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Mr. Synar. Mr. Leary. Welcome. 



STATEMENT OF JOHN T. LEARY, PROJECT MANAGER, AND 

 JAMES M. SOUBY, CHAIR, OPERATIONS COMMITTEE, GRAND 

 CANYON VISD3HJTY TRANSPORT COMMISSION, DENVER, CO 



Mr. Leary. Good morning, Mr. Chairman. 



My name is John Leary, I am a project manager for the Grand 

 Canyon Visibility Transport Commission. I am on the staff of the 

 Western Governments Association, which is the administrative arm 

 for the commission. 



On behalf of Governor Symington of Arizona, the commission 

 would like to thank you for this opportunity to testify. 



With me today to supplement my testimony within our 5 minutes 

 is James Souby, who is the chair of the operations committee and 

 the executive director of the Western Governors Association, along 

 with him in the spirit of our collaborative process, we have Shawn 

 Kendall from Phelps Dodge Corp. and Roger Clark from the Grand 

 Canyon Trust. 



As you are aware, the commission was formed under the 1990 

 Clean Air Act amendments and has the charge of determining 

 what actions, if any, are necessary to eliminate the existing and 

 prevent future impairment in parks and wilderness areas on the 

 Colorado plateau. From the beginning, let me step back. 



The commission has 18 members from eight Southwestern States 

 in it, four Federal land managers, and EPA. The commission has 

 recently recommended to the EPA Administrator that three tribal 

 representatives be added to the commission. 



From the beginning the commission has conducted an open, in- 

 clusive process that set up a committee process for doing its work 

 that includes about 150 volunteers representing industry, environ- 

 mental groups, local, State, Federal Government, the tribes, aca- 

 demia, and the general public. The purposes of our committees are 

 twofold: 



One, to develop analytical techniques to determine the relation- 

 ship between emission reductions and visibility improvement; and 

 second, to identify policies and emission management options to 

 deal with the problem. We would like to point out three issues 

 today that are a concern to the commission. 



First of all, the commission is experiencing resource shortage 

 right now, and what we would like to do is move to an independent 

 contractor, and that is why the shortage exists. The contractor is 

 needed for three reasons. 



First of all, it is important that we have a very objective process 

 and that we have independent data to make our decisions. We 

 don't want to debate whether the costs of our proposed strategies 

 are assessed correctly, we don't want the debate to focus on wheth- 

 er costs have been correctly assessed, we want it to focus on wheth- 

 er the cost is too high or too low. And also by this independent 

 strategy, we somewhat address the problem that Ms. Shaver raised 

 about the inability of private groups or environmentalists to par- 

 ticipate in the process. 



The second thing is the socioeconomic analysis we want to do re- 

 quires an expertise level that is beyond what we have on our com- 

 mittees. 



