AIR QUALITY - 2005

15 April 2005
Meadows Foundation
Dallas, Texas

Mike McCoy of the Meadows Foundation introduced the discussion and speakers regarding Texas air quality.

Environmental Protection Agency

Becky Weber is with the Region VI office of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, based in Dallas, and responsible for the five-state area of Texas, Louisiana, Oklahoma, Arkansas, and New Mexico. She has a degree in meteorology from Texas A&M and works at the EPA in air permitting, policy and grant funding.

She reported that the long-term trends in ground-level ozone (smog) are improving, down 9% from 1982 to 2001 in Region VI, tracking national trends (down 11%), but lagging behind frontrunners, such as California (down 24%). Despite these improvements, Dallas, Fort Worth, Houston and San Antonio remain in non-attainment of national 8-hour ozone standards. In the most recent tabulated year, Houston had 40 days “ozone-action” days, 5th worst in the nation; Dallas and Fort Worth followed up with 21 and 20 days, ranking 18th and 20th, respectively. She reminded us that some of these statistics were affected by weather fluctuations (recent cool summers may have depressed ozone levels), and by strong increases in Texas population and vehicle-miles driven.

Looking forward, Ms. Weber said that Houston/Galveston and Dallas/Fort Worth were working on meeting several deadlines for compliance with air quality standards: June 2005 (8-hour Texas Transition State Implementation Plan), June 2007 (Moderate Area 8-hour Texas State Implementation Plan), and June 2010 (the national due date for attainment). Also, she was encouraged that some of the other, smaller cities, with better air quality were taking steps to improve things before it was too dire. For instance, San Antonio, Austin/San Marcos, and the Tyler/Marshall/Longview regions, were each filing Early Action Plans to avert going into official non-attainment status. Aside from the health concerns of non-attainment, this status jeopardizes cities’ ability to qualify for federal highway funding cost-shares.

These plans tend to focus on the following areas: improving industrial sources of air pollution (factories, utilities, refineries, etc.), mobile sources (car and truck), and off-road sources (construction equipment, farm tractors, generators, etc.). Increasingly, however, the easy improvements have been made, and the remaining cleanup will rely on individual lifestyle and behavior changes. As examples, she offered the move to a more compact city, with planning and construction of more dense and multi-use developments that encourage people to get out of their cars. As goads to these kinds of changes, she is encouraged by the sight of companies giving their employees DART (Dallas Area Rapid Transit) passes, rather than free parking spaces. She is also enthusiastic about local governments’ educational efforts for energy efficient building, and reductions in urban heat-island problems by painting pavement white.

James Yarborough, a scientist with EPA who has been involved in some of the region’s air pollution control collaboration, research and development, followed. He reiterated Ms. Weber’s view that continued progress will require cooperation to get improvement, since the remaining controls are expensive and marginal in their individual effects (though impressive cumulatively).

He mentioned several initiatives that he thought were promising:

• the Texas Legislature is negotiating SB 5, which would require additional expansion in the renewable energy portfolio, beyond the 1 gigawatt goal set in 1999, largely through wind power investments;
• many cities are finding 6-month paybacks and 95% reductions in traffic signal energy use by converting from light bulbs to LEDs, resulting in 9% reductions in city energy costs overall;
• the City of Austin is paying 10 cents/square foot for companies to paint their roofs white, and were seeing 10-15% reductions in energy use for the effort;
• the City of Frisco (north of Dallas) is also mandating reductions of 6 tons of nitrogen oxides (NOx) per year, per 1000 houses, and towards that has printed a residential green building pamphlet, helping individual homeowners to improve insulation and lower energy use and related air pollution;
• Progressive Insurance has offered a pilot program to offer auto insurance premium rates that drop as you drive fewer miles (when this was offered in Oregon, the state saw a 10% drop in vehicle miles driven);
  Texas cities are adopting alternative fuels in municipal vehicles, typically propane;
• hydrogen fuel cell technology is developing in Texas, such as Dow Freeport’s supply of hydrogen feedstock to power 250 KW fuel cells at General Motors, and the Houston Area Research Council’s diverse work at the Center for Fuel Cell Research and Applications;
• methane, such as that collected and diverted from Galveston’s wastewater treatment plant to power a fuel cell at Moody Gardens, is offering a clean, climate-change neutral fuel;
• a large number of schools, including Birdville High School in North Richland Hills, are using wells and 55-degree groundwater for very efficient, geothermal heating and cooling of their buildings;
• EPA is offering $6 to $10 per trade-in of old leaky gasoline cans (they calculate that the exchange of just 600 leaky cans for tighter cans can capture 2 tons of VOCs per year in the Dallas / Fort Worth area)
• planting trees and other vegetation in cities and suburbs can help reduce the heat island effect, lowering energy use, while also mitigating stormwater runoff;
• EPA is giving credits for green power purchases from wind and solar sources (Texas A&M has created a “calculator” to help potential buyers understand the emissions reduced per green kilowatt purchased);
• tighter diesel fuels standards for 2007 and sponsorship of trade-ins of older, dirty diesel engines should lower truck and off-road equipment emissions,
• electrification of truck stop parking lots would allow truckers to plug into clean energy, and not have to idle polluting diesel engines to keep their refrigeration units going;
  use of fuel cells in ship boilers and off-loading equipment could reduce diesel emissions in port areas;
• centralized car rental zones and glycol cooling units at DFW International Airport have lowered NOx emissions by 400 tons tons/year (6%); and
• Citigroup’s and the Bass Foundation’s purchase of new cleaner schoolbuses has helped reduce asthma among students, NOx emissions, and regional ozone levels.

