Science Advisory Board (SAB) Consideration of EPA Planned Actions in the Spring 2015 Unified (Regulatory) Agenda and their Supporting Science

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ozone precursors or greenhouse gases from electric generating units (EGUs). The Board appreciates the
agency's response to questions from SAB members regarding the IPM and the agency's efforts to
update and improve the IPM as provided on the September 24 public teleconference. The Board agrees
that incorporating updates and lessons learned are good approaches to update the IPM. Outreach to other
agencies and forums like the Eastern Regional Technical Advisory Committee and the Energy Modeling
Forum also should keep the IPM consistent with state-of- the art energy and economic modeling. The
SAB encourages the agency to continue to engage with stakeholders and to publish the full
documentation from the IPM to increase its transparency. The SAB recognizes the importance of the
IPM to project future emissions and provide the scientific and technical support for future actions
relating to emissions of ozone precursors and greenhouse gases and welcomes future briefings on the
agency's efforts to increase the transparency and comparability of the IPM to other EGU emission
projection tools.
Safer and Sustainable Chemicals
The agency developed a great deal of information documenting the science supporting the
Trichloroethylene (TCE); Rulemaking Under TSCA Section 6(a) and N-Methylpyrrolidone (NMP) and
Methylene Chloride; Rulemaking Under TSCA Section 6(a). The SAB notes that the publicly available
information and the agency responses to questions from the SAB Work Group facilitated the Board's
review of the actions and provides a strong basis for future consideration of actions developed under the
Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) Section 6. Options for alternatives were extensively discussed in
the information provided by the agency for TCE but not NMP or methylene chloride. The agency noted
the proposed rules would describe the preferred risk management approach and alternatives explaining
how the approach achieves adequate protection using the least burdensome requirements, discuss cost
and benefits of alternative approaches and provide an opportunity for public comment.
The SAB and Board of Scientific Counselors (BOSC) provided advice and recommendations to the
agency encouraging the transition to safer chemicals and greener processes and technologies. In the
recent review of the agency's Strategic Research Action Plans and the six major research program areas
(EPA-SAB-15-004) the SAB and BOSC found that the EPA must be prepared to address questions such
as: how to design and produce safer chemicals; how chemicals and their byproducts interact in the
environment; how to promote safer, sustainable use of chemicals throughout their lifecycle as it
addresses the contribution of chemical exposure to the overall disease burden in humans (including
susceptible subpopulations) and the environment? The SAB encourages the agency to continue to use
the results from these research programs and the TSCA evaluations to identify risk management
alternatives that include safer chemicals and greener processes and technologies.
Information on Planned Actions in the Regulatory Agenda
The agency's descriptions for the Spring 2015 planned actions continue to improve and generally
provide more complete information to inform the SAB's decisions than those provided for past SAB
reviews of the agency's regulatory agenda. The explanation of the peer review process provided for the
Spring 2015 planned actions was complete and helpful to the Board's review process. The SAB strongly
recommends that the EPA continue to include specific information on the peer review of the associated
science and description of the scientific and technological bases for the planned actions in future
descriptions for SAB consideration.
The SAB appreciates the information provided by the EPA describing the planned actions, associated
scientific questions, and agency plans for scientific analyses and peer review. The information provided
by the agency and a memorandum documenting the Work Group's review and fact-finding discussions
with EPA Staff are available on the SAB website.

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On behalf of the SAB, I thank you for the opportunity to support the EPA through consideration of the
science supporting actions in the agency's regulatory agenda.
Sincerely,
/S/
Dr. Peter S. Thorne, Chair
Science Advisory Board
Enclosure
(1) Roster of SAB Members

