support to the clean energy industry.  No longer will fossil fuel
facilities reap the unfair advantage of being financially unaccountable
for the costs of their pollution.  Such signals are necessary to drive
investments in low carbon technologies that will spur sustainable growth
and create valuable jobs.

		Finally, climate change is a global problem, and it will require a
global solution.  As nations gather at the U.N. Framework Convention on
Climate Change this December, it is imperative that the U.S. reestablish
itself as a world leader in solving the complex challenges posed by
climate change.  The U.S. must do our fair share to reduce domestic
emissions as quickly as possible, and that requires we use all means at
our disposal from both the Executive and Legislative branches of
government plus State and Local action.

		In addition to answering the call of the science, strong U.S.
emissions reductions commitments will enable a wide range of developing
economies to take more ambitious domestic action and create new markets
to grow the global green economy from which we will all benefit.

		For these reasons, I am here on behalf of the U.S. Climate Action
Network to applaud the EPA for their intent to regulate major greenhouse
gas polluters and urge the EPA to take the final steps to implement a
strong rule to aid in our transition to a clean energy economy.  Thank
you.

		MR. LING:  Thank you very much.  Mr. Aliriza?

		MR. ALIRIZA:  Hi.  My name is Bahri Aliriza. I'm the President for
Northern Cyprus Culture.  I'm sorry, got too many hats here.  I'm just
coming from another meeting.  I'm the President for Polytrade
International Corp. and I want to first of all thank the panel for
inviting me to speak here today which I think is a very worthy cause to
hear from the public and for coming here also.

		We want to encourage the EPA, and thank you for everything that you're
doing, and we want to encourage, specifically, any actions to reduce the
emissions and the looking at the specific power plants, coal-fired power
plants that are emitting tremendous emissions into the air.  And one of
the reasons I wanted to come here and speak is, I'm like one of many
companies out there that have a technology to reduce emissions.  Ours
doesn't do it 100 percent, unlike solar and wind energy, which I
encourage that we should have here in this country because solar is 100
percent no pollution and wind energy same thing.  But they both have
their limitations, because you've got to have wind for one, and you've
got to have the sun for the other one.

		We have a technology which is a catalyst that you could use with all
the liquid fuels and even with coal, and it will at least, with the
liquid fuels, you can reduce the emissions about 38 to 60 percent, and
I'm talking about all the harmful emissions like NOX, which is nitrogen
oxide, hydrocarbons, carbons, sediment, ash, sulfur.  You can actually
spray our technology onto the coal, just as it's crushed and pulverized
before it's -- and then you can spray with our product before it goes
into the burner and you can actually reduce about 82 percent of the
emissions from coal.

		And it's unfortunate that we are a small company and we do not have a
quarter million dollars, which is what is required to get an independent
lab testing.  So we are looking for investors.  We are looking for
anyone that's interested in reducing emissions, and I know, with the
EPA, I have not found any program that also encourages small businesses
or has any programs that we can take advantage of.  I know there's a
program, there's a verification program.  But you still have to go and
spend about a quarter million dollars to get an independent lab test,
and then it's just verifying what somebody else has already done.  So
this is one thing that the EPA can do, either working through the
universities or through other programs, and taking advantage of small
businesses like us, that have some solutions to help in reducing the
emissions in the air.

		And our technology, besides reducing the emissions, it also gives you
fuel efficiency anywhere between 15 to 20 percent.  So that's another
advantage, and makes your engine last longer, run smoother, have more
power, and besides an anti-pollutant at 38 to 60 percent reduction in
emissions, also it's an anti-gel, so guaranteed your diesel fuel or your
fuel oil will not gel up.  So, it will not freeze up basically.

		And again, I encourage the EPA to look at all technologies out there
because it's not just one technology that's going to help us.  It's
taking advantage of all the different technologies out there. With our
product, it does not reduce global warming in the sense that what causes
global warming which is carbon dioxide.  But because our product reduces
the emissions -- I mean because it increases the fuel efficiency 15 to
20 percent, you're going to have 15 to 20 percent less emissions causing
global warming and climate change.  So this is why our technology will
help with the environment also and with the specific threats that we
face with the global warming issue at hand.  Thank you very much, and
that's all I have.

		MR. LING:  Thank you.  Questions for the panelists?

		Mr. ALIRIZA:  Oh, I just wanted to add also, most of my information is
on our website under www.polytrade.net.  And Polytrade is P-O-L-Y-Trade,
all one word, dot net.  Thank you.

		MR. LING:  Thank you both very much.  I would like to call up Bryan
Brendle.  Sorry, we don't have anyone to sit with you.

		MR. BRENDLE:  That's all right.  Thank you for pushing me up in the
schedule.  I appreciate that.

		MR. LING:  Sure.  Just whenever you're ready to start.

		MR. BRENDLE:  Okay, yes.  My name is Bryan Brendle.  I'm the Director
for Energy and Resource Policy at the National Association of
Manufacturers headquartered here in Washington, D.C.  And by way of
background, the NAM is the nation's largest industrial trade association
representing more than 11,000 small, medium and large manufacturers in
all industrial sectors and in all 50 states.  The NAM is the country's
leading voice for the manufacturing sector and we employ several million
American workers.

		Thank you for the opportunity to comment on the Environmental
Protection Agency's proposal to impose first-time ever greenhouse gas
emissions controls on industrial facilities through the Prevention of
Significant Deterioration program and Title V permitting programs, also
known as the EPA's "tailoring rule".

		The NAM has long urged the EPA to defer to Congress when considering
establishment of Federal climate policy, especially one that uses the
Clean Air Act as a tool which regulates emissions from stationary
sources.  As Congress continues to debate the outlines for comprehensive
Federal climate policy, the NAM urges the Administration not to
circumvent the ongoing legislative debate on an issue that would impact
all sectors of the economy struggling to regain its equilibrium.  The
NAM opposes regulation of large stationary sources, those emitting more
than 25,000 tons per year of carbon equivalent as outlined by the
tailoring proposal under the decades old PSD program. Additionally,
manufacturers have serious concerns about the legal foundation on which
EPA is basing its proposal.

		The EPA is definitely entering uncertain legal territory by proposing
to regulate very large facilities initially at least at the 25,000 ton
per year level for GHGs under programs that federal law requires be
regulated at the 100 to 250 ton level.  At the same time, EPA proposes
to establish a process, by which, it will immediately consider ways to
regulate even smaller sources, therefore laying the groundwork for even
greater expansion of its regulatory power.

		Furthermore, litigation offers another avenue to regulation of small
and mid-sized manufacturers as litigants will force EPA to adhere to the
requirements of Federal law.  Federal law does not allow EPA
unilaterally to raise the PSD threshold.  The Clean Air Act explicitly
states that PSD includes any source with the potential to emit 250 tons
per year or more of any air pollutant.  To add to the uncertainty, the
tailoring proposal also allowed States to move forward with more
stringent permitting programs which could lead to the creation of a
patchwork of State regulatory programs, leading to compliance obstacles
for what would amount to first-time regulations.

		According to EPA, though, the "tailoring rule" will directly impact
approximately 13,000 facilities.  The scope is actually greater because
sources below the proposed 25,000 ton threshold will also, eventually,
be covered by the proposed rule.  Despite the relatively limited scope
claimed by EPA, unfortunately for manufacturers, the 25,000 ton level
threshold requirement and the uncertainty in what will be required to
obtain permits will result in the inability of industry to plan and
expand their operations and facilities and subsequently result in a
continued loss of potential revenue, jobs and improvement of the United
States economy.

		Such a one size fits all standard will also not take into account
impacts on energy markets to which the manufacturing sector is
especially vulnerable.  Between 2000 and 2008, the manufacturing sector
lost more than 3.7 million high wage jobs due, in large part, to energy
price volatility.  New mandates from EPA, especially establishing
permitting requirements on GHG emissions using programs designed to
limit criteria pollutants, will further erode U.S. industrial
competitiveness and eliminate jobs by limiting energy choices available
to consumers.

		Along with lengthier permitting requirements, EPA would also mandate
Best Available Control Technology on all plants subject to new
requirements.  These mandate controls ranging from increased energy
efficiency, co-firing of biomass to generate electricity, fuel switching
to natural gas and possibly carbon capture and sequestration technology,
which is still being developed for wide-scale commercial viability.