Mr. Yarborough explained that the source of money for these various projects came from a variety of sources, including: “supplementary environmental projects”, required of polluters to settle violations; internal EPA discretionary funds; EPA grants to states, local governments, and tribes for regulatory, policy and permitting work; and innovative research and development funds administered by the EPA and Department of Energy.

In conclusion, Mr. Yarborough expected that 80% of EPA’s future work would be in cooperative partnerships, and less in confrontational mandates and litigation.

Blue Skies Alliance

Wendi Hammond, an attorney and executive director of the Blue Skies Alliance, spoke next. She explained that the Alliance is a federation of citizens, religious groups, and non-profit organizations concerned about air quality in north Texas, particularly the Dallas / Fort Worth area. She said that the Alliance is trying to raise awareness of air quality issues. Currently, while few would drink from a clear lake without wondering if it were truly clean, many of us think nothing of breathing air that may be contaminated. And, she has found that the air is often contaminated. The DFW area ranks 5th nationwide for the number of deaths attributed to ozone.

She explained that there are a number of challenges for citizens working on air pollution.

For instance, “Health Effects Screening Levels”, which the Texas state environmental agency uses to decide whether a proposed plant’s pollution will harm neighbors’ health, are much looser than the standards used in other states.

There are many forums for decisionmaking – federal, state, county, and local – making it difficult and expensive for small non-profit groups and volunteer citizens to monitor and respond to numerous permits, rulemakings, and pending bills. As an example of air activity on the federal level, Rep. Joe Barton has introduced an amendment to the Energy Policy Act of 2005 which would extend the cleanup deadline for air quality in the DFW metropolitan region. Simultaneously, there are important issues on the state level to deal with: Rep. Bonnen has introduced HB 2758 and Senator Armbrister has filed SB 1542, which together would impose a shortened 15-30 day limit on filing comments regarding permit applications, as well as eliminating contested case hearings entirely for a large category of permits.

The State Implementation Plan (SIP) is the key strategic map for attaining federal air quality standards, yet no SIP exists currently for the DFW area, and none has existed for 9 years. The plan for complying with 1-hour ozone standards failed, and was the subject of an environmental suit in October 2004. The plan for attaining the 8-hour ozone standard is undermined by problems with computer modeling that cropped up in November 2003.

To the extent that progress has been claimed on air quality improvements, it’s often one small step forwards and one step backwards. For example, a pollution reduction credit that the DFW area claimed from improvements at the Alcoa plant 200 kilometers away will largely be eliminated by a power plant proposed for construction near Waco.

Long-term, area-wide air quality plans are often undercut by plant-specific pollution permits. For example, the TXI plant, though it is located in Ellis County, a nonattainment area, is still seeking to get permission to operate its pollution control equipment on a seasonal schedule, rather than year-round.

Challenging permits is made difficult by judicial standing requirements. For instance, a citizen cannot challenge an air pollution permit unless they live within 1.44 miles of the plant’s fenceline, despite the fact that many large facilities emit pollution that travels much further. Even if a citizen or non-profit group succeeds in getting standing to question a permit, the cost and complexity of these proceedings, legally and technically, can be daunting.

