110 



Mr. Synar. Mr. Leary, are you going to be able to meet the 1995 

 deadline for completing your report? 



Mr. Leary. The key is whether we have the resources to com- 

 plete the analyses that we have done. Right now plans are, yes, we 

 can meet it. 



Mr. Synar. What happened to the State of Idaho? 



Mr. Leary. They are in the transport region. They have indicated 

 they now want to join the commission and realize there will be po- 

 tential impacts on them. We are in the process of getting them into 

 the commission. 



Mr. Synar. It is our understanding, Mr. Leary, that when the 

 commission meets, some of the States haven't been particularly 

 faithful at showing up to the meetings. When it comes down to the 

 real work, getting the States to adopt the recommendations, what 

 do you think is going to happen here? 



Mr. Leary. Well, on our operation committee, where the States 

 have the major representation, they have attended very faithfully 

 on some of our technical committees. The final recommendation 

 that goes to the commission must come from the State's operations 

 committee, which is all States to the Federal managers. So any 

 final recommendation must go through the States. 



Mr. Synar. The roster looks balanced. The meetings don't. For 

 example, you actually have very little environmental participation. 

 How are you going to plan to ensure balanced participation in the 

 future? 



Mr. Leary. It is an ongoing problem. I think you raised the cor- 

 rect issue; are there resource constraints? We are trying to do three 

 things. 



First of all, we do support the travel to participate, 75 percent 

 of it, at least. We use a consensus process that means even though 

 it may be tedious at times, if they say, no, the process stops. 



Mr. Synar. How are you going to work out those disputes if you 

 require consensus as you get closer to having to come up with real 

 recommendations? 



Mr. Leary. We established a dispute resolution process that will 

 take it up to the operations committee, which is the States and the 

 Federal land managers who resolve these disputes. 



Mr. Synar. The same people who are on it now. 



Mr. Leary. On the operations committee, which is the governing 

 body? 



Mr. Synar. Right. 



Mr. Leary. Yes, they must resolve these disputes or give them 

 to the commission for resolution. I think the important thing here 

 is that there is an incentive for this commission to be successful. 

 There is an ultimate incentive, and that is, if they are not success- 

 ful, if they do not come up with a product that EPA can accept, 

 EPA is going to do it to them. 



Mr. Synar. Oh, I wouldn't count on that. We were here 4 years 

 ago. That hammer was way back here. You are really threatened 

 by EPA, aren't you? You are shaking in your boots. Mr. Leary, does 

 it make any sense to you that we have to wait for the results of 

 your study before EPA issues regional regulations elsewhere, par- 

 ticularly in the East? 



