Travis County Commssioners Court
November 25, 2003
The Closed Caption log for this Commissioners Court agenda item is provided by Travis County Internet Services. Since this file is derived from the Closed Captions created during live cablecasts, there are occasional spelling and grammatical errors. This Closed Caption log is not an official record the Commissioners Court Meeting and cannot be relied on for official purposes. For official records please contact the County Clerk at (512) 854-4722.
Item 24
Before the lunch recess we indicated that we would call up item number 24 first this afternoon and 24 is consider emission reduction tphoerbs include in the early action compact's clean air action plan and take appropriate action.
>> good afternoon. , have I with me kathy stevens who is the chair of the early action compact task force and works for campo, and bill gill who works for capco and also is a member of the task force and hazel barber with the Texas environmental commission on environmental quality as a resource. We are here to basically make a recommendation to the Travis County Commissioners court about measures that the county may consider implementing as part of the early action compact commitment you made in 2002. We had presented a list of measures a few weeks ago, and since then we've held some public meetings on those measures all throughout the five-county region. I can talk a little bit about that in more detail if you would like. At this point we are basically recommending that the county Commissioners consider approving table 1 of attachment 1 of your backup, which I believe you all have, and that includes 16 measures that would be implemented on a regional basis, most of them throughout the five-county metropolitan statistical area, except for a proposed vehicle and section maintenance program that we're proposing would be implemented in hays, Travis County and Williamson counties only. That's due to basically the number of vehicles registered in those counties and the magnitude of the problem that those vehicles contribute to. Out of table 2, each of the local signatories to the early action compact are being asked to consider committing to at least three more measures from that table. As you recall, under your flex agreement commitment which is for the one-hour standard, everybody was asked to commit to their fair share of the emission reduction measures, so there was already the population centers in Austin and Travis County already agreed to commit to more measures than the other jurisdictions in the region. So for that region everybody is just sort of being asked to build on that previous commitment. And the measures that staff is recommending Commissioners consider committing to in Travis County are b-1, the Texas emissions reduction program, which is a grant-funded program by the state which actually would provide us with money to purchase cleaner diesel vehicles in our fleet. E-2, the Texas low-emission fuel to purchase that again as we did this past summer, to agree to purchase it next summer and summers thereafter at least during a minimum of the high ozone months, which as we did last summer was July, August and September. We can actually get grant funds to help off set the incremental costs of purchas that fuel so we would propose do you that during the early action compact time period which is 2007. Transportation emission reduction measures, you passed those three weeks ago. We've already turned them into camp poe. That would support additional intersection -- b-25 is a business evaluation of free usage including operations and right sizing. I've talked with the fleet manager, mike joyce, and he recommends that the fleet users group actually sit down and work with probably the new environmental person that you all have authorized to really get a handle on what kind of emissions our fleet currently has and make sure we're purchasing the cleanest equipment that we can.
>> have we [indiscernible] environmental's position?
>> no, we have not.
>> we did provide funding for it.
>> yes, we did, judge.
>> yes. And b-39 is the ozone action day response program whichever local jurisdiction is being asked to implement. You previously agreed to implement an ozone action day education or notification program where you simply let everybody know there is an ozone action today. This is asking that you take that a step further and ask all of your departments to come up with an ozone action day response program of some kind that can be anything from employees volunteering to change commute patterns somehow on those days, the parks department changing mowing times, the construction, road and bridge crews changing some of their maintenance work schedules on those days. It will be left up to the department, but we would propose that the court ask all departments to come up with some kind of plan and pull that off.
>> we need to give them a menu of options and ask them what options they choose?
>> yes. And there are a multitude of examples out there both from this region and other regions. There's the fleet group that can come help us, put on fairs for employees to help educate them about steps they can take. There's a lot of resources out there in the community that we can take advantage of.
>> do we think people actually respond to the ozone action day alert?
>> yes, some people do, some people don't.
>> how do we measure impact?
>> that's what we would have to do. As part of the ozone action day response program, we would need to get a pretty good idea of, you know, what are the commuting habits of our workforce, which is something we don't know right now. So it's going to require staff time and work and this is not just a paper exercise.
>> do we know whether it's working anywhere?
>> whether it's working anywhere? The city of Austin has a pretty large program. They have 11,000 employees, and they had, you know, mandated by city council that they have a program and kathy works for campo and as campo is housed over there, she can tell you --
>> do you know whether it's work stph-g.
>> they are required to report on it twice a year so they actually are quizzing people to see if it works. As part of the public opinion survey we do every three or four years, one of the questions on there is are you familiar with ozone action days, if so, what if anything do you do different. We now have a trend. I think we first asked that question in '98, we asked it in 2001 and we'll be asking it again this year.
>> so the answer to my question really is we don't know.
>> we know a little, but --
>> but we need to find out.
>> yes.
>> out on the street and I hear tomorrow is an ozone action day and I hear the list of things you should not do, and to be honest, 90% of them I don't do anyway. But it's the 10% that I could do, next morning I kind of carry on as usual.
>> under the program, companies have chose tone implement an ozone action day response program. We can give you the data for those companies.
>> but if we have pa hundred -- 3500 employees, won't those companies want us to report to them first? We've got 4500 employees --
>> they've already volunteered to do it on their own. So we would be volunteering basically to do it as well and to start tracking that, which we do not do now, so that would be the change.
>> you heard our discussion this morning. It's really the same thing, isn't tonight?.
>> I think so.
>> we could have a lot of impact, but we've got to get a whole lot of folk on board and either we've got to strongly encourage or come close to mandating, and I'm thinking to go through all these gyrations and produce no good effect, it's so meaningless. If we kind of put a little more heart into it, and I'm talking all of us, than we have morningly, that's real bye the only way we can produce some beneficial changes that I'm hoping we bring about. We ought to start with our 4500 or so employees, and at some point we need to go out to city of Austin employees and city of Austin residents and all the other cities. And residents of our incorporated areas. I mean working together, we can have a real big impact, but I think -- I think most people respond to ozone action day probably the same way I do and have done so historically, and for it to have more significant meaning I think there needs to be a change.
