Si!Em Times NEWS FOR AND ABOUT EPA EMPLOYEES INSIDE: * Pay Changes * Who's on First? * Party Time - December 2 VOLUME 1 NUMBER 1 DECEMBER 5, 1983 the plan which best meets their needs. Headquarters employees who want to change their coverage may obtain the appropriate forms from Room 3013, WSM; employees in regional and field offices should contact their personnel offices for forms. Completed forms must be received in the personnel office no later than December 9. Changes made during the open season will be effective January 8. Time to Think About Health Care EPA employees have until December 9 to change their health insurance en- rollment, or to enroll in a health bene- fits plan if they do not have coverage now. This year, the Office of Personnel Management did not issue new Federal Employees Health Benefit (FEHB) brochures. Instead, changes in benefits for 1984 were announced in addendum pamphlets. To assist employees in mak- ing comparisons, a complete set of 1983 brochures is available in the main head- quarter's library, at each personnel office, and from headquarter's adminis- trative officers. In addition, employees received a comparison chart displaying major fea- tures of each plan and a rate chart showing 1984 premiums for each plan. The charts should help employees to review available benefits and to select Leave Year Ends On January 7 The official 1983 leave year ends Jan- uary 7, 1984. Employees may carry over a maximum of 240 hours of annual leave from one leave year to the next. Any unused annual leave in excess of the 240-hour maximum is forfeited at the end of the leave year. Supervisors and managers are respon- sible for scheduling the use of annual leave during the year so employees can avoid forfeiture of any leave. Restoration of unused annual leave may be considered under three con- ditions (administrative error, exigencies of the public business, and illness) only if the annual leave is formally sched- uled, and approved in writing, before the start of the third pay period prior to the end of the leave year. SES employees are exempt from the 240-hour maximum during the period of their SES appointments. Detailed information concerning an- nual leave is available in the EPA Leave Manual, or from your servicing personnel officer. A Message From the Administrator When I returned to EPA last May after a 10-year "vacation," it seemed to me that restoring public trust in the Agency had to be our No. 1 priority. I believe we have made progress toward that goal, progress made possible be- cause the people who are EPA—the employees—are dedicated to their work and fully merit the public's trust. To keep that momentum going, we must continue and improve our efforts to let the public know what EPA is doing and why we are doing it. But good communications, like charity, must begin at home. That is why I am taking this opportunity to express my personal interest in better com- munications within EPA. If we aren't talking with one another, we certainly can't do a good job of talking to the world outside. At my request, the Office of Public Affairs initiated publication of Man- agement Memo, a newsletter intended to give Agency supervisors and man- agers information they need to help them work more effectively. But, as 1 noted in the EPA-wide goals dis- seminated in October, our employees are "the lifeblood of this Agency," de- serving of trust and respect. It is impor- tant then that all employees, not just managers, have access to information about the Agency. To contribute to this end, I have asked that EPA Times re- turn to a twice-a-month schedule to re- port on activities of the Agency and the work each of us is doing. Certainly, all of us are interested first and foremost in our own particular jobs. But I think we also like to know how our own duties fit in with the work of the Agency as a whole. That's one purpose of EPA Times. More broadly, EPA Times is to provide information for and about employees. It is to be your publication. This means employees should be contributors as well as readers. And you should not be reluctant to let the editors know how they can do a better job of meeting your interests. It's difficult in, an Agency as large and diverse as ours to build the com- fortable kind of community feeling that makes it easy to think of EPA as "we," rather than "they." But we surely should try, and EPA Times is a good first step. Bill Ruckelshaus ------- People Retirees at Headquarters: Roger L. Williams, 25 years, Office of Intergovernmental Liaison ... Richard C. Hoffman, 