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NOTICE
This report has been written as part of the activities of the EPA Science Advisory Board (SAB), a public
advisory group providing extramural scientific information and advice to the Administrator and other officials
of the Environmental Protection Agency. The SAB is structured to provide balanced, expert assessment of
scientific matters related to problems facing the agency. This report has not been reviewed for approval by the
agency and, hence, the contents of this report do not represent the views and policies of the Environmental
Protection Agency, nor of other agencies in the Executive Branch of the Federal government, nor does mention
of trade names of commercial products constitute a recommendation for use. Reports of the SAB are posted on
the EPA website at http://www.epa.gov/sab.
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U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
Science Advisory Board
BOARD
CHAIR
Dr. Peter S. Thorne, Professor and Head, Department of Occupational & Environmental Health,
University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA
MEMBERS
Dr. Joseph Arvai, Max McGraw Professor of Sustainable Enterprise, Director, Erb Institute, School of
Natural Resources & Environment, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI
Dr. Sylvie M. Brouder, Professor and Wickersham Chair of Excellence in Agricultural Research,
Department of Agronomy, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN
Dr. Thomas Burbacher, Professor, Department of Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences,
School of Public Health, University of Washington, Seattle, WA
Dr. Ingrid Burke, Director and Wyoming Excellence Chair, Haub School and Ruckelshaus Institute of
Environment and Natural Resources, University of Wyoming, Laramie, WY
Dr. George Daston, Victor Mills Society Research Fellow, Global Product Stewardship, The Procter &
Gamble Company, Mason, OH
Dr. Costel Denson, Managing Member, Costech Technologies, LLC, Hockessin, DE
Dr. Michael Dourson, President, Toxicology Excellence for Risk Assessment, Cincinnati, OH
Dr. Joel Ducoste, Professor, Department of Civil, Construction, and Environmental Engineering, College
of Engineering, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC
Dr. David A. Dzombak, Hamerschlag University Professor and Department Head, Department of Civil
and Environmental Engineering, College of Engineering, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA
Dr. Elaine M. Faustman, Professor and Director, Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences,
University of Washington, Seattle, WA
Dr. R. William Field, Professor, Department of Occupational and Environmental Health, and Department
of Epidemiology, College of Public Health, University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA
Dr. H. Christopher Frey, Distinguished University Professor, Department of Civil, Construction and
Environmental Engineering, College of Engineering, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC
Also Member: CASAC
Dr. Steven Hamburg, Chief Scientist, Environmental Defense Fund, Boston, MA
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Dr. Cynthia M. Harris, Director and Professor, Institute of Public Health, Florida A&M University,
Tallahassee, FL
Dr. Robert J. Johnston, Director of the George Perkins Marsh Institute and Professor, Economics, Clark
University, Worcester, MA
Dr. Kimberly L. Jones, Professor and Chair, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering,
Howard University, Washington, DC
Dr. Catherine Karr, Associate Professor - Pediatrics and Environmental and Occupational Health
Sciences and Director - NW Pediatric Environmental Health Specialty Unit, University of Washington,
Seattle, WA
Dr. Madhu Khanna, ACES Distinguished Professor in Environmental Economics, Department of
Agricultural and Consumer Economics, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL
Dr. Nancy K. Kim, Independent Consultant, Independent Consultant, Albany, NY
Dr. Francine Laden, Mark and Catherine Winkler Associate Professor of Environmental Epidemiology,
Harvard School of Public Health, and Channing Division of Network Medicine, Brigham and Women's
Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA
Dr. Lois Lehman-McKeeman, Distinguished Research Fellow, Discovery Toxicology, Bristol-Myers
Squibb, Princeton, NJ
Dr. Cecil Lue-Hing, President, Cecil Lue-Hing & Assoc. Inc., Burr Ridge, IL
Dr. Elizabeth Matsui, Associate Professor, Pediatrics, School of Medicine, Johns Hopkins University,
Baltimore, MD
Dr. Denise Mauzerall, Professor, Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, and
Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ
Dr. Kristina D. Mena, Associate Professor, Epidemiology, Human Genetics, and Environmental
Sciences, School of Public Health, University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, El Paso, TX
Dr. Surabi Menon, Director of Research, ClimateWorks Foundation, San Francisco, CA
Dr. James R. Mihelcic, Professor, Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of South Florida,
Tampa, FL
Dr. H. Keith Moo-Young, Chancellor, Office of Chancellor, Washington State University, Tri-Cities,
Richland, WA
Dr. Eileen Murphy, Senior Director Corporate & Foundation Relations, Rutgers University Foundation,
New Brunswick, NJ
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Dr. James Opaluch, Professor and Chair, Department of Environmental and Natural Resource
Economics, College of the Environment and Life Sciences, University of Rhode Island, Kingston, RI
Dr. Martin Philbert, Dean and Professor, Environmental Health Sciences, School of Public Health,
University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI
Mr. Richard L. Poirot, Air Quality Planning Chief, Air Quality and Climate Division, Vermont
Department of Environmental Conservation, Montpelier, VT
Dr. Stephen Polasky, Fesler-Lampert Professor of Ecological/Environmental Economics, Department of
Applied Economics, University of Minnesota, St. Paul, MN
Dr. David B. Richardson, Associate Professor, Department of Epidemiology, School of Public Health,
University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC
Dr. Amanda D. Rodewald, Director of Conservation Science, Cornell Lab of Ornithology and Associate
Professor, Department of Natural Resources, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY
Dr. William Schlesinger, President Emeritus, Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies, Millbrook, NY
Dr. Gina Solomon, Deputy Secretary for Science and Health, Office of the Secretary, California
Environmental Protection Agency, Sacramento, CA
Dr. Daniel O. Stram, Professor, Department of Preventive Medicine, Division of Biostatistics, University
of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA
Dr. Paige Tolbert, Professor and Chair, Department of Environmental Health, Rollins School of Public
Health, Emory University, Atlanta, GA
Dr. Jeanne VanBriesen, Professor, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Carnegie
Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA
Dr. John Vena, Professor and Founding Chair, Department of Public Health Sciences, Medical University
of South Carolina, Charleston, SC
Dr. Elke Weber, Jerome A. Chazen Professor of International Business, Columbia Business School, New
York, NY
Dr. Charles Werth, Professor and Bettie Margaret Smith Chair in Environmental Health Engineering,
Department of Civil, Architectural and Environmental Engineering, Cockrell School of Engineering,
University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX
Dr. Peter J. Wilcoxen, Associate Professor, Economics and Public Administration, The Maxwell School,
Syracuse University, Syracuse, NY
Dr. Dawn J. Wright, Chief Scientist, Environmental Systems Research Institute (Esri), Redlands, CA
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SCIENCE ADVISORY BOARD STAFF
Mr. Thomas Carpenter, Designated Federal Officer, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Science
Advisory Board (1400R), 1200 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW, Washington, DC
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