>> that's what we're asking for.
>> not only that but do something more stkrauplt to bring it about. -- dramatic. I'm under the impression we need to do something dramatically different to highlight these measures and dramatically different to get compliance and cooperation at a much higher level than we've gotten heretofore eye think what's going to do that is the inspection and maintenance program, it goes to that level, we have to have inspection and maintenance like all of us are used to where you can see the air you breathe that is correct will get your attention. People are saying why are we having to do that. It's because the voluntary stops didn't get us there so welcome to air quality.
>> number 3, you've got five different measures on inspection and maintenance.
>> yes, sir, these would be in addition to vehicle inspection and maintenance.
>> the other point, it seems to me in and of themselves mean very little. Us getting out there and really pushing the -- getting folk to respond, do these things, measuring, applying what pressure we can, monitoring. I mean we really could make a difference, and what I would like to see is us try to pick up that effort. [indiscernible] that person's full-time job, right?
>> yes, sir.
>> that's a lot of what it is. A lot of it is just keeping track of where your employees are and what necessity do differently, and we don't do that now. And the city of Austin has a very large scale system in place to do that. And so we would be trying to sort of take it up to that level. And, you know, the other local jurisdictions in the five-county m.s.a. Are being asked to do the same to the best of their abilities. But it's a staffing issue, it definitely is.
>> well, it's a methodology issue too and e.p.a. Has recognized the use of voluntary measures is going to be really important in eight-hour ozone areas. And i've worked the region 9 in california has worked with sacramento to develop method ologist to verify, to do performance verification of voluntary so you know what's being done and where you might make improvements. The e.p.a. Is kind of moving that direction and giving us tools to help verify these things are being done, which I think is an important part of it.
>> how many years have we had the ozone action day alert?
>> several. I want to say 10.
>> 10 years or so.
>> we've got to have a new alert that really has new meaning. And is better calculated to get, I think, observable responses. And I'm not blaming the world outside myself, I'm blaming the world including me. And I think part of the thing of this alert has been around for years, and I think that what we want to try to do is emphasize that in December '04, December let me have a little bit of that.
>> pass it down here when you are finished wit.
>> I think we're going to find out if we're on board. I mean I think we're going to have to walk the walk, and I will wait until April thod because ozone is April to October, roughly.
>> the ozone season is officially April 1 through October 31.
>> I would think if we really want to try to make a difference, that we want to show by example, I think that the Commissioners court, and i'll come up and ask each one of you what you are willing to do daily or weekly, how many days you are willing to leave your car at home and get down here via some other way other than your car. Because the automobile is the biggest culprit, as we all know, with ozone. And you know what? Everybody pays lip service to this. The reason that there is a blip, I think, in the cap metro ridership on ozone rider days is because ozone days are free. And you can go back to 1991 and ask the people that rode the bus why you think that the numbers increased, it's because you had everybody that couldn't afford 50 cents to get on the bus got on the bus because it was air conditioned or it was heated. I mean they wanted to be on some sort of climate-controlled vehicle. I mean to think, for us to fool ourselves thinking that this community is responding out of civic mindedness, we're fooling ourselves because that's exactly what it is, judge. You hear tomorrow is an ozone action today everybody goes wait, you know what, either I'm mowing my yard tomorrow or the guy that's mowing my yard is mowing it tomorrow because that's the day he mows it. That's what we do. We really pay lip service. I think what we need to do and maybe this could be somewhat infectious, hey, i've -- I probably will kick the hardest about trying to get to work on something -- in something other than my automobile, but the statesman several years ago had half a dozen people that tried to take the bus for a month and leave their car at home, and the stories that they wrote bit, I mean the ones that weren't in the state hospital after, you know, having to try it for a month, found out that you just couldn't -- number one, you couldn't have a job.
>> except you could carpool. I talked to a neighbor on my street, you could pick up rich oppe hrofplt your way downtown.
>> and don't think I won't ask. But the point I'm making is unless this body -- and I think that -- if you can't get the elected officials, the ones sitting up here going you know what, I'm signing us up for a through l, all 700.
>> turn my -- one of my assistants live half a block from me. I've got three carpools I could line up.
>> several of us have those examples. Why don't you do it? The reason why is everybody has a reason they are not able and willing to do that. And when you stand down and it takes an hour and 15 minutes to count 1,000 cars at first street and -- or congress and cesar chavez chavez and 964 cars out of the thousand cars have one person in it, that is telling you what -- I mean america is about. I mean we're trying to change people's basic habits of the automobile, and I don't think we're going to do it. But you know what, as an elected official now, I hope this court will take by lead or show by example starting in April, and let's come up with something and say, you know what, we will try to do that and show it. If we're not going to do it, we can't ask our 3500 employees to try to do something like that. We ought to ask the council to do it. I don't they we need to be overly optimistic this is going to do the trick. The thing that really is bad about this is even in Travis County engaged in something like that and we really got high behind this, we probably couldn't show -- if Williamson county is not engaged, if hays is not engaged, city of Austin, state of Texas, I mean this is the frustrating thing to me. If we really wanted to do something bit, we would alter our hours with the state agencies. All of us have been on mopac on a state holiday. You don't even know that you have a traffic problem. If people aren't going to school taken state has a holiday. I mean you really can see how little traffic or not little, comparatively speaking, I mean why aren't we doing something like altered schedules? We're not doing it because nobody has the political will to do that. Joe geiselman cannot go and alter his work schedule of his -- I don't think, and effectively have a t.n.r. Work crew if you are going to say we need for some people to come in at 6:00 and work until 2:00, some team 7:00 and work to 3:00.
