- And this would allow five commissioners to attend a working group meeting, which I think was going to
- come to the GCP same year. That would be in the future. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. So that means, I mean, right
- now we have 11 commissioners. So that would be in the last year, we have successfully had five
- that's every single meeting anyhow, so it really would be, I mean, the holidays are coming up, so it'd
- be mostly a thing if we need to reschedule a meeting, because many people know that they would be unavailable
- with 10. So just another nudge to, if you know that you're gonna miss a meeting, shout it out, so that
- way if it's enough people that we wouldn't meet at quorum, we'd reschedule on time, or cancel the meeting
- if we have to. Any other thoughts on this before I consider voting?
- That's reasonable. Yeah. I have no issue with it as recommended. Previous adjustments were really dictated
- by circumstances anyway. If we come into that circumstance again, we can always come back and change
- it. I figured as much. So yeah, I feel supportive. Is there a motion? I motion to accept the change
- to six. Second. OK.
- Clear your mouth everybody. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.
- And Heidi, this chair is open, I'd be glad to be here. That's a great point. That's a great point. I'm
- just kind of over at the table with the rest of the meeting. Don't worry about me. All right. All right.
- Well, sounds good. Thank you all for moving through that so quickly. We are on to the Sustainable Energy
- Utility Capstone Project, which is listed under Matt and Heidi. Last week we had, or last month we had
- a visitor who proposed having the EC available to
- way in on various steps of the project. Would either of you like to update with anything? I included
- Matt because I think he's still on it and should be invited as a member for it. Heidi emailed me I think
- earlier this month, maybe even the last month, and just provided some language
- to give to, I think his name is Alex, to provide back to Alex. So I included that in the packet. Heidi,
- did you have anything else to say about that? No, I guess the packet goes to Alex. All right,
- I guess like, did everybody have a chance to read this? So I don't know if it requires about having
- to take a vote, but if everyone is slightly revolt sending this to Alex or has anything else to add,
- I can send it or not, you can send it. I was gonna say, I don't even imagine that a vote is necessary.
- I mean, this is one of those things where they were just, they already had a project pretty well laid
- out and they wanted to know, they wanted more eyes on it to say, is there anything we're not thinking
- of? Is there anything on here you think is bad? And so I read Heidi's suggestions and I think whether
- we send it to Alex or whether I direct him to look at our packet, I mean, one way or another, they can
- see if they want to add
- any of that to their existing capstone project. So it's great if someone had feedback. I didn't really
- have much when I initially read it, but. Thank you for sending something. Not a lot of consent about
- voting on it. No. Matt will encourage people to still look at it or just tell people to look at it.
- Right. Or no. No. And now. Oh, now. And now. I expected that to be a lot later. Do you want me to scoot
- out of the way? No. OK. Is now OK, or do you want someone in the motion to move it on the agenda? No.
- That's just in case you were actively eating this. Oh, no. It's fine.
- Okay, so just for some context, this is my senior thesis presentation.
- I've only grabbed that a handful of times. Actually, you might be able to. It's going to be right click
- previous that you can sit for less. I'm sure you can present this after this meeting. I'm going to present
- this on December 5th at the O'Neill Honors Symposium. So this is part, you can volunteer to do the O'Neill
- Honors Program. And if you do that, you write a thesis and then you present it before you graduate.
- All right, so 50 years ago, when Congress passed the Clean Air Act, they imagined a future in which
- science would shape environmental protection. Today, political decisions and societal pressures still
- shape the air we breathe. Hi, my name is Nadia Kane. I am a senior graduating this semester with a bachelor's
- of science in environmental management. And today I will be talking about the socioeconomic and political
- drivers of Clean Air Act enforcement. Maybe.
- So for a little bit of background, obviously you guys have somewhat of an education on this, but the
- Clean Air Act serves to regulate six criteria air pollutants called CAPS. It sets national ambient air
- quality standards for these pollutants, which are sulfur dioxide, nitrous oxides, particulate matter,
- 2.5 microns in size, lead, ground level ozone, and carbon monoxide. It delegates most of the enforcement
- of these national ambient air quality standards to the states.
- However, 5% of enforcement is done at the federal level, and that is the focus of my thesis. It's also
- pertinent to know that the Clean Air Act sets standards for vehicles and fuel efficiency, but that is
- not what I'm using in this presentation. So when I decided I was going to focus on Clean Air Act enforcement,
- obviously I had to do a literature review. And I'm sure you won't be surprised to know that the literature
- is vastly contradictory.
- across time, across space. So there are mixed results as to whether enforcement is affected by politics.
- There are results at local levels that suggest it is. There are results at state levels that suggest
- the EPA is resilient to outside forces. And there's not a lot about enforcement at the federal level,
- which is why I felt it was pertinent to focus on that thesis.
- So with this in mind, I ended up with the research question of what socioeconomic and political factors
- may have driven trends in federal Clean Air Act enforcement from 1989 to 2024. And I chose this time
- frame because 1989 is when my advisor and I felt that EPA had consistent and reliable data recorded,
- even though the Clean Air Act and EPA went back to 1970.
- So then I created a variety of hypotheses. So first, I thought that Democratic presidential administrations
- and their EPA administrators would see more enforcement actions over time. It's also pertinent to note
- that I'm measuring three enforcement actions, so informal, formal, and inspections at the federal level.
- So I anticipated that Democrats would do more and Republicans would do less. I also anticipated that
- public policy mood and macro partisanship in the United States wouldn't correlate with