Ms. Hammond described several strategies that the Blue Skies Alliance uses to advance its work on air quality. They organize “meet-ups” among concerned citizens and groups, send out emailed alerts and background information, oversee compliance with pollution permits, conduct long-term and in-depth studies of particular problems (such as the Midlothian-area cement kilns, which account for 40% of the industrial emissions in the 5-county DFW region), and build cooperative coalitions. Their coalition is pressing four initiatives: trade-in of highly polluting “clunker cars”, use of green building techniques for Habitat for Humanity homes, electrification of truck stop parking areas, and outreach in church congregations.

Blue Skies Alliance seeks funding for the efforts mentioned above, and generally for research and reporting on air pollution issues, training for advocacy to improve air quality, support of a full-time office and staff, and assistance with technical issues and website development.

Texas Environmental Research Consortium

The next speaker, John Hall, served as executive director of the Texas Natural Resources Conservation Commission (TNRCC), the state environmental agency, from 1991 through 1995. He now leads the Texas Environmental Research Consortium, a non-profit, non-partisan research group focused on environmental challenges facing the Dallas / Fort Worth and the Houston / Galveston areas.

Politics: During his tenure at TNRCC, Mr. Hall realized that environmental politics were essentially “bi-polar”, a lop-sided confrontation between business and environmental NGOs, with business typically getting the upper hand. Since then, however, he’s seen the political balance change. He offered an example of the new multi-polar politics of environmental protection. During the late 1990s, Bob Lanier, then mayor of Houston, hired Mr. Hall and the environmental attorney, Jim Blackburn, to investigate how the City could increase its voice in environmental controversies. At the time, the City was frustrated by having to often take a backseat to the Houston business community, represented by the Chamber (a.k.a. Greater Houston Partnership), in environmental discussions. The Partnership later hired the University of Chicago to explore whether and how people decide to move to Houston with their business. The University soon discovered that Houston was “off the list” of consideration for many business relocations due to poor air quality. With this news, the Houston business community switched its stance in 2000 from opposing air quality improvements to a more accommodating “how do we get there” position. This news also gave the City the political room to adopt many of the positions of the environmental NGOs, giving credence to the NGOs’ positions that had often been dismissed as “bad science”. As the City became more pro-active in environmental negotiations, Harris County wanted to join in, and did.

From this story, Mr. Hall took several lessons. First, environmental negotiations in Houston now often balance the City, County and environmental groups against industry and the Greater Houston Partnership. Second, these discussions are far less polarized than they were in the 1990s, since there’s a consensus that Houston’s economy needs to attract new residents and businesses, and won’t be as appealing if local air quality doesn’t improve. Third, there’s a need for good, peer-reviewed, widely-disseminated scientific research on environmental issues to resolve policy disputes.

Press: Mr. Hall has also been interested in the role of the press in environmental controversies. He offered the example of the series of stories in the Houston Chronicle that appeared during early 2005 regarding air toxics. The writer, Dina Cappielo, assembled and tested a mass of new, citizen-collected samples of air from industrial regions of east Houston, near the Ship Channel. The Chronicle paid for the elaborate sample collection and testing, published the 5-part, in-depth story, and even distributed the stories and supporting evidence to the Legislature. In response, Houston-area industry immediately contacted Legislative officials and managed to discount the story. However, the Texas Commission for Environmental Quality conducted its own follow-up study, and confirmed Ms. Cappielo’s conclusions, in fact, finding them to be overly conservative.

Science: Mr. Hall’s main focus, and that of his group, the Texas Environmental Research Consortium, is the role of science in environmental debates and improvement. He offered three example of where sound research have changed the discussion and led toward policy improvements:

TERC’s “H13” study discovered that upsets at industrial facilities were regular occurrences with significant impacts on ozone. A typical upset might result in a 85,000-pound / hour VOC release, while the permitted emissions were only 10,000 pounds / hour. A mere 1000-pound / hour increase could be tied to a 1-4 part per billion increase in local ozone levels, so these upsets are a significant factor in ozone formation. As a result of this research, the SIP now requires plants to reduce their upset emissions.

TERC’s “H28” study found that the NOx emissions from the cement kilns in Ellis County accounted for 10-15% of the ozone formation in the DFW area. As a consequence, over Rep. Barton’s objection, the Washington D.C. EPA headquarters office included Ellis County as a part of the DFW nonattainment area, which will require these cement kilns to reduce their emissions.