>> actual whether I we can do that and we actually have in t.n.r. And it's the only place i've been able to keep a handle out, but we need to do this county-wide, but in t.n.r. During the summer we've crews to work four days on, three days off. Which is one of the things you can do. You a have to make sure on that day off you are not just driving around. You are decreasing the kphaouts on those days. So that is something every department can do. And again, because I feel there are a lot of other things people can do as well, and we are not asking people to make a huge sacrifice, we're asking them to do what they can. And if that means that you don't drive through the burger king drive-through, you actually park your car and walk inside on an ozone action day, thank you. You know, those are the kinds of things that if everybody would just pick something, don't fuel your car up in the morning, fuel it up in the evenings, you know, if you are a mom with three kids and you got to get to work and pick your kid up at day care, you just got to drive your own car, okay. There's other things you can do and that's what we're asking people to think about and we would hope the Travis County Commissioners and leaders can be a leader in that arena. There are commute solutions and there is the clean air partners program who have two very good organizers who have been doing this all over our region already working with private industry. They are just chomping at the bit trying to get in here to work with us and I think we can do that now and set up some employee development days or education days and really get people -- they make it fun. They make it to where everybody who does something good gets to put their name in a hat and they win prizs, big prizes. So they make it into a fun competition things. That's what we're proposing to do basically with the ozone action day response program.
>> five years ago I think I recommended that maybe on ozone action day or sometime I recommended we declare all county parking off limits. On.
>> there's been a suggestion made --
>> that would stimulate pooling or --
>> are there ways to buy our way out like you charge for parking? Charge everybody five dollars.
>> we could start free parking here, judge. There is no incentive to try to find other solution because we give parking away for free. I've been down this path before and I'm not getting back on the parking committee, but actually for someone else to tackle that.
>> that's an area you can look at. Obviously there are a lot of choices. It doesn't just involve getting people out of their car. There are a lot of other things we can do. That's what we're asking for the Commissioners court to ask every department to do over the next year and have a plan in place by 20 on 05 that -- 2005 implemented.
>> instead of asking each employee do what you will, I think we ought to say 20 things, tell your supervisor what five you will do on ozone action today.
>> I never mow my grass. I'm already there.
>> but your yard person does it.
>> no, actually they don't. My neighbors already talk about my grass. And I got a cleaner vehicle. And, you know, I don't fill up in the morning on things like that. I am prepared for an inspection program. I am prepared to play for cleaner burning gas. Those are the things that will make a difference.
>> suppose on an ozone action today this entire court were standing at the bus stop. That would generate a lot of positive publicity.
>> i'll carpool.
>> but number one, i've done that for years. That's the main one, you know, and so there's some other things that i've done. I'm waiting for everybody else to catch up.
>> look at Commissioner Davis.
>> a little healthy competition. I like it.
>> can you tell me what [inaudible] pollution as far as houston and -- or harris county I guess in the houston area, dallas county and the dallas area, I guess in el paso, what magnitude of air pollution do they get to where they was actually mandated by the federal government, by e.p.a. To clean up their act? I know -- go ahead.
>> houston does and el paso have been in violation of the one-hour standard, which is the less stringent standard, now they are getting ready to implement the eight-hour standard and that is the standard we threaten to violate every year basically. I hope you all got the news that technically we are currently in attainment of that standard as of this year due to the fact that we had a fairly good season this past season and we had a really good season two years ago, and so our three year running average shows we're in attainment of the eight-hour standard. Nevertheless, we signed an early action compaq that said we would stay in attainment or we would get in attainment of that standard by 2007. And we -- most folks adisagree looking at the data and weather patterns that next year when that good number falls off and we get a knew number next year we'll be right back in attainment. We are recommending we continue with the compact so we make sure we are in attainment of the eight-hour standard by 2007. In exchange for that the state and federal government have basically said an as long as you implement this plan and showing progress through 2007, we will not declare you effectively non-attainment. So you will not have to go through the transportation conformity analysis and some of this bureaucratic sort of just mess terminal you get in once you get declared non-attainment. That's what we're trying to avoid. We're trying to clean up our area and at the same time do it in a way that avoids the bureaucracy of the clean air act.
>> I just want to make sure everyone out there listening to us publicly is aware of the seriousen of this particular problem. What we do not want to see happen is the federal government come in here and mandate us to get back into attainment because it has a lot of outreaching effect. In fact, you can even have an impact on the economic growth of this community because folks that would like to locate here may not want to locate here because of the fact that you are in a possible non-attainment status. We understand there is a very expensive process to -- for those particular companies and industries to locate in an area especially if they have to comply with the regs and rules of attainment. In a non-attainment area.
>> you are correct, yes, sir.
>> pardon me?
>> that's right.
>> yes, so I think it's very critical that folks are really aware of the outreaching impacts on what we're dealing with her and it's a -- with here and it's a very serious matter.
>> so today we're asked to basically approve roman numeral 1, 2 and 3.
>> yes. With the understanding that 1 and 2 are generally duplicative. 1 is a subset of I was just highlighting those two because we definitely recommended those two be implemented. I do want to let you know what that you are being asked is bless these proposals. They will be forwarded then to the clean air coalition. We are asking all 12 injure additions in the region to do the same. Until they do this process we do today we won't know what they are committing to so we need to put all those commitments into the modeling and basically we'll come back to you in January and give you the final here's what everybody committed to. Will you have a chance to then look at the whole plan together as one document and vote on it then as to whether or not you want to forward it to the state and feds. So this is not your final chance to look at this, but we are asking you today to pick some commitments so that we can move forward in the process.
>> if we do a-1, it will be effective when?
>> 2005.
>> January 1?
>> no, April or may. In time for the ozone season. They usually need about 12 months to get the regulations. This will be a different program than the one in dallas and houston. We'll have to go through the rule making process with the state and then ramp up with some education and the state will help us do that. So we'll need about 12 months lead time to get the program ready. So April is probably when.
>> okay. So the vehicle inspection and maintenance program would be a state mandate that Travis County initiated?