		Sorting through the definition of backed and imposing technology
requirements on a case-by-case basis as outlined by Federal law will
further add to project uncertainty and increase costs to facilities
subject to the new rule.  NAM would like to point out that with respect
to the Clean Air Act amendments of 1990 and EPA's implementing programs,
the technology necessary to reduce the target pollutants, including the
impacts of acid rain, already existed and were largely
commercially-viable.

		The Administration must allow elected officials to address the climate
change issue through public and transparent debate and craft a
comprehensive Federal policy that will achieve environmental results
while inflicting no economic harm.  By resorting to decades old programs
under the Clean Air Act, which were designed to reduce emissions of
local pollutants rather than more globally distributed concentrations of
GHGs, the EPA is not embarking on a course that will adequately address
the complex issue of climate change.

		The U.S. needs a modern, comprehensive and thorough policy based on
innovative approaches vetted through the legislative process.  The
manufacturing sector urges the Administration not to circumvent that
process.  The NAM looks forward to continuing to work with Congress.

		MR. LING:  I'm going to have to ask you -- you're a minute past time.
Can you just sum up?

		MR. BRENDLE:  Great.  Well, we look forward to working with the EPA,
the Administration and Congress to craft modern policy and to avoid
using programs in the Clean Air Act to regulate stationary sources.
Thank you.

		MR. LING:  Thank you very much.  Okay.  I'm seeing that we have no
more names signed up, so we will suspend again until some more witnesses
arrive.  Thank you.

		(Whereupon, a short recess was taken.)

		MR. LING:  We are reconvened for at least two speakers, especially
since one of them was signed up to speak at 2:50.  So, I'd like to
invite to the table Joe Smythe and Simon Bennett.  And I'll ask Mr.
Smythe to go first here in just a minute, and then I'll ask Mr. Bennett
to go and then the panel may have questions.  And so, you'll each have
five minutes, and the timer will start when you begin speaking and the
yellow light will come on when you have two minutes left.  So, Mr.
Smythe, whenever you're ready.

		MR. SMYTHE:  Thank you for the opportunity to testify before you today
on the EPA's proposed rule to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from
large stationary sources.  My name is Joe Smythe.  I'm a spokesperson
for Greenpeace USA.  Greenpeace is an eminent campaigning organization
that uses peaceful direct action and creative communication to expose
global environmental problems and to promote solutions that are
essential to a green and peaceful future.  So, my comments today will be
relatively brief as Greenpeace plans to submit more substantive remarks
on this rule in writing.

		Global climate change is the greatest environmental, humanitarian and
economic challenge the world has ever faced.  Millions of people are
already feeling the impacts of climate change, and an estimated 300,000
people die each year from its effects.  Avoiding the worse of climate
change, including widespread drought, flooding and massive population
displacement caused by rising sea levels, means that temperature
increases must peak as far below two degrees as soon as possible
compared to preindustrial levels.  The Intergovernmental Panel on
Climate Change in its Fourth Assessment Report states that avoiding a
temperature rise above two degrees requires that global greenhouse gas
emissions peak by 2015 or sooner.

		By 2020, developed countries like the United States will need to have
cut emissions by at least 40 percent from 1990 levels.  Greenpeace
applauds the EPA's efforts to regulate greenhouse gas emissions.  In
April 2007, the Supreme Court determined in its landmark ruling in
Massachusetts v. EPA that the agency has the authority to regulate
greenhouse gas emissions under the Clean Air Act.  It's encouraging to
now see the EPA moving forward with this proposed rule.  Action on this
matter is long overdue.

		Stationary sources covered by this proposed rule account for a third
of all greenhouse gas emissions.  Greenpeace supports the agency's
decision to address a group of six greenhouse gases, carbon dioxide,
methane, nitrous oxide, hydrofluorocarbons, perfluorocarbons and sulfur
hexafluoride.  We also support the proposal to use carbon dioxide
equivalents as a preferred metric for determining greenhouse gas
emission rates for any combination of these six gases.

		It is important to note, that as a first step, a majority of sources
covered by this rule can dramatically reduce emissions with currently
available pollution control technology as well as energy efficiency.
So, as noted by Administrator Lisa Jackson in her announcement of the
rule, "We have the tools and the technology to move forward today, and
we are using them."  Energy efficiency in particular has enormous
potential to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Yet, we have only
harnessed a fraction of its potential.  A detailed study released
earlier this year by McKinsey & Company on the potential of energy
efficiency to cut emissions reveals that an integrated set of energy
efficiency investments and solutions would reduce nontransportation
energy consumption by 23 percent.  This translates into a CO2 abatement
of 1.1 gigatons.  In other words, through energy efficiency alone, the
potential exists to surpass carbon caps in the Congressional climate
bills many times over.  The icing on the cake is that these investments
would come at virtually no cost.

		On top of promoting smarter energy use, this proposed rule would also
create incentives to producers and innovators of green technology, as
well as give preference to clean renewable energy, which will lead to
further emissions reductions in the near future.  The potential for
renewable energy technology to curtail CO2 emissions is vast.  A 2007
study by the American Solar Energy Society outlines how deployment of a
suite of clean energy technologies would cut U.S. emissions by 1.9
gigatons by 2030, more than 15 percent of current annual U.S. emissions.
 What's more, other renewable energy forums, such as Marine North Wave
and Title Power, are nearing commercialization.  When they become
available, their deployment could allow the U.S. to cut emissions even
further and repower the economy even faster.

		And despite what some opponents have said, regulating greenhouse gas
emissions will not ruin the American economy.  On the contrary, studies
show that strong Federal climate policy will help the economy get back
on its feet.  A recent report from the University of California at
Berkeley shows that under comprehensive energy and climate policy the
U.S. could gain 918,000 to 1.9 million jobs and grow household income by
$488 to $1,176 by 2020.  In fact, according to the International Energy
Agency, it is the postponing of transitioning the energy sector to
renewables and greater efficiency that will be costly, not to mention
the exorbitant costs that will come with doing nothing to mitigate
climate change.

		The IEA concluded in a recent report that the economic downturn has
"created an opportunity to put the global energy system on a trajectory
to stabilize greenhouse gas emissions."  Investing in important
technologies and efficiency will be cheapest now.  IEA Executive
Director Nobuo Tanaka notes that "This gives us a chance to make real
progress towards a clean energy future but only if the right policies
are put in place promptly."

		Finally, it is critical to realize the regulation of greenhouse gases
by the EPA and the Cap and Trade Program as proposed by Congress are not
mutually-exclusive.  Emissions limits and requirements for Best
Available Control Technology for greenhouse gases are complementary to
and can even facilitate implementation of a legislatively-mandated
cap-and-trade program.  Therefore, regardless of the action by Congress,
we urge the EPA to move toward finalizing this rule sooner rather than
later.  Thank you for taking our comments into consideration.

		MR. LING:  Thank you.  Mr. Bennett.

		MR. BENNETT:  Yes, my name is Simon Bennett.  I want to thank the
panel for the opportunity to testify here as a private citizen.  I
served four years in the U.S. Air Force in the early '50s.  Then, as an
electrical engineer over a period of 45 years, I worked on
specification, design, testing, operation and management of
communication satellites and their associated systems.  After that, I
retired.

		My career allowed me to visit and observe many parts of the world.  In
my spare time, I've enjoyed watching and studying birds, collecting
mushrooms and doing photography.  As a science-oriented person, I'm very
much aware of and concerned about global warming.  I have followed all
sorts of reports and studies, and this gentleman just mentioned a lot of
them, on this issue and have concluded that greenhouse gas emissions are
a real problem for the long-term well-being of earth's environment.  On
this issue, I'm very pleased and proud that the EPA and President Obama
are accepting the scientific results and taking action now.

		The big polluter rule under current consideration by the EPA is, in my
view, very reasonable and proper if we are to keep this planet earth
from overheating.  The rule would apply only to new facilities and to
expanded or modified existing facilities that are emitting at least
25,000 tons of greenhouse gases every year.  The rule would exempt small
businesses, churches, apartment buildings while addressing the bulk of
the nation's global warming pollution.  It would require the worst
offenders, like new coal plants and other big polluters, to install the
best available technology to clean up pollution that causes global
warming.