In 2001, the Texas Emission Reduction Plan allotted $130 million for diesel emission reduction incentives, since the state had no regulatory authority to mandate changes. TERC’s “H20” study of TERP’s progress in controlling 1-hour ozone spikes, conducted from 2002 through 2004, discovered that TERP’s dollars would be better spent on NOx (nitrogen oxide) reductions as a way to control ozone smog. As a result, the TERP is now being turned to focus on reducing 8-hour ozone levels. Improvements are likely to come from a 50/50 share of reductions in heavy industry emissions and in a miscellany of sources (ships, airplanes, trucks, off-road vehicles, etc.).

Mr. Hall concluded by emphasizing that while the Texas Environmental Research Consortium has contributed to policy changes, its focus is on science not advocacy.

Questions and answers:

Q: It was noted that while science is quite clear, politics can be very slippery. Given the political uncertainties, would Houston and Dallas / Fort Worth submit and comply with their air quality plans on time?

Wendi Hammond said that it was unlikely: the plans were based on unreal assumptions and calculations.

John Hall disagreed: he thought that the plans would lead to timely compliance, since litigation would force the steps and the schedule. As an example, he said that plaintiffs could press for Houston and Dallas to be bumped from “moderate” to “serious” nonattainment designation, threatening the cities’ share of federal highway dollars. Also, he felt that gasoline and diesel reformulations should result in significant NOx reductions.

Becky Weber responded that she thought that DFW would likely meet its air quality obligations, but that Houston-Galveston, with twice the emissions of DFW, would likely fail to meet the 2010 deadline.

Doug Jacobsen was interested in what effect the recent interest in toxic air pollution control might have on ozone reduction, since many hazardous compounds are also very reactive, and lead quickly to ozone buildups. He felt that toxic emissions were understated by a factor of 10, and controls there could lead to major improvements in ozone levels. He also felt that the increased attention to reducing upsets could be productive in getting better compliance with ozone standards. He explained that it was not unusual for large facilities to have 2-3 relatively minor upsets a week that would release 1000 pounds of volatile compounds, and have 3-4 major upsets per month that would release over 10,000 pounds of VOCs.

Q: It was recalled that Ms. Hammond had found that the Texas Health Effect Screening Levels were far less protective than other states’ standards. Was any effort underway now to tighten those state standards?

Ms. Hammond said that the TCEQ was reviewing the HESL numbers.

Ms. Weber said that there were no EPA air toxic standards to act as a backup.

Q: What is the extent of collaboration among NGOs to improve Texas air quality, recalling the model of water resource work among Sierra, National Wildlife Federation and Environmental Defense?

Wendi Hammond said that Public Citizen’s national office was “amazed” at the strong coordination among air quality advocates in Texas. She said that the coordination still fell short at times, especially when dealing with problems during the distractions of the Legislative Session, or when working on diverse problems, such as heavy industry in Houston and vehicle traffic in Dallas.

John Hall said that Ramon Alvarez (Environmental Defense) and John Wilson (GHASP) were technical experts that were uniformly respected among environmental advocates. He also felt that there was political savvy in the environmental community: Jim Marston understood the trade-offs needed to get school bus improvements while also getting extensions on funding for the Texas Emission Reduction Program.

Dwight Shellman pressed for the need for improved measurements and monitoring, so that permit renewal discussions could be based on a real understanding of the impacts of various plants. He gave as an example the problem of mercury and acid deposition in east Texas, which can be traced back to power plants, but the connection remains speculative because the responsible corporations refuse to do meaningful monitoring.

John Hall said that monitoring is very expensive, so it was necessary to do a pilot effort first to establish the best, most cost-effective methods.

Dwight Shellman thought that a collaboration among the same NGOs that were involved in the water discussions would be fruitful. He recommended that there be a strategy meeting among NGOs to find the “soft underbelly”, the “easy targets”, for air improvements. He also urged that we try to build a wider network of activists, from the 12 leaders now, to a couple of dozen in the future, dispersed across the state.

Wendi Hammond noted that there were no DFW-area funders at the meeting, with the obvious and major exception of the Meadows Foundation. She felt that air quality problems needed a higher profile among DFW’s private foundations. She thought that the challenge of $50/barrel oil might help raise awareness of energy efficiency and related air pollution issues.

Ann Hamilton agreed that efficiency is always a big part of environmental solutions, pointing out that water conservation was a critical tool in water policy reform for Texas.