>> Travis County and the largest city in each of the counties that requests -- basically we have to ask the state to --
>> I'm visualizing many Travis County residents looking at us. So it really will be Travis County initiated, but a state rule, state mandated --
>> and state operated basically.
>> in Travis County.
>> in Travis County, yes, sir.
>> maybe hazel, would you mind coming to the microphone since you are -- I understand that the basic fee for a i.m. Charge would be about $20. Is that what is in the houston area when you role your car in to get it inspected and the spell i. And m. Fee is $20.
>> in houston it's more expensive because they do more tests.
>> tell me what is the most likely thing that is wrong with your car in-during a I and m inspection.
>> it can be a multitude of things. On the newer cars it tends to be -- it tend to be, don't rush off and say to your shop that I said these things, but it tends to be your exhaust gas recirculation system or your catalytic converter or your oxygen sensors or your system running too lean, the computer is allowing too much air into the couple bus shun chambers a lot of it can be the fuel controls and the catalytic converter. Even the gas caps. We test your gas caps for evaporating emissions. It's a wide range of things.
>> what would be the range of cost or expense to that person who rolled their car in and had to have one of those things done? What is the range on a catalytic converter?
>> for repairs?
>> yes.
>> depends on the make of the car.
>> I mean if you have a porsche, it can be about $1,500. If it's a much more popular and cheaper make of car, it might be $200, $300. It just really does depend terribly on the make and model of the car.
>> well, the point here is that we are about to pass something that could be very impactful to people monetarily speaking. And unfortunately I would also think that some of your older cars may have the bigger problems. And I will tell you that we are about to get into something that's going to be much more regressive than what we think -- I mean I know that we want to do this, but this I and m deal is a big deal. And I don't think that we are going to be able to next year, what I asked kathy whenever, stood up and told us about the deal at kapl poerbgs I asked what kind of dollars are we appropriate tkpwaeugt to get the word out in this community. Ly tell you this is like the ozone action day. You are going to roll -- the average everyday joe is going to roll their car in for inspection and they are going to say $20 more. Okay. Oh, and guess what, your car doesn't get there with this. So this is what you have to go off and do. I meanly tell you I'm not prepared to sign off on that. And I don't think that any of us should. I mean given what we are about to throw on the backs of people in this community because this is going to be one expensive -- it's not just 20 bucks. It's 20 bucks if nothing is wrong with your vehicle. But you start taking to people that have -- a lot of people have the older cars because they are paid for, they don't have the money to go out and get another car. That's the reason I say it's regressive. And somebody needs to understand that.
>> I think with the older cars actually you do tend to find -- because the standards that you have to meet to pass the test are less stringent with an older car because there are less controls and the certification standards were less stringent. In fact you often find to repair an older car to meet the standards to pass the test, it's less costly than repairing a newer car that is so much more complex. I mean if you've looked inside your newer car these days, I used to be able to to do things on a car engine. No way now, they are so complex. So it costs often more to fix a very new car if there's something wrong with it than the older cars.
>> if you are willing to drive a 1968 fixed-up g.t.o., You think that car -- for that car to pass emissions --
>> it wouldn't be --
>> it would not be any more or less.
>> two to 24 years old. Only cars 2 to 24 years old. By the time we implement the program, we will not be testing anything that's oler than '79 or '80.
>> that 1968 car doesn't have many emissions controls on it in the first place to test. We're not suggesting to demand we put the emissions control on the car.
>> few have an older car and it is spewing all of this stuff, we don't really care about that?
>> as an individual, I care, but it tends to be that that older car is not driven very many miles compared with a newer car. When you are looking at total emissions and how much driving does the vehicle do as well as how much does it emit.
>> if this was the first inspection program in the state of Texas, I think you are right in terms of the first one of how to get information out, but remind us again, please, which large counties have already implemented this. They have been here, done this in terms of the same arguments, I'm sure. Judge lindsey at the harris county Commissioners court had to hear the same thing. Did you say el paso?
>> county that has much more challenging economic conditions than Travis County does. I think we can probably learn from their example, but for those folks who have moved here from harris county, m goodness, get used to it.
>> I understand that, Commissioner, but I would like to say my family is in the oil industry, although it's my uncle owns a lube operation and does inspections. And I will tell you that, you know, the people that come in there are not happy -- you are right, there are lots of places that identity, and if we are going to spend on lot of time and put forth a lot of effort, and I drew the comparison the other night about the envision central Texas. $1 million spent on envision central Texas. 11,000 responses. One percent of the people responded to it. Now, I don't think that we have a million dollar budget to be talking about how we're going to get the word out on this. Now, you know what, we can just bite the bullet and say we're the elected officials and we're just going pass the I and m program because it's something we feel like we ought to do. But I sure would like to be able to stand up to somebody and say, you know, where we've done an exhaustive amount of advertisement to tell you what we are going to do, yes, there are plenty of people that have moved here from harris county and these other counties that understand what I and m is. But I don't think that we are -- to me it kind of seems like that we are pulling the wool over some people's eyes with regards to, you know we're just going to do this. All of a sudden you tphrol there and you pate. No.
>> we've got 15 minutes, right.
>> we're talking [indiscernible].
>> we ought to take advantage of that time.
>> that's the reason I ask how are we going to educate people, because we can't educate people by saying we're going to stick out this website, that website and hopefully you will try to find it and you'll find it. Is the state spending mega dollars in Travis County to let them know that, hey, by the way this is coming. And by that time if we vote out -frbgs it's already -- yeah, we voted on it. Barbara went to one of the meetings the other night and she said we had one person. So we've had a couple meetings where collectively we've had three people show up. Now, I don't think that ought to be any sort of an indicator as to how people are getting this. Granted I don't know how you get people to recognize that, hey, this is going to cost you something, come in here and let me beat you over the head until you understand it.
>> I think we have two issues. Have you the education about what the Commissioners court is being asked to vote on and then you have a whole other education program if you decide to implement a I and m program and how to people get the word that hey, next time you go you are going to have to pay $20 and you might fail. That's what the state did for us.