		As a person that studies and believes in science and in practical
solutions to problems, I know that there are many technological
solutions that can be applied today and that further advances will
develop if the proposed big polluters rule is enacted and enforced.  As
with communication satellites, we cannot wait to do the right thing.
Once a satellite is launched, you cannot fix a problem that then arises.
 The design and testing and analyses done before launch is therefore
crucial.

		A similar situation exists with global warming.  Many people argue
that we can wait to reduce what is clearly a major problem:  the global
warming due to greenhouse gas air pollution.  We must reduce it now.  We
must not wait, not for ourselves, not for our children, not for our
grandchildren.

		A final note.  My wife and I visited Egypt in April this year.  We
were delighted to run into many children and adults and many adults who,
upon hearing that we are Americans, smiled very broadly and shouted
"Love Obama."  It was delightful to see and hear.  Thank you.

		MR. LING:  Thank you.  Questions for the panel?  No questions.  Thank
you both very much.  We're going to suspend until four o'clock and
reconvene at that time.  Thank you.

		(Whereupon, a short recess was taken.)

		MR. LING:  Okay, good afternoon, folks.  Thanks to the folks who stuck
around and I understand we have a group of new folks who are ready to
speak, so we will reconvene the hearing, and I will call up Rhea Hale
and A.G. Randall.  And since you folks weren't around when I explained
this earlier, I don't believe, we'll ask both of you to speak.  We'll
have Ms. Hale go first.  When you begin speaking, the timer will come on
and you'll have five minutes.  When there's two minutes left, the yellow
light will come on.  And then when your time is up, the red light will
come on.  If you're having difficulty seeing the lights, Juan will hold
up cards as well.  And then, after both of you, if you could remain at
the table until both of you have spoken, then the panel may ask you
questions after that.  So, with that, Ms. Hale, you may begin speaking
whenever you're ready.

		MS. HALE:  Okay, thank you.  Can you hear me?  Okay.  Good afternoon.
My name is Rhea Hale, Director for Climate and Air Programs at the
American Forest and Paper Association.  I appreciate the opportunity to
speak at today's hearing.  The primary point of my remarks today is to
recommend that EPA acknowledge the carbon neutrality of biomass in the
PSD greenhouse gas "tailoring rule".

		AF&PA is the national trade association for the forest products
industry representing land owners, pulp, paper, packaging and wood
products manufacturers.  The industry is among the top 10 manufacturing
sector employers in 48 states, employing approximately 1 million people.
 Not only do our companies make products from renewable and recyclable
biomass raw materials, but we also derive over 65 percent of our energy
needs from carbon neutral biomass.  In the "tailoring rule", EPA has
justified raising the significance threshold based on the doctrine of
"absurd results".  We believe that if EPA does not clearly acknowledge
carbon neutrality in the rule, that too will result in "absurd results"
and upend years of established policy in both U.S. and internationally.

		Carbon neutrality is universally-recognized as a basic tenet of
renewable energy and climate change policy.  It is incorporated into the
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Guidance and the UNSCCC
reporting protocols which the U.S. EPA itself uses to calculate its
annual greenhouse gas inventory of emissions in sinks.  Both the House
passed and Senate proposed climate bills specify that fossil fuel based
carbon dioxide is included in the required 25,000 ton CO2 equivalent
threshold to be considered a covered entity.  Both bills also have a
corresponding exemption for carbon dioxide emissions from renewable
biomass.

		Finally, in its own proposed rule issued in May or its proposed rule
issued in May of this year, to implement the Renewable Fuel Standard,
EPA again recognized the carbon neutrality of biomass.  In addition,
reporting protocols developed by the World Resources Institute, World
Business Council for Sustainable Development, International Standards
Organization, the Climate Registry, Environment Canada, U.S. EPA Climate
Leaders, Midwest Greenhouse Gas Accord Advisory Recommendations, U.S.
Department of Energy 1605(b) Program, and most recently, EPA's Mandatory
Reporting Protocol of Greenhouse Gases, all differentiate biogenic from
fossil carbon dioxide emissions.

		These policies and protocols all recognize that carbon neutrality is
an inherent property of biomass based on the natural carbon cycle.  The
carbon dioxide removed from the atmosphere during photosynthesis is
converted into organic carbon and stored in biomass.  When harvested and
combusted, the carbon in the biomass is released as carbon dioxide, thus
completing the carbon cycle.  This convention is universally-accepted
and has been incorporated into every climate change policy in existence
today except for EPA's PSD greenhouse gas "tailoring rule".

		The IPCC recognized that an imbalance between the rate of uptake of
CO2 by plants and the rate of return of biogenic carbon to the
atmosphere through combustion, decay or respiration can affect the
carbon cycle.  In the United States, harvested forests are replanted or
regrown, resulting in increases in carbon stocks.  Based on
comprehensive accounting reported in EPA's annual greenhouse gas
inventory, U.S. forest land carbon stocks are increasing and the biomass
carbon cycle in the U.S. is acting as a net sink for carbon dioxide
rather as a source of emissions.

		Carbon dioxide stocks in U.S. forests continue to grow at a rate of
over 800 million metric tons of CO2 equivalents per year.  Even on U.S.
timberland supplying wood to the forest products industry, carbon stocks
are stable or increasing.  There are significant consequences should the
PSD greenhouse gas "tailoring rule" not recognize the carbon neutrality
of biomass.  First, treating biomass based fuels essentially the same as
fossil fuels under climate policy would increase the adverse
environmental impacts associated with fossil fuel use. Entities would
prefer to use fossil fuels which have a higher heating value and are
therefore more efficient in terms of energy production.  Beyond
greenhouse gas, fossil fuels also produce more sulfur dioxide when
burned than do biomass based fuels.

		Second, failing to recognize the carbon neutrality of biomass would
create substantial uncertainty, deterring markets for renewable energy
and upsetting strategies to address climate change and energy security.
Investors in industries planning to undertake investments in these areas
would be paralyzed, precisely at a moment when the national and global
economies need these types of investments.

		Third, economic and job dislocation would result in jurisdictions that
do not recognize biomass as carbon neutral in climate policy.  EPA would
be eliminating a potential cost-mitigating compliance strategy, the use
of carbon neutral biomass fuel, for not only the forest products
industry but other manufacturing facilities as well.  Can I go on one
more second?

		EPA has ample legal authority to exclude carbon dioxide emissions
generated by combustion of biomass from the determination of whether a
facility is a major stationary source or is undergoing a major
modification for PSD purposes.  In fact, EPA has asserted that it does
have similar types of flexibility to interpret the PSD provisions of the
Clean Air Act, including the proposed "tailoring rule".  For example,
EPA shows its discretion in defining the pollutants that will be subject
to PSD permitting as the aggregate of six chemicals whose emissions are
thought to contribute to global warming.

		EPA also differentiates among VOCs that do or do not contribute to
ozone formation when applying PSD under the NAAQS.  Given the scientific
and policy precedent supporting the carbon neutrality of biomass, EPA's
current recognition of this principle in existing rules and programs and
the high level of discretion that EPA has in this rulemaking, AF&PA
believes that EPA should exclude biogenic CO2 emissions from the major
source and major modification threshold determinations.  Thank you.

		MR. LING:  Thank you.  Go ahead, Mr. Randall.  Start whenever you're
ready.

		MR. RANDALL:  Fine.  Thank you for the opportunity to provide a brief
comment.  In June, I submitted comments on the EPA proposed endangerment
finding.  To date, there has been no response to the public comments,
not mine, nobody else's.  So I have no idea what you feel about those
comments.  Those are pertinent to your rulemaking, your proposed
rulemaking.

		And we have recently learned that EPA has suppressed internal dissent
on this very issue of climate science, and this from an organization
that committed to make decisions based on science and transparency, a
huge disappointment.  Unfortunately, EPA is proceeding without any
validation.  This process is a total waste of taxpayer funds, money that
we have to borrow from the Chinese to get this stuff done.

		I would like to make three points today.  First, an inconvenient fact:
 The climate models that EPA uses are fatally flawed.  The models all
predict warming, but the atmosphere and the surface have been cooling
since 1998, and we are now at roughly 1988 levels.  Europeans are
predicting cooling for another 20 years.  If the New York Times knows
this, why doesn't EPA?

