that have some air 7 quality problems; perhaps don't have as pristine of an air 8 quality situation as Mono and Alpine, et cetera? 9 MR. WINKLER: Yeah, I can normally see for a 10 hundred miles when I get up in the morning. 11 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: How would you propose that 12 vehicles that are purchasing fuel in Mono and Alpine; I 13 mean, how would you have -- how would that work? 14 MR. WINKLER: To answer your question, most of our 15 visitors from South of the Techachapis, particularly in the 16 winter, which is at least 300 miles. 17 And so, if they're prudent, they fill up along the 18 way, and they arrive in Mono County with a half a tank of 19 gas. 20 So, if they fill up in Mono County, then they've 21 got to go back 300 miles. So, they'll pretty much be out of 22 our gasoline when they get back to their home source. 23 So, we're so remote that most of them don't bring 24 much of our gas back to their home county. 25 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: You're aware of the other PETERS SHORTHAND REPORTING CORPORATION (916) 362-2345 169 1 factors that some experts have cited as the reason for the 2 jump in fuel prices being, you know, the crude oil price 3 increases due to the Iraqi situation, some oil being 4 diverted to the East because of the wintertime, and all of 5 those factors. Do you discount those, or do you -- 6 MR. WINKLER: (Interjecting) They didn't mention 7 oil company greed. I think that should be right in there. 8 Just for your information, Unocal in their annual report 9 says for every one cent a gallon that they're able to stick 10 it to the customer -- I don't think they put it quite that 11 way -- they make 15 million pretax profit. 12 So, if they stick it to the customer for 30 extra 13 cents, that's $450 million they make extra for that year. 14 So, some of these factors are true. Although, 15 when it was announced that Iraqi would sell $1 billion a 16 month for the next many months, the crude oil futures prices 17 went up, which was a little unbelievable. 18 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: We're aware of the request 19 you're going to make, and we'll watch that carefully. 20 MR. WINKLER: Okay. Well, I certainly appreciate 21 your sneaking me in at the last moment. And I hope I didn't 22 delay your lunch too long. 23 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: No, that's okay. It's an 24 important issue. Thank very much. 25 MR. WINKLER: Thank you. PETERS SHORTHAND REPORTING CORPORATION (916) 362-2345 170 1 CHAIRMAN DUNLAP: I appreciate your time. 2 (Thereupon, the meeting was adjourned at 3 1:55 p.m.) 4 --o0o-- 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 PETERS SHORTHAND REPORTING CORPORATION (916) 362-2345 171 CERTIFICATE OF SHORTHAND REPORTER I, Nadine J. Parks, a shorthand reporter of the State of California, do hereby certify that I am a disinterested person herein; that the foregoing meeting was reported by me in shorthand writing, and thereafter transcribed into typewriting. I further certify that I am not of counsel or attorney for any of the parties to said meeting, nor am I interested in the outcome of said meeting. In witness whereof, I have hereunto set my hand this 10th day of June , 1996. Nadine J. Parks Shorthand Reporter PETERS SHORTHAND REPORTING CORPORATION (916) 362-2345