>> let me explain how you did it in houston and dallas. You are absolutely right. We went through months and months of very similar discussions, and I mean in houston and dallas they are required by the federal government to do this. So I mean it is slightly different. But once the program was adopted and had gone through our rule making, so it was a lot of public input in terms of our agency rule-making process. Then when that's all decided and we start looking how to roll the program out, at least three or four months before the first testing happens, d.p.s. And ourselves, this is a partnership between the department of public safety and tceq, were very, very active in outreach as wide as possible from things like billboards to we had editorial board briefings with all of the major newspaper and television stations so if they wanted to run stories they knew what the basis was. We had advertisements in community papers, a lot of community papers, particularly, you know, we would have hispanic pullouts in hispanic papers or vietnamese or chinese or whatever in houston. We did a lot of television and radio interviews and talk shows and theufpbgs like that, local things. So we worked very hard for three or four months to get the message out, and I think we did get the message out. Even I think for everybody who had a '95 and older vehicle because they had to be very specific about going for a test, d.p.s. Wrote to every one of them in dallas and houston. And we could do the same here if we wanted to. Saying you are going to be tested in this way, you need to look for a station that can do the a.s.m. Test. So we had a lot of different methods that we could use to try to get to as many people as possible. You are absolutely right, there were still some people that we didn't get to. When they came to the test they were shocked they had to pay more. So we did everything we could to get the message out and we would try to do the same here.
>> now let me speak to what we've done up until this point to get the word out that hey, your I hrebgtd officials are considering implement ing this program or mandating it. Basically since January, and I'm sorry that I can get you this two-page summary that is correct the clean air force has basically been partnering with our early action compact force trying to do public outreach since January we've had on this list about 50 public gathering meetings, presentations to various people. Now, that includes presentations to the local jurisdictions, but it also includes, you know, presentation to the leadership Austin, presentation to the Austin energy, presentation to the kiwanas kwhrub. President to the hyde park neighborhood association. President to the Austin neighborhood association. The meza park association, on and on. Then we have our car care for clean air day which garnered coverage on all the major media stations as well as the newspapers. We've been screening I and m at every one of these events trying to get the word out. We were trying to make it clear that's one of the measures we've known since January was likely going to be in here. Then we had a series of public meetings as you requested when we meet three weeks ago. Granted those were pulled together very quickly. That was a short time period to pull together four phrub meetings. At those four meetings we had a total of about 15 people. We did get kxan, klbj did two or three mornings of radio advertising for those events. The one that got the most attendance was the last one probably because it had more time to sink in. That was the one at baity elementary. The city of Round Rock followed with a meeting the next night and they had about 10 people. And again, they had advertised, they had had longer to advertise, and really the question is are people just not that concerned about it or do they not know. I think a lot of people are concerned bit. I think a lot of people already think we're doing it. So you are going to have people screaming no matter what. The other thing that we had is the survey. We got 1800 survey responses. I unfortunately can't tell what you the responses were because the consultant needed two weeks and we are meeting before that two weeks is due. We probably will have those results next week. But we did get 1800 responses. Over 500 came from Travis County. Again, that was a -- anybody who filled that out saw on there that I and m was one of the things we're looking at. So there has been some work done. Has it been done by a whole urge of other issues, yes.
>> if we vote for this today, are we the only county -- so far is Travis County the only one that's going to be doing this? Is hays county going to be doing it? Is Williamson county going to be voting on this as well?
>> yes, they will be voting out. What their vote will be, I can't tell you. The city of Austin is scheduled to go the week after thanksgiving on December 4th. I believe Round Rock is not going to vote until December 18th.
>> the city of Round Rock on the 18th, I think. I think Williamson county was looking at either the 2nd or the 9th.
>> we get a chance to lead again.
>> that's right.
>> and we're 812,000 people as compared to 250,000 as compared to 80,000.
>> 70% of the cars are registered in Travis County.
>> I have always felt that if your car is polluting, ought to if I can it and I ought to do the same thing. I was behind a car at a stoplight and it was unbearable. The smoke that was coming from it. I don't know whether the person couldn't afford it or not, but it really was not relevant. To me nobody should drive a car like that on a public road. I mean it was --en identify mate me look behind me to make sure I wasn't -- [laughter] [multiple voices] so I guess I'm thinking if you are polluting the atmosphere because your car needs repair, then you are unhealthy. But we ought to not have to, you ought to do it yourself. If you don't take the initiative and handle the problem, we have a problem that we're dealing with and helping you get your car fixed if it needs to be fixed is part of that solution. And if I'm in that category, i'll go get it fixed. Or take the bus until I can afford to do it.
>> there you go.
>> there's no doubt in my mind that we're going to have to really pay for clean air as we have who pay for many other things in this community. I hate to again be placed in a position where it will cost us a lot of more money in trying to get out of non-attainment status when we can do things to -- up front to keep our stphefls attainment status -- ourselves in attainment status whereby we can encourage a lot of possibilities for Travis County, which I mentioned earlier the economic growth, job creations, companies that will want to locate here because of our attainment status. Our transportation dollars, a lot of the things may be in jeopardy. So it's a lot of risk here, and goodness, gracious, I just don't want to visit and be in a situation like harris county and dallas and el paso county. I think Travis County in the regional approach that we're taking here now as Williamson, hays and others that are involved in this I think is the right thing to do because we are a region. And as you've heard us say before that there's no boundary restrictions and the air doesn't respect boundaries one way or the other. Since that's the case, it just appears we need to do what we can do to move forward and make sure we're continuing in attainment status at this time and continue to work to maintain attainment status and sure we do not want to be dictated by the federal government, e.p.a. And others to say, hey, got to work ourselves out of non-attainment process. That's a very expensive process in more ways than one. With that I'm basically through.
>> if we say yes and hays and Williamson say no to the I and m, where are we?