		The question then, if the basis for the rule is without merit, how can
EPA justify any action, any action?  Second, EPA's recent analysis shows
that greenhouse gas concentrations will continue to increase no matter
what we do, your own analysis.  On October 23, you submitted a report to
the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee.  Here's an excerpt
from page 25:  "EPA has now analyzed" -- you had until that time -- "how
U.S. targets combined" -- now these are the targets from the Obama
Administration in their 2010 budget -- "combined with international
actions could affect global concentrations."  So, up until recently,
basically the same timeframe for this ruling, this rulemaking, you had
not done the analysis, which is incredible, because President Obama went
to Italy and made all these claims without having any backing for
whether or not we could even survive this.

		Now, the key conclusion was, "It should be noted" -- this is EPA's
words -- "It should be noted that carbon dioxide equivalent
concentrations are not stabilized in these scenarios."  How in the world
can EPA do an analysis at the same time you're proposing this that says
you can't control concentrations, no matter what we do?  "Thus, EPA's
current analysis demonstrates that we have no control over global
concentrations."  How can EPA propose to control any concentration,
which you're going to have to, by controlling a limited number of U.S.
sources as proposed with this 25,000 ton threshold for PSD?

		The staff responsible for this rule needs to digest the October 23
report.  Now I'm not saying what the modeling says.  They ran the
minicam and the magic model.  You have all the data.  Go back and get
that data.  Can we ever compare the two results of what we want to do
with the PSD rule and the data?  There's no way to make these things
converge.

		Third, EPA cannot cherrypick which sources it will regulate.  In your
ANPR, EPA contends that any greenhouse gas emissions at any level
creates a problem, no matter what they are.  If it's methane, if it's
nitrous oxide, anything.  So, if you look at the ANPR and the words in
that proposal, you know that you said if these things follow, then we
can get you on this stuff.  Even though EPA claims that there is no
standard currently, the current policy is headed towards a greenhouse
gas NAAQS with the entire country in nonattainment.  You know fully well
what that means.  Maybe the people in the audience don't, but you have
to explain that clearly to everybody in this country.

		Under NAAQS, EPA must reduce concentrations of the pollutants to a
level that protects the public.  Some have argued like in the Mass. v.
EPA case that current greenhouse gas levels are already harmful.  So,
what would it take to actually lower global concentration levels?  A
perpetual recession in this country leading to a depression will not be
enough to decrease concentrations.  So what gives?

		The only question then, is 450 PPM carbon dioxide equivalent harmful?
If it is and I know a lot of people have talked about that stuff, you've
got comments on the record.  You're asking for more comments.  Then we
are already at the threshold.  We are already at 450 PPM equivalent.
CO2, 390.  The rest of the greenhouse gases, we're at that level now. So
there's no question about we're already there.  So we're already what,
in nonattainment?  So, if EPA proceeds with this rule, it must evaluate
the impact and a full impact of triggering greenhouse gas NAAQS on the
condition that we're already at the threshold and the whole country,
every locality, every plant, every region is in nonattainment, and
nobody else understands, but you do, what this means.  This has a huge
impact on our future, high impact on our energy production, our economy,
and our national security.   Thank you.

		MR. LING:  Okay, any questions?  All right. No questions, but I did
just want to make one comment, which is that you began by saying that we
haven't responded to the comments on the endangerment finding. That's a
separate action from today.  We haven't gone final with that, and
traditionally our responses to the comments are provided when we go
final.  So that's why.  And then, similarly, the comments that you've
made today we would look at in the context of the final "tailoring
rule".  So no questions.  Thank you both very much for your testimony.

		And I will call the next two speakers.  Timothy Wise and Jonathan
Blockson.  Okay, so I think you guys were here when I explained it.  But
just in case, you can start speaking whenever you're ready, and the
timer will start at that time and then yellow means two minutes left.
So we'll start with Mr. Wise.

		MR. WISE:  Okay.  For the record, my name is Timothy Wise and I live
here in Arlington, Virginia.  Although many think I'm a global warming
skeptic, I must say that I keep looking for evidence of global warming,
but the best explanations come from those of the skeptics.

		The problem, in my view, is the introduction of politics rather than
the analysis of quality science.  In the words of Christian Burns, "When
a scientist publishes a study, that study should be reviewed by another,
or a group of scientists, who then publish their review.  The initial
scientist then has an opportunity to refute anything in the review.  A
separate group of scientists should then publish an objective finding of
what was learned.  This process would ensure a much more effective
advancement of science and learning.  But unfortunately," she concludes,
"that's not the case."

		In many ways, mankind has made tremendous progress in the 400 years
since Galileo was almost burned at the stake for arguing the sun, and
not the earth, was the center of the solar system.  However, it seems in
some ways, mankind has made virtually no progress.  Scientists Willie
Soon and David Legates have a column in I believe it's today's
Townhall.com. In it, they discuss how they were invited and then
disinvited to host a session at the fall 2009 meeting of the American
Geophysical Union in San Francisco.  It involved an "integrated
assessment of the vast array of disciplines that affect and, in turn,
are affected by the earth's climate."  As Soon and Legates write,
"Scientific inquiry has once again been silenced just as it was 400
years ago.  The AGU should be ashamed and its members should be
outraged."

		From the stories I see written by the science and climate reporters of
the New York Times and the Washington Post, there is none of this
scientific method in climate science.  Even worse, are the stories
blaming this catastrophe, or that calamity, on global warming.  Just
yesterday, I saw a list of 100 items caused by global warming, for
example, the deaths of aspen trees in the West or the incredible
shrinking sheep.  If high quality, good quality science was being
practiced, such stories would not survive, let alone even being
introduced after some time.

		While I don't know the scientific practices of EPA scientists, it
appears someone needs to assess those practices.  For example, on pages
112 and 113 of Dr. Fred Singer's book, Unstoppable Global Warming Every
1500 Years, he reports on the huge climatic heat vent found by MIT's
Richard Linson and a team of NASA scientists.  The existence of this
heat vent has been confirmed by two other teams.  However, search of
EPA's climate change webpages found no mention of these climatic heat
vents.  I find that especially troubling.

		In addition, I also find EPA's climate change webpages incomplete with
regard to the last 2000 years of climate change.  Like the infamous
documentary, the 2000 year EPA cutoff seems to be a convenient
occurrence.  Why?  On pages 21 and 22 of Dr. Singer's book, he mentions
an unnamed cold period from 600 to 200 B.C. which preceded the Roman
warming, which itself lasted from 200 B.C. to 600 A.D.

		Also missing from the EPA list is the 300 years of the Dark Ages, cold
period.  It's important to ask at this point, what causes these warming
periods since humans were not burning fossil fuels to release CO2, and
what happened to flip the earth from cool into warming if we know the
Post and Times reporters haven't written about it.

		In closing, it seems an essential issue of the "tailoring rule" is
whether any regulation of greenhouse gases, especially CO2, is justified
by the science.  Thank you.

		MR. LING:  Thank you.  And Mr. Blockson.

		MR. BLOCKSON:  Yes.  Hi.  I'm Jonathan Blockson.  I'm here today as a
private citizen.  I live in Vienna, Virginia.  I'm employed as a
software engineer at Google here in Washington, D.C.

		So every month or two, Dominion Virginia Power, which is my power
company, sends out a nice little newsletter with their bill and they
include a little pie chart of where my power comes from.  And it's
always very distressing to me to see that somewhere between a third and
a half comes directly from coal and the majority of the rest is
purchased from other power companies which they don't attribute a source
to.  So basically, all the energy I'm using to power the devices in my
house is coming from coal. And that kind of concerns me, because I do
believe in global warming, and I think it's a significant threat to our
planet.

		So, I also have two children, ages 4 and 5-1/2, and we use a
discipline system, 1-2-3 that you may have used where you count them if
they do something wrong and you give them some time to correct that
behavior.  And if they get to three, then the hard part comes where you
actually have to enforce something and you have to take them and put
them in time out or something.  And what you find is if you're not
willing to actually put them in time out, maybe you're trying to get
their clothes on and you need to get to school, then it doesn't do
anything.  So I kind of believe that if this rule is on the books for
whatever reason, we should enforce it.

