Air Quality Criteria for Particulate Matter (External Review Draft)

ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY

[NCEA-CD-99-1072; FRL-6464-1]

Air Quality Criteria for Particulate Matter (External Review

Draft)

AGENCY: Environmental Protection Agency.

ACTION: Notice of a Draft for Public Review and Comment.

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SUMMARY: The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), National Center for

Environmental Assessment (NCEA), is today announcing the availability

of an external review draft of the document, Air Quality Criteria for

Particulate Matter. Required under sections 108 and 109 of the Clean

Air Act, the purpose of this document is to provide an assessment of

the latest scientific information on the effects of airborne

particulate matter (PM) on the public health and welfare for use in the

next periodic review of the National Ambient Air Quality Standards

(NAAQS) for PM.

DATES: Anyone who wishes to comment on the draft document, Air Quality

Criteria for Particulate Matter, must submit the comments in writing by

no later than January 14, 2000.

ADDRESSES: Send the written comments to the Project Manager for

Particulate Matter, National Center for Environmental Assessment-RTP

Office (MD-52), U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Research Triangle

Park, NC 27711.

A copy of the Air Quality Criteria for Particulate Matter (External

Review Draft) is available on CD ROM from the OAO Corporation, which is

under contract to the EPA. Contact Ms. Cindy Jenkins, OAO Corporation

representative, at 919-541-4826, 919-541-1818 (fax), or

[email protected] to request the document. OAO will need the

document's title, Air Quality Criteria for Particulate Matter (External

Review Draft), as well as your name and address

[[Page 57885]]

to properly process your request. Internet users may download a copy

from the Internet homepage for EPA's National Center for Environmental

Assessment. The URL is http://www.epa.gov/ncea/.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Dr. Dennis Kotchmar, National Center

for Environmental Assessment-RTP Office (MD-52), U.S. Environmental

Protection Agency, Research Triangle Park, NC 27711; telephone: 919-

541-4158; fax: 919-541-1818; E-mail: [email protected].

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is

updating and revising, where appropriate, the EPA's Air Quality

Criteria for Particulate Matter. Sections 108 and 109 of the Clean Air

Act require that the EPA carry out a periodic review and revision,

where appropriate, of the criteria and the National Ambient Air Quality

Standards (NAAQS) for the ``criteria'' air pollutants such as

particulate matter. Details of the EPA's plans for the review of the

NAAQS for PM were announced in a previous Federal Register notice (62

FR 55201, October 23, 1997).

Near the end of the comment period on the external review draft,

Air Quality Criteria for Particulate Matter, the EPA will present the

draft at a public meeting for review by the Clean Air Scientific

Advisory Committee (CASAC). There will be a subsequent Federal Register

notice to inform the public of the exact date and time of that CASAC

meeting.

The EPA is aware that a substantial number of new scientific

studies on particulate matter are underway that will likely be

completed and accepted for publication in time to be included in the

final criteria document. To this end, the Agency encourages timely

completion and submission of these studies for publication. Because the

potential import of many of these additional studies cannot be assessed

in the present draft, the Agency is requesting that the CASAC's and the

public's comments on this external review draft focus particularly on

the aspects of organization, structure, and presentation in the

document, although comments on provisional conclusions and specific

details are, of course, welcome.

Following the CASAC meeting, the EPA plans to incorporate revisions

to the document in response to public comments and CASAC review of the

first external review draft, and then to release a second external

review draft for public comment and CASAC review in midyear 2000. For

reasons discussed above, the second draft may address a number of

studies not completed in time for assessment in the first draft.

Accordingly, the EPA urges that interested parties be prepared to

review the second draft on that basis.

Findings and conclusions from the Air Quality Criteria for

Particulate Matter will be used as key inputs to the preparation during

2000 of a draft EPA staff paper on airborne particles, which will pose

possible options for the EPA Administrator to consider in regard to

potential retention or revision of current PM NAAQS.

Dated: October 21, 1999.

William H. Farland,

Director, National Center for Environmental Assessment.

[FR Doc. 99-28045 Filed 10-26-99; 8:45 am]

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