>> in January, you -- we will bring back those results and you will have one last opportunity to decide -- basically what we're going to do in January is we're going to ask you once you've seen what hays and Williamson county decided to to pass a resolution --
>> in January in a position to reverse our vote?
>> yes. That's what I'm saying.
>> for us to be effective we need at least the three of us doing it.
>> that would be best.
>> well, if hays and will 81 son say no, -- Williamson say we don't want to do it, in January if we want to change our minds --
>> you take that measure out of the list and choose to present the rest of them, you decide to not do the uac at all. All of the ropgsz open.
>> what if we go to our residents and say we have one more opportunity to rid ourselves of this ozone problem this next ozone season. And do we have an opportunity to revisit the I and m program this time next year?
>> it's my understanding that, no, what you are going to decide in January is the draft plan. We will send it off to the state and feds for comments. They will send their comments back and by March 31 of 2004, you, under the agreement you signed are required to say here's the plan, put it in the state implementation plan and it becomes federal and state law at that point. And what you've done is under the e. A.c. Committed to do those things through whatever time periods. Now, I think it would be a complete waste of money to implement a i. And m. Program for one year because you are requiring all the stations to purchase the equipment.
>> I'm asking what if we do the other measures and the results are astoundingly successful, and we conclude this time next year we whipped that ozone problem here in Travis County. Could we still do the i. And m. Program?
>> I think it would -- if you are talking about the other measures that are on table 1, the other state measures, I don't think those could be in place in time to implement them next year. Because they also require some lead time and some rule making. Just the voluntary measures on table 2 and the ones you are selecting from for your voluntary commitments, it's unlikely use just three voluntary measures will have enough of a impact.
>> if you look at table 1 and see what's associated, will you see it's at the top of the list because it has the most emissions reductions associated with it. Now, we feel like we had to try to make it fair. There are other sources of emissions so, we worked through the four stakeholder committee process to come up with emissions reductions from the other sectors of our economy that produce emissions. But again, because automobiles are our biggest problem here, that's where you are going to get the biggest reductions.
>> but I would say that up until the point where tceq actually adopts this into the state implementation plan, which takes them about nine months, they have the rest of 2004 to go through their process, up until that point it's probably negotiable that you could withdraw from any or all of it.
>> I'm thinking if I get phone calls from residents and they ask what can we do to avoid this, my answer would be if your car is polluting the atmosphere, you can have it repaired. That's voluntary I and m basically. Which we ault to try to live by anyway.
>> true.
>> but the carrot would be we've been arguing the last three or four years we need to act proactively to change these results. And ozone action day, here's a long list of things you can go do to help out. I'm thinking you really have not gotten the level of cooperation that we hoped for. So while the problem is not quite as bad this year as during some previous years, it is still bad, right?
>> yes, sir. I mean it's getting better and yet there's population growth and new sorts of emissions.
>> you know, it's going to continue to come here.
>> how long is the I and m program been instituted in harris county?
>> harris county, they had a very basic program in 1990. Then they had a two-speed idle program for all of the 2- to 24-year-old vehicles from '97. Then we brought the air sample program in -- we started that in 2002. We've changed the program. We've ramped it up.
>> but houston has very different emissions than here. Harris county's source of emissions is point sources, factories, refineries. The majority of their problem is not vehicle based.
>> but we still had to -- I think that the difference there was that it's very, very difficult for us to model attainment in the houston, galveston area because their emissions are so high. Every time we put a program in, it wasn't getting enough emission reduction.
>> I agree. When you sit next to pasadena, you are right. I grew up in houston. Let me ask you about el paso.
>> el paso is now asking to be designated attainment area.
>> because of the I and m program?
>> not just because of that. They have a two-speed idle program there and they've had that since -- they had the basic one in 1990 and the two-speed idle in '96. They also have no [indiscernible] fuel and oxygen oxygenated fuel. So they have fuels taken I and m program.
>> what is the county that's the closest to Travis County that has been tpho rpb attainment that has gone into -- that has adopted the I and m program?
>> dallas.
>> dallas.
>> well, actually the one south of dallas. We have nine counties in the dallas-fort worth area.
>> so let's use dallas an example. Dallas has been non-attainment. How long has dallas been in the I and m program and are they now out of the attainment?
>> they are not out of attain: we've had to ramp up the program. They were doing two-speed idle in '96. We ramped up to [indiscernible] in may 2002. No, they have not achieved attain: in fact, they have bumped up.
>> but only four counties in the dallas region are actually declared non-attainment. Five other counties volunteered to participate in the I and m program because they wanted to get the region cleaned up because it's a black eye and they are having problems with economic development. And judge harris will be the first to tell you he was the biggest opponent to I and m until he really started delving into the clean air issue and became the chairman of the Texas clean air working group and he is now the number one supporter of it. He believes it is the only way to go to get emission reductions.
>> the reason we can -- that we can go back and look at this -- because I think our biggest culprit may be that if the other two counties don't do it, I mean I'm not willing to lead by example. If I can't get everybody to participate in this thing, but given we can look at it in January --
>> hays and Williamson. Just for economic development seems to me.
>> exactly.
>> we are encouraging them. We would appreciate your assistance in that endeavor.
>> second your motion to bless the recommendations. That's my motion.
>> second.
>> proxy.
>> that's roman numerals 1, 2 and 3?
>> yes, ma'am.
>>
>> [one moment, please, for change in captioners]
>>
>> that's what these maps are showing here. It happened a few times last year a couple of days. Then we get all of the emissions from the pine trees in east Texas, which are very noxious. And then it swings around and hits the air coming out of houston and it combines and it hits our point sources to the south of us. When this happens, we could park every vehicle and we're still in non-attainment. So some of this attainment, non-attainment stuff is just how does the wind blow. If we're lucky we do great and if we're not lucky it's not so great. It doesn't matter what we do with our vehicles unfortunately. However, we can't afford to do nothing. We have to do stuff to improve our situation. The inspection program is flawed. When I asked the people how the houston program worked, they didn't know how it worked in houston. It's improved, but it still has problems.