20 years, Office of Public Affairs ... Bern Wright, 20 years, Municipal Construction Division of the Office of Water Pro- gram Operations ... Carol G. Alexander, 21 years, Man- agement Information Support Services, Library Systems Staff ... Kathryn N. Chidlaw, 35 years, Program Management Op- erations, Office of Air and Radiation ... Ervin Belleck, 40 years, Criteria and Standards Division, Office of Drinking Water. EPA's Distinguished Career Award goes to Andrew W. O'Keeffe. O'Keeffe retired in 1981 as Science Advisor for the Environmental Sciences Research Laboratory, Research Triangle Park ... At the same award ceremony Charles R. Hosier receives 30-year length of service certificate. Hosier has been director of the laboratory's Technical Planning and Review Office since 1977. The Instrument Society of America presents the Kermit Fischer Environmental Award to Joseph F. Roesler for his implementation of novel applications of automatic control systems in wastewater treatment plants. Roesler is an engi- neer at EPA's Environmental Monitoring and Support Lab- oratory, Cincinnati. EPA Special Achievement Awards go to: George W. Ala- pas and Clark Hening. Administration and Resources Man- agement ... Ralph Rizzo, James Makris and Craig Annear, Solid Waste and Emergency Response ... Janet Auerback, Thomas Ellwanger, Dennis McLane, Thomas Johnston and Richard Lee, Pesticides and Toxic Substances ... Charles Nauman, David Kelly, Donald Cook, Shirley Thomas, Mary Dogdan, Keely Keelan and Gary Foley, Research and De- velopment ... Ilene Stein, Office of Administrator ... Pauline Snell, Air and Radiation ... Douglas Henderson, Office of General Counsel. Statler Scurry Q& A: Who's On First? Q. I thought that the area on the first floor of the West Tower was being converted into conference facilities. Now there are offices occupying the space. What happened? A. One plan for the former exhibit area included con- ference facilities, but that was back when our numbers were shrinking. With the current growth in personnel, the greatest need was for additional office space. The east gallery of the first floor now houses support staff for the Office of General Counsel and the Office of Enforcement Counsel. The Facili- ties and Support Services staff says that a new master plan being developed for all EPA headquarter's space will include "adequate conference and press facilities." Additional space will be occupied as it becomes available from GSA. Office CFC managers at headquarters meet with Vice Chair Howard Messner to plan this year's campaign. ------- Around EPA Appointments: Jean Statler is now director of the Office of •iblic Affairs. A native of Jacksonville, Illinois, Statler began lr government career as chief speechwriter for Sen. Charles Percy. She received a B.A. in journalism from SMU in 1976. Statler, 32, and her husband, Stuart, live in Arlington ... Nat Scurry is named to head the Office of Civil Rights. Scurry was bom in Sanford, Florida, in 1945. A graduate of Clark College in Atlanta, Scurry was a senior manager in the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs at OMB. Social Security coverage is extended to several new groups of federal employees by the Social Security Amendments of 1983 (Public Law 98-12). To be included in Social Security (as well as the federal employees retirement system): em- ployees first appointed on or after 1/1/84; former federal em- ployees who return to service in 1984 after a break of more than 365 consecutive days; and noncareeer employees in the Senior Executive Service. President Reagan's alternative pay raise plan for federal white collar employees provides a 3.5 percent pay raise effective the first pay period in January ... A new method for determining the hourly rate of pay of salaried employees, changed from 2080 hours to 2087 hours, takes effect at the same time. The change will cost employees about $3.20 per pay period. EPA 1983 Honor Awards Day is December 16. The annual ceremony will be at 10 a.m. in the Dean Acheson Au- ditorium of the State Department. Bus transportation will be provided to and from the ceremony from EPA Washington area offices. "A Salute to EPA Employees" will be the theme of an Agency-wide celebration of EPA's thirteenth anniversary. Ad- ministrator Bill Ruckleshaus will visit employees'parties at headquarters and make a special videotaped keynote talk to other employees at celebrations planned at other Agency installations ... Assistant Administrators, Regional Administrators, lab directors and other managers are