		Now some of the things I like about the rule are that it targets big
polluters like the people who are providing my power.  And now, while my
homeowners association won't let me go put up solar panels on my roof,
if we change the economics of the situation, then we're much more likely
to get to a point where as a society we're not putting more CO2 into the
air.

		So I think this is a pretty good idea, and it seems like we should
start enforcing it and make these polluters clean up.  So thank you very
much.

		MR. LING:  Thank you.  Questions?  All right, thank you both very
much.  All right, I'm going to call up two more speakers.  We have Ken
Haapala and Donna Childress, and I would ask you as a courtesy to spell
your name for the court reporter when you introduce yourself.  And we
will start with you, Ken.

		MR. HAAPALA:  Also, can I introduce here, documents for this part of
my testimony?

		MR. LING:  Absolutely.  So whenever you're ready, feel free to start
and the timer will start at that time.  Thanks.

		MR. HAAPALA:  Thank you.  Kenneth Haapala, H-A-A-P-A-L-A,
Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change.  Four hundred
years ago, educated Europeans strongly disagreed as to what determines
scientific knowledge.  Was it statements by authorities such as
Aristotle or religious leaders, or was it physical evidence as advocated
by Galileo?

		Since then, the miracle of Western science was built on the dictum
that science must never ignore physical evidence.  Unfortunately, the
EPA has reverted to medieval science.  The EPA has failed to present any
compelling physical evidence that man's emissions of greenhouse gases
caused 20th century warming.  Instead, it relied on the U.N.
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and its faulty computer models
that are biased, obsolete and wrong.  Atmospheric carbon dioxide
continues to rise, but the globe stopped warming over a decade ago.  The
science used by the EPA cannot explain why.

		Prior to the formation of the IPCC, it was widely recognized by those
who studied the physical evidence that the earth's climate is constantly
changing.  Since the last ice age, there have been periods of warming
and cooling.  The most striking warm period, at least for the Northern
Hemisphere, was one of over 3,000 years when it was about five degrees
Fahrenheit warmer than today.  These scientists concluded that,
generally warm periods were beneficial to humanity, and cold periods
harmful.

		This physical evidence has continued to grow enormously.  Yet it is
ignored or dismissed by the EPA's science.  The earth's climate is
subject to natural variation the EPA ignores.  The oceans have natural
oscillations, which the EPA ignores.  The first part of the 20th
Century, there were four major disappearances of arctic ice, which the
EPA ignores.

		The most powerful force in the solar system, the sun, upon which the
earth's climate depends is changing in ways the EPA never considered
even though observations of such changes have been made since Galileo
pointed his telescope towards the sun.  These, and other physical
evidence ignored by the EPA and the IPCC, are discussed in two reports
by the Nongovernmental Panel on Climate Change.  Nature, not human
activity rules the climate in the extensive report, Climate Change
Reconsidered.

		The EPA regulations before you assume without physical evidence that
increased atmospheric carbon dioxide is harmful to public health and
welfare.  This assumption is contrary to the physical evidence.  Carbon
dioxide is a necessary food for green plants, thus necessary for life on
this planet as we generally recognize it.  As discussed in the second
report, thousands of experiments and observations show that virtually
all food crops and green plants thrive better in an atmosphere enriched
in carbon dioxide and better resist stress such as drought and insect
attacks.

		Contrary to the EPA's claims, carbon dioxide enrichment, condemned by
these regulations, is in the benefit of agriculture, humanity and the
planet.  Thank you.

		MR. LING:  Thank you.  Ms. Childress.

		MS. CHILDRESS:  Hi.  I'm Donna Childress, last name is
C-H-I-L-D-R-E-S-S, and I live here in Arlington.  I have my own writing
business, and I want to thank you for the opportunity to speak.  I'm
here simply to support EPA's rule to cut global warming emissions by big
polluters.  I do believe the science that EPA is following on this.  I
do believe that global warming is a huge threat.

		I wanted to tell you why I care about this issue.  Just from a
personal standpoint, I grew up playing outside.  I had many happy hours
in my granddad's cabin nearby in the Blue Ridge Mountains hiking,
horseback riding, appreciating the great outdoors.  Until a few years
ago, though, I didn't really know anything about environmental issues.
I loved to be outside, but I didn't know any of the science.  I didn't
know much about global warming, none of that.  When I found out, I was
horrified.  I was horrified at what we're doing to our mountains, what
we're doing to our lakes, what we're doing to our air and how our
actions are causing climate change that not only endangers the planet's
natural beauty but also ultimately human existence.

		I also was horrified at how, in the name of improving our quality of
life, we're releasing poisons into the air that cause an increase in
diseases like asthma and cancer, which I understand that, by curbing
pollutions that contribute to global warming, we also would be curbing
some of those pollutants.

		I feel that from talking to friends, family, even strangers about
these issues over the past couple of years, there are scores of other
Americans just like I was two years ago that are blissfully unaware of
what's going on, of what carbon dioxide and these other pollutants are
doing to our planet.

		And so, I'm here because I feel it's a broad issue that affects a lot
of people, even though a lot of people may not be aware of it.  I'm very
pleased that President Obama and the EPA are paying attention to the
science that says we need to move quickly to cut our greenhouse gas
emissions in proposing this rule.  I believe it moves us in a positive
direction, quickly cutting our global warming emissions in half.

		Cost, of course, is an issue.  While coal-fired power plants and large
factories will incur costs to meet the requirements of this rule, I
believe we're past the point where we can simply shrug our shoulders and
say we can't afford to address it.  Keeping our air free of these
pollutants and greenhouse gas emissions isn't and never should have been
an optional expense.

		What we need to do now is look beyond the next quarter's profits and
on to the greater good of having a stable climate and healthy
population.  To accomplish that goal, let's create new green jobs that
further develop and refine the clean energy technology and move to a new
way of thinking about this.

		I ask that as you hear comments and consider how best to implement
this rule that you think of how you can make it the strongest to achieve
the greatest reduction in pollution in the fastest way.  Thank you for
the opportunity to speak and for your time.

		MR. LING:  Thank you.  Any questions for the panel?  Oh, you were
asking about the written comments, written material to put into the
record?  If you will just leave that at the table outside with the
request that you have written materials to put into the record, they'll
make sure that it gets there.

		MR. HAAPALA:  Thank you.

		MR. LING:  So no questions.  Thank you both for your testimony.  Okay.
 Now we call Ana Prados and Steve Thompson.  Welcome.  Ms. Prados, you
can start whenever you're ready.

		MS. PRADOS:  Okay.  My name is Ana Prados.  I live in Springfield,
Virginia.  I am an emissary scientist with 15 years experience in air
pollution research, including the monitoring of air pollution and air
pollution trends using satellite data.   I work with the University of
Maryland at Baltimore County, although I'm here representing myself
today.

		I'd like to express first of all my support for the PSD and Title V
Greenhouse Tailoring Rule.  Personally, before I go a little more into
that, I want to thank the EPA for the new direction it has taken since
January 2009.  I think I speak, not just for myself, but for a lot of my
colleagues that we really appreciate the new direction EPA has taken in
respecting science in its decisionmaking, particularly with regard to
global warming, and we hope that this new direction will continue and
that the latest science of climate change, which is always changing, is
fully incorporated into regulation and rulemakings such as the one
you're considering today.

		So NASA's top climate scientists, for whom I have the most respect,
tell us that we must phase out all coal emissions rapidly.
Specifically, the timeline that he has come up with based on his studies
is 20 years maximum.  So I think this in my opinion I think requires two
important actions:  (1) no new coal plants, and the other one is the
phasing out of existing coal plant emissions, which the current rule
would help with that.  It's a necessary step towards the urgent task of
phasing out greenhouse gas emissions altogether.

		Even as the scientists tell us that we must make these reductions, and
this is coming from the experts, what we do know from the satellite data
and from the observations is that coal emissions such as greenhouse gas
emissions from coal are actually increasing worldwide, and we are
getting further and further away every day from the 350 PPM target,
which as you probably have heard is the target that we must meet to
avoid catastrophic climate change, and we're already well beyond that.
We're at 387 parts per million.