>> 15% of the cars inspected will fail. These are numbers from the clean air force. So 15% are failing, then why aren't we improving the solution of more than one percent total? The answer is a huge factor of on road pollution comes from vehicles that are specifically exempt. So all vehicles are exempt and all our vehicles that are older than 24 years old are exempt. And I went to work and I counted the cars that had real bad emissions coming out of the back. And a lot of them were mid '70's cars, the amc's and what have you. Those cars are all exempt and they produce a huge amount of pollution. The numbers that I saw it would be about $600 average, with 1,000 and 2,000 happening fairly commonly. Now, for retired people who are only driving their vehicles three or four times a week, that's pretty significant. They have some choices. They can spend the money to fix it or they can sell their car and trade up to something cleaner, which is great. We want to modernize our fleet. But unfortunately these cars are not going to go away, their simply going to get transported right outside of our county boundaries to some adjoining county and someone there is going to buy them, probably somebody that's low income or a high school student, they're not going to fix the cars, and they will drive it a lot. Some will become commuter cars. So we took a car that was being used a small amount in Travis County and we turn it into a commuter car that's commuting hundreds of miles in and out of Travis County and we can actually have our pollution get worse because of the extension program. Particularly if hays county doesn't go along. But even if hays county does, the other adjoining counties, this could be a real problem. So you have to ask yourself what happens to the cars that fail and people decide not to fix the car to fix them, where do the cars go? They aren't just going to disappear. And also let's talk about the time it takes to get your inspection. Currently it's about 10 minutes. You will wait behind in line behind two or three people. It might take half an hour. You can do it on your lunch break. People don't have to miss work. But in this process it becomes 20 minutes. Still have the 10 minute safety inspection and now the 10 minute emissions. When you double the amount of time the lines get four times as long. So what's going to happen is instead of being behind an average of maybe two or three people, you will be on average behind three or four people waiting in line if each vehicle is 20 minutes. Now you're looking at 80 minutes, 90 minutes to get your inspection. You can no longer do it at your lunch hour. It becomes a major inconvenience. And people are going to notice, not just the money. It's not going to be the $20 that they're mad about, it's the fact that they can't do it in half an hour any more that they're going to notice. So this is actually going to improve things. In every study we've seen in california in adjoining counties, and the county that has an inspection program and the county that doesn't, they see no difference in the air quality. So there's no proof that we could find that these kind of systems actually work. Now, there are other things on the agenda here that we think are more important, things like remote sensing is very important. Let's find the remote polluters, give them warnings, have the inspection units where people can voluntarily come in and get their cars tested, especially if the sensors tell them that their vehicle is probably emitt, they need to go and get their vehicles checked. We also have to look at the point sources, the smoke stacks, what can we do to get them to limit their use on high ozone days. Now, in the past this would have been unthinkable because three, four, five years ago we had like 30 ozone action day a year. But last year we only had like 11. You look at the difference of how we can have the high impact ozone action days. The air is getting cleaner. As our fleet modernizes, our air is getting cleaner, so there are fewer high ozone action days now. So we can concentrate our programs now on improving less use of gasoline engines and hopefully something about the smoke stacks. We can get Austin energy to cooperate in some way to clean up plant sources, especially when the wind is blowing from the south, we're going to do more to make attainment possible with e.p.a. Than anything else we could do. So that's just a few thoughts for you.
>> forest mimms is a member of acog, which is a member of the san antonio counterpart to clean air force. As you know, they're in the same situation we are. Actually, they're a little worse. Forest mimms was looking at the impact of im in houston. Since it is fully in effect this year, in June he testified about acog that he found that there was a 700% increase in the number of high ozone action days after im went into effect compared to 2002. That was through late may or approximately June first. So I'm not saying there's a cause and effect there, what I'm pointing out is that im has very little effect. California has had im for 30 years. They're still spending billions of dollars to try to clean their air. It's been hugely expensive. It doesn't work. Our air was audited in 1998, and I'm speaking particularly of our vehicle fleet. They were tested. And the vehicle fleet in Travis County was found to be as clean as in other cities like denver that have had im in place. There's no reason to go to an im system because it doesn't work. The national research council is directed by congress to study im. They released a report showing that it had very little effect. There were numerous flaws in it. It simply doesn't work. They compared cities with im, nownd in difference in the amount of pollution put out by automobiles. It's hugely expensive, but it doesn't work. Now then, let's see. I do think that some of the proposals on the clean air force are going in the right direction, like burning cleaner fuels, tex lead. I think it's foolish to have it trucked in by truck from houston at huge expense and creating a lot more pollution by shipping it in in diesel trucks. We need it put it in the pipeline and get everybody using tex lead at a reasonable price. That will make a big impact in cleaning our air and I think we should join with san antonio in pushing for that. That will make a huge impact and it won't destroy our pocket books. Particularly to what mr. Gerald Daugherty said earlier, we all know that cars are the number one source of pollution in Austin. That's not my finding. The clean air force did a study, paid for one in 1999. That's a base year for creeght a clean air plan. They found that smoke stacks, power plants, port sources, that is, were number one, and cars were in second place. So we need to know the truth and have the truth presented to the public before we make decisions that are going to cost millions of dollars. Now, the clean air force has a pie chart that they submitted to the tceq and the e.p.a. That had hybrid data on it. That's not scientifically valid. We need to do better than that. Any questions?
>> thank you.
>> you know -- (indiscernible). The only reason I say this is because I finally have thrown in and said, okay, it's the car. I think the point source, Austin is not -- is not as known for it as, say, the houston area. But I certainly can believe what you're saying. I think the point source -- I didn't know whether it was one and the car was two.
>> they're about the same.