AIR QUALITY - 2002

20 September 2002
Houston Arboretum
Houston, Texas

David Todd introduced the two main speakers for the meeting, both concerned with air quality: John Wilson with Galveston Houston Association for Smog Prevention (GHASP), and Jane Laping with Mothers for Clean Air (MCA). Mr. Wilson holds a bachelor’s degree from Rice in physics and history, and a master’s in public policy from Harvard. He acted as the Foresight coordinator at the Houston Area Research Center and as a Florida water policy official before coming to GHASP as its executive director in 2000. Ms. Laping holds a master’s degree in public health from the University of Texas at Houston, where she researched the links between ozone and children’s health, and also worked for the City of Houston’s Bureau of Air Policy, before coming to MCA as its director.

Mr. Wilson first explained the roots of the two groups, by noting that GHASP was started in the early 1990s, and was originally very technically oriented, which led it to develop and spin off MCA as a membership-aligned, outreach-based group. He added that the two groups’ focus has been on ozone (the major indicator for smog, not the stratospheric chemical that shields us from ultra-violet rays), fine particulates (dust less than 2.5 micrometers in diameter, typically from coal-fired utility plants), air toxics (benzene and other chemicals), carbon monoxide, and nitrogen oxide.

He said that their greatest concern has been focused on ground-level ozone, which is an oxidant and major respiratory irritant, and a chemical in which Houston leads the nation. As an example, Houston suffered ozone peaks of 251 parts per billion, while Los Angeles (190), San Joaquin (155), Atlanta (173), the US as an average (125), and the permissible standard (120) lagged far behind. Similarly, Houston’s high-ozone days, at 125, exceeded all other US cities by a large margin: Los Angeles (118), San Joaquin (85), and Atlanta (32). Mr. Wilson stressed that we shouldn’t accept these numbers as unavoidable. He emphasized that reducing ground-level ozone and cleaning the air was a solvable problem. The technology exists, but it requires political support and changes in values and lifestyle.

Jane Laping explained that ozone’s greatest impact was on children and geriatrics, causing lung inflammation and bronchial congestion, and leading to medication costs and lost school days. She said that she was encouraged by a new website posted by the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality that tracked local ozone levels, and indicated if the levels were hazardous, very unhealthy, unhealthy, moderate, or good. However, she and Mr. Wilson expressed concern about the excessive downtime for air monitors, and about the lack of monitors in many of the western and southwestern suburbs of Houston.

Looking toward the future, Mr. Wilson discussed the Houston portion of the State Implementation Plan, focussing on the plans for reducing nitrogen oxide emissions, the leading precursor of ozone, from about 1246 tons/day now to 305 tons/day in the future. He was concerned about the continuing delays and deferrals for meeting federal air quality standards, which had now stretched out over two decades, and most recently have been extended to 2004. Mr. Wilson also was doubtful about the effectiveness of certain steps (the ban on morning work might cause more health problems by shifting work to the hot afternoon hours), the political wisdom of other proposals (such as the widely-ignored reduced speed limit), the gaps in the plan (about a third of reductions are claimed to come from unidentified "measures to be adopted"), and the accuracy of the accounting in the current plan (there appears to be double-counting of institutional reductions underwritten by industry).

Barbara McCullough added to Mr. Wilson’s concerns by noting the major errors in the air quality model assumptions (the SUV count is off), and in the over-reliance on voluntary measures.

Mr. Wilson went on to explain that Houston’s problem with nitrogen oxides is unique among American cities, in that 60% of the volatile organic chemicals and 1/7 of the olefins (propylene, ethylene, etc.) in the US are produced in this area, with major releases of highly reactive chemicals in dirty flares, fugitive leaks, and emissions from heat exchangers along the Houston Ship Channel. Unlike other cities, only a small portion of the nitrogen oxide problem, about one quarter, is due to transportation, and a much larger share is due to these petrochemical industry sources.

Jane Laping pointed out that many of the numbers in the air quality debate are very rough and inaccurate: the emissions data are self-reported, and often greatly discount major emissions from "upsets" (accidental releases) and "fugitives" (leaks from the many valves and seals in the plumbing of petrochemical plants). The ambient information is also often inaccurate and full of gaps, due to the small number of monitors scattered over the huge Houston metropolitan area. As an alternative, she and MCA have been promoting use of the "Citizen Air Quality Monitoring Device", a pickle bucket that allows air samples to be collected and relayed to the EPA testing lab for chemical analysis. Unfortunately, these analyses cost $500 each, and the EPA is discontinuing the free processing after 10/31/02.