		So, I really think the U.S. now really can and must lead in making
these reductions.  I urge you to please consider the part of the Clean
Air Act to require BACT for facilities currently emitting 25,000 tons or
more per year as you have suggested.  And as for the significance
levels, I think that given what the science is telling us, I think you
should go with the lower limit of 10,000 tons for that threshold.

		Regarding the new sources, that's the only part that I'm not so sure
of.  I have some reservations about it because I think we need something
a little tighter as a threshold for triggering PSD for the new sources
as a disincentive for new coal plants.  Specifically, I'm talking about
coal here, not the other sources.  But I think that we need some kind of
a disincentive.  We cannot -- and this is what the scientists tell us --
we cannot meet that 350 PPM target if we allow construction of new coal
plants.  So I would hope that you will consider lowering that threshold
to something more like along the lines of half of that.

		The Clean Air Act has worked before.  I mean, we see it in our
observational data.  It has worked so well, and an example of that is
the Acid Rain Program.  I think that cutting back on greenhouse gas
emissions from these large sources will also have an additional benefit,
which is on the criteria pollutants, because you are giving these
sources a lot of flexibility on how they can cut these emissions.  And
some of the measures such as efficiency are definitely going to decrease
our criteria pollutant concentrations.  And so, we're going to have a
lot of added benefit from that, and there are plenty of areas still not
meeting attainment.  So, just here in the D.C. area where we still don't
meet the ozone NAAQS.

		So those are my comments.  Thank you for your time and the opportunity
to speak today.

		MR. LING:  Thank you.  Mr. Thompson.

		MR. THOMPSON:  Thank you for allowing me to speak today.  I'm speaking
extemporaneously because I would like to have been here this morning at
9:30 for the Sierra Club press conference.  Then, I would have been more
informed of what I'd like to say today, because I support their
position, whatever it is.  I'm a member and I think they're on the right
track and I think EPA is, and I commend the Obama Administration and
President Obama for the initiatives he's taking in helping us to curb
dramatic and harmful climate change.

		And I am Steve Thompson.  I live in the District of Columbia.  So I'm
here as a private citizen.  I would support no new coal plants, electric
generating plants and the phasing-out of all current coal electric
generating plants, and that we focus on solar renewable biofuels and
wind.  I would say I'm a Ph.D in economics.  I don't have any background
in my professional career regarding climate change or those subjects.
But I do think we need to be careful how we phase-in things so that we
don't hurt the economy any more than we have to and don't harm it
irreparably.  But we do have to transition to renewable sources and we
can do that and we should do it.  And I think the future of humankind on
the planet depends on us doing it in a timely way.  Thank you very much.

		MR. LING:  Thank you.  No questions.  Thank you both very much.  I'm
going to hold on for just a second while I check to see if we have any
more speakers.

		(Whereupon, a short recess was taken.)

		MR. LING:  Okay, we're all caught up.  So I'm going to again suspend.
We do have a few more people signed up who are not yet here, so I will
not adjourn the hearing yet,  but I'm going to suspend and will not be
able to estimate when we might reconvene. But I do expect we'll
reconvene once more for folks who are interested.  Thank you.

		(Whereupon, a short recess was taken.)

		MR. LING:  All right.  So while I'm waiting to see if anybody else is
going to come in and listen, I'll just explain to you that we're using
this timekeeping system and we'll call you up to the table. And whenever
you start speaking, we'll just start the timer and you'll have five
minutes.  And then that little yellow light will come on when it's down
to two minutes, and then you can sum up and then a little red light will
come on when the five minutes is up.  All right.  So Terry Armao, all
right.  Come on up.  How do you spell your name again?

		MS. ARMAO:  A-R-M-A-O.  I didn't prepare any remarks.  I just came to
give comment.  So I've been following the problem for probably about two
years with fossil fuel pollution.  Unfortunately, I was a little late to
the game.  You guys were way ahead of me on that one.  But now I'm
paying attention, and I'm not liking what I see.  These coal companies
and the coal plants and the oil industries are basically destroying our
planet to the point where it's going to be unlivable if we let them keep
getting away with this.

		So, I can only tell you that it's your job to make them stop.  The
fact that the room is empty is kind of sad.  But I think most people
anyway, you know, don't want pollution.  They don't want to breathe it.
They don't want to drink it, and that's what we're subjected to.  So the
fossil fuels came out of the earth.  They need to stay right there.
They don't need to come up and poison every living thing on the planet,
which is what's happening.

		The problem with ocean acidification I guess was a kind of a newer
thing that science was not aware of.  And to me, it's almost the most
critical because when you destroy the food chain in the ocean, you just
basically can't live here anymore.  I mean, too many people rely on that
and making a planet that isn't going to be habitable by humans or
animals anymore.  And so people talk economy, economy, but what's the
point of having an economy if you don't have a planet?

		So, yes, people may lose jobs and coal companies may have to spend
more.  But they need to be regulated.  They need to stop polluting.  And
if we need to get off coal, we need to get off coal permanently.  I, for
one, feel so strongly about it, I'd rather light candles at night than
do what we're doing now to the planet.

		So, I mean, basically, that's my comment.  I think a lot of people
don't realize how drastic the situation has become, and otherwise the
room would be quite full.  But they don't realize it, and they also
think that left in your hands you're going to do the right thing and
take care of it.  That's why you get paid.  You're not paid to be mouth
pieces for the coal industry.  You're paid to keep the planet clean.
That's the deal.

		So, I think that's why people don't bother showing up, and that's too
bad.  But I'm here, even though I was driving around in circles for 40
minutes. I'm here.  So it's important, and you've got to do it. That's
what we pay you for.  You've got to get it done.

		MR. LING:  Thank you very much.  Any questions?  And if it makes you
feel any better, we did have a nearly full room earlier today.  So thank
you very much.

		MS. ARMAO:  You're welcome.

		MR. LING:  So we will now suspend again until we get a couple more
speakers.  And again, there are still three folks signed up, so we will
not yet adjourn.  Thank you.

		(Whereupon, a short recess was taken.)

		MR. LING:  All right, do I have a timekeeper ready back there?  Okay,
great, and court reporter's ready?  Great.  We're going to reconvene.
We're going to have a short session here with at least two speakers who
are here and are signed up to speak.  So, I will call up both of you,
and then after you've both spoken, we may ask questions.  And then both
of you remain at the table until both of you have spoken, and then we
may ask questions.  The yellow light will come on when there are two
minutes left, and the red light will come on when your five minutes is
up.

		So, at this time, I will call Al Burt and Sadaf Mortezavi.  Either
one's fine, yes.  Mr. Burt, if you could go first, that would be good
and the timer will start whenever you start speaking.  So just whenever
you're ready.

		MR. BURT:  I'm ready.

		MR. LING:  Go right ahead.

		MR. BURT:  Thank you for giving me an opportunity to speak this
evening.  I'm going to try to come up with some potential solutions.
They may be a little bit bizarre, but here we go.  I'm advocating that
instead of increasing the power supply in the United States over the
next 10 years that we whittle away at the waste of electric power.  I'm
talking about electric power mostly now.  Some figures I've found in the
last few months, the waste approximately is 30 percent of our
consumption of electric power, and I'm suggesting we try to reduce that
by three percent a year.  That way, we would not have to build more coal
plants and pollute the air anymore.

		So how do we get Americans to cut down on our waste?  Well, one way is
to raise the price.  I know energy is not that elastic, but there is
some elasticity.  The reduction in driving last year when the gas prices
got up shows that there is some elasticity.  So what I'm suggesting is
in the cap-and-trade system that's being proposed now, instead of giving
away 85 percent of the credits that all the credits be auctioned.  This
would also help our budget a little bit, and it would make it more
expensive for the power suppliers and they would then have to pass the
increased cost along to the people and the people then, including
myself, would have to cut back on the waste or would cut back on the
waste once the price got up there.

		So taken over 10 years, we should then have our consumption go down at
about the same rate as increased requirements go up due to population
growth and more gizmos that you plug in.  So that's my suggestion for
the next 10 years.  As far as gasoline goes, raising the excise tax to
make gasoline more expensive, people would cut down on waste driving and
we might have a little bit of money to fix our broken down bridges.  So
that's consumption for the next 10 years, try to cut the waste down
rather than just supplying more power to feed more waste.