expected to host individual parties on the afternoon of December 2. The hospital insurance portion of the FICA tax for Medi- care coverage of federal employees is 1.3 percent of annual wages. In 1984, the maximum tax will be $510.90, figured on a maximum wage base of $39,000. Employees who make less than $39,000 a year will pay a smaller amount into Medi- care. Questions should be directed to the Customer Assis- tance Section of the Financial Management Division, 382- 5116 ... Employees who transferred to EPA this year may have incurred Medicare deductions exceeding the 1983 max- imum of $464.10. Those who overpaid can claim a refund on their 1983 tax return. President Reagan has extended the Combined Federal Campaign until December 2. So far, progress is good at head- quarters: 83 percent of our goal as of November 17 ... The Office of the Assistant Administrator for Enforcement and Compliance Monitoring is the current frontrunner with con- tributions and pledges amounting to 145 percent of its goal. Our apologies: The October EPA Times mistakenly put EPA's Office of International Activities within the Office of External Affairs. It's the Office of Intergovernmental Liaison that's in OEA. International Activities functions in- dependently under the direction of Associate Administrator Fitzhugh Green. Agency Activities In the Federal Register: Final water quality standard reg- ulations include revisions that strengthen protection of streams, rivers and lakes. The Senate Environment and Pub- lic Works Committee commends EPA for the changes ... An Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking starts the process to establish National Revised Primary Drinking Water Regula- tions for microbiological contaminants, inorganic chemicals and pesticides ... New laboratory standards are set for testing pesticides and toxic substances. The Good Lab Practices were proposed in the wake of allegations that a Chicago lab- oratory provided falsified data to the Agency ... New rules proposed for secondary treatment of wastewater would make it easier for smaller communities to meet Clean Water Act standards without adversely affecting water quality ... Public comment is invited on the Agency's assessment that seven pesticides used for termite control do not pose unrea- sonable risks to public health when properly applied. Other Action: EPA conducts public hearings in Browns- ville, Texas, and Mobile, Alabama, on issuing special and re- search permits to transport and incinerate hazardous wastes on ships in the Gulf of Mexico ... EPA completes emergency cleanup action at 153 hazardous waste sites in the first 33 months of Superfund. Emergency action is in progress at 53 Kier sites; $47 million is obligated for the 206 removal ac- ns ... Fitzhugh Green, Associate Administrator for Interna- tional Activities, leads a delegation to San Diego for meetings to seek solutions to sewage pollution problems originating in Tijuana and Mexicali, Mexico. On Capitol Hill: Administrator Bill Ruckelshaus presents Administration position on revision of the Clean Water Act in testimony before a House Public Works and Transporta- tion subcommittee. Commenting on the "toughest issue" in- volved, Ruckelshaus recommends against pretreatment waiv- ers for industry at the present time ... EPA will announce de- cisions within the next two years on the need for regulating some 20 substances as hazardous air pollutants, Ruckelshaus tells a House Energy and Commerce subcommittee. Com- prehensive health assessments will begin on eight to ten additional pollutants in FY 84 ... The Federal Insecticide, Fungicide and Rodenticide Act is "basically a sound and workable statute" that provides adequate authority to deal with current controversies and problems in pesticide regula- tion, Ruckelshaus says in testimony before a House Agricul- ture subcommittee. Speaking Out: "We have to stop playing 'who struck John' around the issue of responsibility for hazardous waste sites. We have to go beyond public relations and the legal niceties. The public is not going to stand still when representatives of a multibillion-dqllar industry and government officials at all levels dance a minuet around cleaning up a site that has some little town scared half to death" — Administrator Bill Ruckelshaus at the semi-annual meeting of the Chemical Manufactures Assn., New York City ... "The 'experts' who thought the Great Lakes couldn't be saved from dying were dead wrong. We ought to learn something from that exercise. If someone tells you that the problem of