Nevertheless, Ms. Laping thinks that it is critical to get more local, citizen involvement in air quality issues, if not through the monitoring effort, then through other programs. Towards this, MCA has created four chapters in low-income, minority neighborhoods, including Crosby, Woodland Acres, the 5th Ward, and Southeast Houston. MCA is providing additional information through computers and the Internet, is organizing photo workshops with children, is offering ozone warnings to schools, and is distributing a newsletter and speakers bureau to the general public.

Mr. Wilson noted the importance of forging partnerships with other groups to raise the visibility of air quality problems. With that thought, GHASP and MCA are involved in alliances with CLEAN, Clean Air Action, Clean Air Clear Lake, the Gulf Coast Institute, Houston Green Party, Katy Corridor Coalition, Environmental Defense, and the Sierra Club. There are several good cross-over issues. For instance, the heavy air pollution in Houston is in part due to the cities’ reliance on autos. There are several indicators for the cost of Houston’s love for cars:

• Houstonians pay the most for transportation among all American urbanites;

• the average Houstonian pays $9,000 per year for transportation, vs. $5000 for a resident of Chicago or $6000 for a resident of New York City or San Francisco;

• for every dollar that Houston invests in public transit, Chicago pays $2.70, San Francisco puts in $4, and New York City invests $6.50.

Despite the financial cost of private transportation in Houston, the demonstrated health impacts of air pollution, and the reluctance of new employers to move to a polluted Houston, Mr. Wilson says that the Greater Houston Partnership (the local Chamber) continues to argue for delays in compliance with air quality regulations, to press for "regulatory relief", and to blame local air pollution on federally regulated sources (railroads and ships principally) that are outside of the local and state governments’ purview.

Questions and Answers

Q: What is the possibility of restricted federal dollars for transportation and other projects if Houston does not come into timely compliance with U.S. air regulations? Mr. Wilson said that there might be cutbacks, but Houston and the State of Texas had continually succeeded in deferring the implementation of these regulations, and there appeared to be no funding penalties or other consequences of the repeated delays.

Q: What can we learn about recent ‘raid’ on the Gulf Coast Impact Assistance Fund, where $4.5 million was taken for use in industry air quality monitoring, on rather specious arguments for the coastal wetland harms that might arise from climate change (the global warming agent carbon dioxide is not a regulated emission)? Mr. Wilson said that he felt that the money would fund credible research, and he was particularly excited by the ability of new lasers to sense carbon dioxide and ethylene emissions, a great tool for identifying leaks at chemical plants. Still he agreed that the use of the money from this source appeared to be a violation of Congressional intent.

Q: What might the role of foundations be in improving air quality? Mr. Wilson found that there was a reluctance among foundations to get involved in air quality issues, perhaps because of the complexity of the problem, or maybe the mistaken assumption that many others were already working on the subject.

Q: What has the media’s role been in distributing information about air pollution? Mr. Wilson said that only Channel 11 (the CBS affiliate) had thoughtful coverage of the problem, and the print media exposure had declined with Bill Dawson’s departure from the Houston Chronicle.

Q: What sort of air pollution was found in Houston now, vs. 40 years ago? Looked at differently, what sort of health impact could we expect for ourselves, vs. that for our children. Jane Laping said that the earliest exposure is most critical for life-long effects. She added that a spike in asthma had been seen in recent years. That could be attributed to the worsening of indoor air quality, and the greater time that we spend indoors currently. John Wilson said that air pollution is not a controlled reaction: sun and wind have a large and relatively unknown influence, and current models are too crude to predict the behavior of the Houston airshed. He would only make the general definitive comment that traffic is greater than in the 1960s.

Q: One donor said that she’d recently received a report from the Natural Resources Defense Council on the lack of medical research on local environmental health problems due to the influence of major oil industry donors and employers. Another funder said that there was an upcoming Senate report on the health effects of ozone. A third funder said that work is being done on the mapping of childhood asthma. It was critical that individuals make it clear to their policymakers that they care about their children’s health.

Q: Had GHASP or MCA entered any joint proposals or campaigns? Mr. Wilson said that GHASP had partnerships with Environmental Defense and Public Citizen.