>> they're very close. But I couldn't agree more with you than there are a number of things that we ought to be doing first. And that's probably by biggest complaint. I'm willing to try all of it, and also for this, because we have the opportunity to -- if we find out that we're not going to get the counties to participate in this deal. But I participate the information that you bring. It is amazing to me how many difference opinions that you find whenever it comes to -- and seemingly scientific even. But I'm glad that there are some folks out there like you all doing a lot of investigative work and bring bringing it to us. I'm not sure it does any good because we're more confused than we were to begin with. But I'm glad that you're out there doing the work.
>> well, it's not my finding or study. The information was bought and paid for by you and the taxpayers. And the studies were conducted by the clean air force. So this should be public information. They had it on the website, but it's been removed, so perhaps they need to restore -- what is on the website as the wade thompson study, who is the former assistant director of clean air force.
>> was that the -- is that the most recent one?
>> yes. The protocol for doing a clean air plan is to find -- to choose a particular year when we had a bad ozone event and then study it to death and know as much as you possibly can about that year. And then you build your entire plan upon that data. The clean air force chose to alter those graphs. They can easily get data on smoke stacks. Austin energy knows how much exactly pollution is coming out of their stacks. They can report to clean air force and they incorporated that new data into their graph. However, nobody has gone and studied to find out how much reduction in automobile-produced and truck-produced emissions have occurred. We know that ultra low emission vehicles are being sold on Austin car lots right now. Those are extremely clean vehicle. We know that tens of thousands -- hundreds of thousands of older vehicles have been removed from the road since 1999, so if the clean air force wants to make a 2003 chart, they should include the data for both the new data for both cars and smoke stacks. Also, one more thing. They also did not include the data on the new charts from bio genic sources. That's important because 81% of voc's entering our air comes from trees. If you take 81% off of the pie chart and when you expand all of the other components of the pie chart, you know it's got to be distorted. And we believe that biogenic pollution can be controlled. If you put it out of your mind and don't talk about it, you'll never clean it up.
>> thank you.
>> what makes you think that im may be affected?
>> well, the emissions inventory that we have is from 1999. We are required by the e.p.a. To use a 1999 or a 2002 emissions inventory and to use a weather pattern from there. There are very strict modeling guidelines that we have to adhere to. Under that I don't have the '99 numbers with me, I only have the 2007. I can get you the '99, but they're very similar to the 2007.
>> the judge's question is do I and m programs work?
>> yes.
>> is that a yes?
>> because the major source of our emissions in this reason in knox an throw pogenic comes from on road and non-road mobile sources. And on road is the largest. Non-road is the second largest. Point sources is 23%. Non-road is 22%. So point sources would be second under on road, which is 47%. So on road is the first. If you can reduce the emissions from that sector, you are reducing emissions in your region. The knox emissions are leading to an ozone reduction. And remember, what we're talking about is noks emissions, which are not ozone. The nox has to mix with...
>> .
>> (due to technical difficulties there is a 3 minute break in the transcript and the videotape from 2:49 pm to 2:51 pm.)
>>
>> ...already happening because of cleaner cars and fuels, Austin energy and lcra commitments to do things that are required by senate bill 7, and I think they're going beyond that as far as reductions at the power plants. So it's a good story, things are already going to be reduced.
>> they?? already are reduced and it's getting a lot better. That's the main story here is our air is getting a lot cleaner. And to do drastic measures that we may not need and may not work and not focusing on things that can hurt -- that can help us the most on these specific bad days I think we'll be able to stay.
>> i'd like to go back to the judge's question about whether im help. I'm sorry, you're --
>> sha lean.
>> sha lean said that, again, the worst problem we have is nox from on road and off road sources. Now, that's adding a new source. And if the planning can do im on off road sources then maybe that's a straight answer, but it's not a straight answer when they're not going to be doing im on off road sources, they're only going to be doing it for on road sources, and not all of these -- the dirtiest vehicles will not be included and there is no track record for im working in any other city. I only know of one area in the country that's ever emerged from e.p.a. Oversight, and that's the tri cities area of michigan. And the tri cities area of michigan had a pattern just like ours. They had been continuously getting cleaner for over 20 years. Their air was getting cleaner every year. But then they failed -- the 125 standard was introduced. But they tried not to be forced to do anything because they say we know our air is getting cleaner, it will get cleaner next year. They went ahead and and they went through im and all the other programs. They emerged out of it, but their pattern was like ours. Their air had been getting cleaner. It wasn't like dallas and houston where it has been getting dirtier. As late as 1985, we had 155 parts per billion of oas zone in our air. It's below 100 now. It's going down. Now, we recommend that we take a lot of proactive measures and reduce it a lot more to give us a margin of safety and to improve our environment, especially for those people who have lung problems. And it's going to be expensive whichever we we go with it. It's going to cost people a lot of money. But we believe that our plan is a better plan for cleaning the air. It does a better job of it and it will cost less.
>> and they did bring a very detailed point by point analysis of all of the recommendations to -- this is the libertarian party. You've sent in written comments. And you've brought comment to the public meeting, so we'll be happy to share those with you if you'd like to havehem.
>> there's still a question on whether the I and m program works. That's debated a lot nationally. There are a lot of questions. Haises he will might be -- hazel might be able to help on that. I know that tceq is required to do auditing on the program. And the programs are based on actual testing, so the test results are compiled all over the country. And california has done a lot of before and after tests to see on a particular car, does it stay fixed, how long, so there's a lot of information that we can bring back to you.
>> and judge harris says specifically to get the data from dallas if there is some concern, which we can get for you to show. They've implemented the program in 2002 and it will show you exactly what emissions they've had since then.
>> and the other Texas entities, if you had to do it again, would you do it?
>> and in they say resoundingly yes in dallas, which is the area most like ours. And I will be happy to get you information from judge harris and greg cook from e.p.a. Region 6.
>> if they can get that from the regions, that would help some too. So we could get that before the January meeting?
>> yes, sir. We will get that next week.
>> all in favor of the motion? That passes by unanimous vote. Thank y'all very much, mr. Maze. We appreciate the -- (indiscernible) also and thank you for your patience.
Last Modified: Tuesday, November 25, 2003 8:52 PM