		Okay, now that we've solved the problem for the next 10 years, going
out into the long range, I'm suggesting that during the 10 years that I
just talked about we start building nuclear plants.  I have no financial
interest in uranium, nuclear plants or anything else, so I'm speaking
just as a person here.  If we build nuclear plants, which emit nothing
but steam over the next 10 years, thank you, while we're using the
conservation to keep us from increasing the pollution, we would then, I
believe, solve our problems from the 10 years on out.

		Why not wind mills?  Well, I've got some numbers here, and this is
what's probably going to sound bizarre.  But one nuclear power plant
with two reactors can replace 388 miles of wind mills stretched along
the ridge of a mountain.  That would be almost the entire Blue Ridge
Parkway could be replaced by one nuclear plant with two reactors.

		Now, if you put wind mills up along that range and you have people
looking at them, it distorts the view or disturbs the view, and this is
assuming a 450 foot wind mill on top of a 1,000 foot mountain, a swath
of approximately 80 or 90 miles wide.  If you take that swath and run it
down the 388 miles from peak to peak, you are destroying a view of
66,247 square miles of disruptive view shed for hikers and so on.  Peak
to level, if you're talking about a ridge and a plain, again the same
heights and so on, it's 36,192 square miles.  So, I'm trying to get it
across to people that we can either destroy America the Beautiful with
all these wind mills with the idea of having clean air, and if you have
clean air, you can just see more wind mills.  Thank you.

		MR. LING:  Thank you very much.  You can remain at the table.  That
would be fine.

		MR. BURT:  Oh.  May I?  I have a meeting at the Air and Space Museum.

		MR. LING:  Oh, you need to get going?  Okay. Any questions?

		MR. SANTIAGO:  No, no questions.

		MR. LING:  All right.  No questions for you, Mr. Burt.  If you need to
go, go right ahead.  Thank you.

		MR. BURT:  Okay, thank you.  I left my email on the thing if you have
any questions about where those numbers came from.

		MR. LING:  Okay.  Thank you very much.

		MR. BURT:  Thank you.

		MR. LING:  Ms. Mortezavi.

		MS. MORTEZAVI:  Hi.  So my name is spelled S-A-D-A-F.  I'm just here
to show that I care and --

		MR. LING:  Did you also spell your last name for him already?

		MS. MORTEZAVI:  Oh, no.

		MR. LING:  Okay.

		MS. MORTEZAVI:  M-O-R-T-E-Z-A-V-I.  So it's kind of embarrassing to go
after him because he had all these statistics and I'm just here to say
that I care and to show support.  I'm a student.  I'm an activist, and
I'm here because I want to hold polluters accountable.  I never used to
give them much thought or really care about environmental issues until I
started working at Fund for the Public Interest and I started working
there on another campaign.

		But when I found myself exposed to all this information about the
environment and all the stuff that was going on that I had no idea
about, I realized that, wow, I should care and I shouldn't be so
passive.  So I don't want to be passive anymore, and I don't want
polluters to be passive about their actions.  And I believe that they
should be held accountable, and that's why I'm here today.

		Global warming is a really serious issue, and the coal industry is one
of the very serious problems that's causing global warming.  Big
coal-fired power plants are the single largest source of global warming
pollution in the nation, and many coal plants are old, inefficient and
rely on outdated technology.

		So what I would like to see is that they update this technology and
become more efficient and start to care about the environment and the
atmosphere.  And it's time to ask them to stop using the atmosphere as
their personal dumping ground.  It's time for big polluters to clean up
so that America can fight global warming and move towards clean energy.
It's important to move to clean energy sources like wind and solar
power.  They don't harm the environment, and they don't run out and they
create new jobs.  Companies such as Solyndra would do just that.  They
create jobs that also can't be outsourced, which is a big plus.

		Global warming isn't something that we should be passive about and
wait for someone else to clean up.  We need to stop treating the
environment as our own personal dumping grounds and take action now. And
I really thank you for this opportunity, and I hope that you guys
finally finalize this important rule to fight global warming and move
America towards clean energy.

		MR. LING:  Thank you very much.  Any questions?

		MS. SANTIAGO:  No questions.

		MS. MORTEZAVI:  Thank you.

		MR. LING:  Thanks for coming.  Okay.  I will now call up Ellen
Bateman, already on her way up.

		MS. BATEMAN:  Hi.  I'm Ellen Bateman.

		MR. LING:  Hi.  Great.  Hang on just one second.  I think the court
reporter's distracted.  Okay, great.  So the yellow light comes on when
there's two minutes left, and then the red light comes on when the five
minutes are done and the timer will start whenever you're ready.

		MS. BATEMAN:  Okay.  Well, thank you very much.  I'm Ellen Bateman.  I
want to thank the EPA for its commitment to environmental justice, which
is probably why I'm here participating.  I'm a student of environmental
conflict resolution at the Institute for Conflict Analysis and
Resolution, and I'm also a concerned citizen and advocate for green jobs
and renewable energy technologies, of course.

		I'm also a parent of two youngsters who love the outdoors.  So I want
to tell you about a time that I took my kids to visit Cumberland Falls
in Corbin, Kentucky.  I don't know if you've ever been there.  It's
gorgeous.  We drove to Daniel Boone National Forest from Central North
Carolina one summer weekend to get a glimpse of the famed Moonbow.  It's
a phenomena that appears each month when the full moon shines over
Cumberland Falls, which is sometimes referred to as the Niagara Falls of
the South.

		The drive was memorable.  We passed through Pisgah National Forest in
North Carolina and ascended the mountain slowly.  I don't think my car
had ever done anything like that.  We passed Nantahala National Forest
and continued on to Daniel Boone National Forest, which is named for the
heralded pioneer.  I'm sure you're familiar with the legend of Daniel
Boone.

		So when we arrived and set up camp, I was surprised by the hazy
conditions and the very close, humid, uncomfortable almost, air quality.
 I expected to breathe more deeply, and with more refreshment.  We
enjoyed the beauty of the mountain ecosystem.  I had never seen rocks
like that in my life, and we set up a tent and sleeping on the ground in
a sleeping bag in a tent was a very hard experience, shall I say.  We
kept sliding down because it was basically just grass over rock.

		So we crowded the rails of the falls at midnight with the other
tourists to try to catch a glimpse of this Moonbow, but we never did.
But we did enjoy the trip, and we'll never forget -- I'll never forget
the sound of the toy long gun that my son got.  It's like a Daniel Boone
thing.  I'll never forget the sound of that popping.  But I'll also
never forget the image of those rolling green mountains shrouded in
haze.  So ladies and gentlemen, only a handful of sources, including
coal power plants, are responsible for more than half of all the global
warming pollution in the United States.  These megapolluters should be
held responsible for their share.  The EPA is proposing a rule to clean
up these big polluters under the Clean Air Act, and we should definitely
enforce that Act.

		By targeting the worst offenders, the big polluters rule will quickly
cut global warming pollution while still helping our economy grow.  I'm
sure you've heard this today before.  The rule would only apply to
offenders emitting at least 25,000 tons of greenhouse gases each year.
In the Appalachian region, I think there's 109 tons of mercury being
emitted into the atmosphere, and there are several complicating factors
associated with mountaintop removal which impact not only our air but
our clean water supply as well, which could have a very detrimental
effect on the entire water supply for the East Coast.

		Under the big polluters rule, the worst offenders, like new coal
plants and other big polluters, would have to install technology to
clean up pollution that causes global warming, and I hope that you will
transform the energy future of our nation by supporting the big
polluters rule, eliminating mountaintop removal and helping to create
green jobs.  Thank you for your consideration.

		MR. LING:  And thank you.  Questions?  No questions.  Thanks very
much.  I think, okay, we are now caught up on speakers.  I'm going to
suspend again until we have another speaker.  I don't know exactly when
that will be.  And then if we don't have anyone show up, we'll still I
think hold open until seven.  So we're suspended until another speaker
shows up.  Thank you.

		(Whereupon, a short recess was taken.)