acid rain or hazard- ous waste is insoluble, I urge you to remember the lesson of Lake Erie. It was pronounced dead a dozen years ago. Today it is alive and well." — Ruckelshaus before the International Joint Comission and the Great Lakes Governors, Indianapolis. ------- Five New AAs Confirmed by Senate Ravan Cannon Goldstein Moore Russell The U.S. Senate has confirmed five new Assistant Administrators: Jack Ravan, Water; Joe Cannon, Air and Radiation; Bernard Goldstein, Research and Development; John Moore, Pesti- cides and Toxic Substances; and Milton Russell, Policy, Planning and Evalua- tion. Jack E. Ravan, Assistant Administra- tor for Water, was Administrator of Re- gion 4 from 1971 to 1977. Ravan, was born in Easly, S.C., and was graduated from West Point in 1959. He served eight years in the Army and rose to the rank of captain. Since 1982 Ravan has been Vice President, project development, for the Signal Clean Water Corporation of Atlanta. From 1980 to 1982, he was Di- rector of the Alabama Department of Energy. He served as director of busi- ness development for Jordan, Jones & Goudling of Atlanta from 1977 to 1980. Ravan and his wife, Roberta, have set up temporary residence in Alexandria. Joseph A. Cannon. Assistant Ad- ministrator for Air and Radiation, pre- viously served for two years as EPA's Associate Administrator for Policy and Resource Management. He has been the Acting AA for Air and Radiation since July. Cannon has served as EPA policy chief and as a special assistant and legal advisor for regulatory reform to the Administrator. Prior to joining EPA, Cannon practiced law in Washington, D.C. He received his undergraduate and law degrees from Brigham Young Uni- versity, where he was an editor of the school's law review. Cannon, his wife, Janeal, and their four sons live in Vienna, Va. The new Assistant Administrator for Research and Development, Bernard D. Goldstein, has served as scientific advi- sor to EPA since 1978. He has been chairman of the agency's Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee since 1982. Goldstein, who received his M.D. from the New York University School of Medicine in 1962, is one of the country's leading authorities on en- vironmental medicine. He has been chairman of the Department of Environ- mental and Community Medicine, Rut- gers Medical School, since 1980. During the same period he served as chief of the Division of Environmental and Community Medicine of Middlesex General Hospital and as an associate professor in the Department of Environ- mental Medicine at the New York Uni- versity Medical Center. Goldstein is married and has two children. John A. Moore, Assistant Administra- tor for Pesticides and Toxic Substances, is a board certified toxicologist who has served on a variety of national and international scientific panels on di- oxin. Since 1978, Moore has been Deputy Director of the National Toxicology Pro- gram in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. He served at the same time as Director of Toxicology Re- search and Testing at the National In- stitute of Environmental Health Scien- ces in N.C. Moore received a doctorate in vete^ inary medicine from Michigan State I University in 1963. He and his wife will be moving to Washington from Raleigh, N.C. The new Assistant Administrator for Policy, Planning and Evaluation, Milton Russell, comes to EPA from Resources for the Future, a public policy research institution. He has been director of the group's Center for Energy Policy Re- search since 1979. Russell received his doctorate in eco- nomics from the University of Okla- homa in 1963. He has taught at several universities, including Southern Illinois University at Carbondale where he was chairman of the Economics Department. From 1974 to 1976, Russell served as senior staff economist for the Council of Economic Advisors. He worked as a staff economist for the Federal Power Commission during 1966-1967. Russell, who was born in Corpus Christi, Texas, lives with his wife in Washington, D.C. The EPA Times is published 24 times per year to provide news and information for and about EPA employees. Readers are encd^ aged to submit news of fellow employees, letters of opinion, questions, comments, and suggestions to: Miles Allen, Editor, The EPA Times, Office of Public Affairs (A-107). Telephone 382-4371. Information selected for publication will be edited as necessary in keeping with space available. All letters of opinion must be signed and accompanied by submitter's office location and tele- phone number. ------- |