		MR. LING:  Great.  We're going to reconvene for our last scheduled
speaker, and we also have one other speaker.  Again, we will hold the
sign-up process open until seven tonight in case there's others who want
to speak.  But our last scheduled speaker is Malin Moench, and we also
have Mary DiSenna.  So, if you could both come up at the table here, I
will invite you to both give your testimony and then we may ask
questions after both of you have spoken.  If you could just remain at
the table until both of you have gone.

		We do have this timing system set up.  The timer will start when you
start.  And then the yellow light will come on when you have two minutes
left, and the red light will come on when your five minutes are up.  So,
Mr. Moench, whenever you're ready, you can begin.  Thank you.

		MR. MOENCH:  Okay.  My name is Malin Moench.  I spent all my
professional life in the East, but I'm counting the days until I retire
and can go back to the Colorado Plateau where I grew up to turn to
nature photography full-time.  The Colorado Plateau is the most
spectacular 140,000 square miles in the world.

		It troubles me greatly that this may not be true when I finally have
enough time to record it with my camera.  I visited the Colorado Plateau
several times this summer.  The evidence in my camera lens shows climate
change is beginning to overwhelm its natural systems.

		Why blame greenhouse gases for the dying forests I see each summer and
the smoke that seems to always be in the air?  The American West is
warming twice as fast as the rest of the country.  Climatologists tell
us that the buildup of greenhouse gases is causing the polar air mass to
shrink.  This is causing the subtropical jet over the American West to
migrate northward at the rate of 100 miles each decade.  Heat and
drought creep northward as the jet retreats.  The greatest warming in
the West is occurring in the Colorado Plateau and the West's great
mountain ranges.  These areas of highest impact unfortunately are also
the areas containing the country's iconic national parks:  Grand Canyon,
Zion, Bryce, Yosemite, Yellow Stone, the Grand Tetons, Glacier and the
North Cascades.  Winter snows are shifting to rain.  Spring rain is
disappearing.  Less snow means less stream flow and less groundwater.
The shortage is stressing ecosystems now and will strangle the economies
of the West very soon.

		Specific signs that natural systems are deteriorating are all around.
Fire is becoming to the West what hurricanes are to the Gulf.  I head
west with my camera two to three times a summer.  Over the last decade,
the majority of photography trips have been fruitless.  This is because
the summer skies are so often brown rather than blue from massive fires
whose pall is often spread over three, four or even five states at once.

		According to a recent study, since 1987, higher spring and summer
temperatures and earlier snow melt have caused a fourfold increase in
the number of western wildfires, burning 6.5 times as much land area
each year as they did before 1987.  This is spurred by warmer
temperatures, invasive grasses and weeds that thrive in spring and dry
out in summer, have turned Bandelier National Park and Mesa Verde into
tinderboxes.  Catastrophic fire is now so inevitable that it is expected
to permanently eliminate the forest cover in both parks.

		If nothing changes, Western glaciers are doomed.  Sixty percent of the
glaciated land in the lower 48 is in North Cascades Park.  Since 1958,
80 percent of that mass of glaciers has been lost.  In the last 20
years, half of the glacial mass in Glacial National Park itself has
melted.  In the next 20 years, it will all be gone.

		With higher temperatures, high mountain tundra is disappearing and
alpine wildflower meadows are turning to grassland.  Subzero
temperatures are increasingly rare in high mountain ranges of the West.
This means that populations of bark beetles of every type, spruce, white
pine, you name it, no longer die off in the winter.  The result is that
vast swaths of forest in the high country are sick and dying.

		I recently attended a family reunion in Cedar City, Utah.  We stayed
in a cabin on the edge of Cedar Breaks National Monument.  On the last
day, we gathered to watch the sun setting from the rim of the monument
10,000 feet above the valley floor.  I looked out over the 2,500 foot
deep amphitheater carved out of soft pink and white limestone with fins,
columns and spires of every hue.  It was like an enormous choral garden
framed by the deep shadow green of fir trees.  A silver ribbon swerved
in the sun and lost itself in a dozen layers of purple mountain ranges
stretching 100 miles to the west.

		But this magic was an illusion.  It could be sustained only as long as
our gaze avoided the harsh reality of the views North, East and South.
Global warming has laid the plateau from which Cedar Breaks was carved
and its vast spruce forest at the mercy of the spruce bark beetle.
Turning our heads to either side required us to face the gray ghosts of
what were once a million spruce trees leaning like vertical driftwood
waiting for the torch of a summer lightning strike.  Can I have 10 more
seconds?

		MR. LING:  Yes, if you're close to the end, that's great.  Go right
ahead.

		MR. MOENCH:  Similar scenes, heartbreaking to a photographer, are
spreading all over the West from Arizona to Montana.  It is the buildup
of greenhouse gases that is bringing nature to its knees in the American
West.  Politics has become so dysfunctional I despair that Congress will
ever act to rescue this land.  Our only hope lies with administrative
action:  this rule that you are now considering to control the major
sources of greenhouse gases that have unleashed this damage on the crown
jewels of the West, please implement it as quickly as possible.
Everything is riding on it.  Thank you.

		MR. LING:  Thank you.  And Ms. DiSenna.

		MS. DISENNA:  I'm a citizen living here in the D.C. area and a former
editor of a national publication called U.S. Water News, and I followed,
both as a citizen and a professional person, this issue of climate
change before, long before it was accepted or while it was still being
undermined by many and not paid attention to, and I applaud the former
speaker's comments on the gravity of this situation.

		To get to another issue, the acidification of the ocean is
accelerating so fast that not only the life in the ocean, but all life
on earth, would be impacted because when the plankton goes, as the folks
at the Center for Biological Diversity say, as the plankton go, so goes
all life on this planet.  It's the building block of our ecosystems, and
our ocean cannot take what we're doing.  Of course, our forests cannot
take what we're doing.  Our glaciers cannot take what we're doing.

		And the Arctic, I recently attended a workshop on issues of the Arctic
and of course there's so many that I don't have time to detail it all.
But the Arctic Ocean or the Arctic Region is responsible for regulating
so much of our climate.  And when that goes and the sea ice all melts,
we are then accelerating the process of the warming by exponential
degrees.  And all that we are doing, all that we can do now, right this
minute, is still going to leave us trying to patch a lot of holes and
trying to scurry to make sure that total devastation doesn't result.

		So we have no time.  I applaud this rule, and I agree with the former
speaker, I've been following the House and Senate bills on the climate
and it is very discouraging that we have so much leverage from the
industries that we need to better regulate, that every time something is
put into the bills to make it actually do what it's supposed to do, it's
removed and we get a bill that everybody applauds.  And it doesn't do
any good.  That is ever more dangerous because we are deceiving
ourselves.

		So I applaud this rule, and I believe as the former speaker said, we
have to act now.  And I thank you for the opportunity to talk.

		MR. LING:  Thank you very much.  Questions?

		MR. SANTIAGO:  No questions.

		MR. LING:  No questions.  Thank you both for coming.  So the last
signed up speaker has now gone, and so we're going to hold the hearing
open.  And whenever anyone shows up to speak, we will let them speak
right away at that time until seven o'clock.

		(Whereupon, a short recess was taken.)

		MR. LING:  It is now seven o'clock.  And seeing nobody else signed up
to speak, we will adjourn the hearing, thank everybody for their
attendance and we'll be in Chicago tomorrow.

		(Whereupon, at 7:00 p.m., the hearing in the above-entitled matter was
concluded.)

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	REPORTER'S CERTIFICATE

DOCKET NO.:  EPA-HQ-OAR-2009-0517

CASE TITLE:  Prevention of Significant Deterioration

		   and Title V Greenhouse Gas Tailoring

	        Proposed Rule

HEARING DATE:  November 18, 2009

LOCATION:  Crystal City, Virginia

		I hereby certify that the proceedings and evidence are contained fully
and accurately on the tapes and notes or digital recording reported by
me at the hearing in the above case before the Environmental Protection
Agency.

				Date:  November 18, 2009

Gary Millstein

Heritage Reporting Corporation

Suite 600

1220 L Street, N.W.

Washington, D.C.  20005-4018

TRANSCRIPT OF PROCEEDINGS

HERITAGE REPORTING CORPORATION

Official Reporters

1220 L Street, N.W., Suite 600

Washington, D.C.  20005-4018

(202) 628-4888

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