Cleaner Air Oregon Toxic Air Contaminant Review and Update 2026- RAC Meeting #1
Oregon DEQ and OHA held the first Rules Advisory Committee meeting for updating Cleaner Air Oregon's toxic air contaminant standards. The agencies presented their comprehensive 3-year process for reviewing and updating Toxicity Reference Values (TRVs) with input from the Air Toxic Science Advisory Committee (ATSAC), covering 377 contaminants and resulting in 623 proposed TRV updates.
Summary
This was the kickoff meeting for Oregon's Cleaner Air Oregon Toxic Air Contaminant Review and Update 2026 rulemaking process. J.R. Giska (DEQ Program Manager) and Ali Mirzakhalili (Air Quality Division Administrator) welcomed committee members representing industry, environmental groups, public health organizations, and academia. The meeting focused on providing foundational information about the rulemaking process rather than substantive technical debate. Oregon Health Authority's Dr. Holly Dixon and Dr. David Farrer presented the extensive work completed over three years to review and update toxic air contaminant standards. The review process involved examining approximately 20,000 data points from authoritative sources like EPA, ATSDR, and Cal EPA. The Air Toxic Science Advisory Committee (ATSAC), composed of seven national experts, provided technical review through eight meetings totaling over 17 hours of discussion. The proposed updates include expanding the Priority List from 606 to 650 reportable contaminants, with 623 proposed TRVs for 377 contaminants - 47% retained from 2018, 32% completely new, and 21% updated from existing values. DEQ's Mike Poulsen explained how TRVs are converted to Risk-Based Concentrations (RBCs) through adjustment factors accounting for different exposure scenarios, early life susceptibility, and multipathway exposures. The agencies provided extensive supplemental materials including a seven-chapter support document with 20 appendices, Excel workbooks, and fact sheets to help committee members understand the technical basis for proposed changes. Some tension emerged regarding the scope of technical discussion allowed in RAC meetings versus what occurred in the ATSAC process, with industry representatives expressing concerns about limited public participation in the technical review phase. Environmental groups emphasized the importance of maintaining the scientific integrity of the process as originally envisioned in the Cleaner Air Oregon statute. The implementation proposal would split sources into two groups: new sources and those not yet in the risk assessment process would use updated values immediately, while existing sources would wait until permit renewal or modification. DEQ offered office hours for individual technical assistance and announced that future meetings would be rescheduled to spring 2025 due to internal scheduling conflicts.
Key Insights
- J.R. Giska states this rulemaking is vitally important to ensure DEQ uses the most up-to-date and representative science as the basis for toxic air contaminant air quality standards
- Ali Mirzakhalili emphasizes that today's meeting is intended primarily as an introduction to rulemaking materials and processes, not as a space for robust discussion on the proposed rules themselves
- Gabriela Goldfarb reveals that OHA toxicologists populated 20,000 cells of a spreadsheet capturing the relevance and quality of science for 377 proposed toxic air contaminants
- Gabriela Goldfarb reflects that before Cleaner Air Oregon, there were recurring clashes between industrial facilities and neighbors without a productive way to assess real health risks and without a level playing field
- Holly Dixon explains that TRVs are designed to protect the health of everyone including those who may be especially sensitive to contaminant exposures, such as children, pregnant people, and people with health issues
- Holly Dixon describes that cancer TRVs are set at contaminant amounts low enough that no more than one additional person per 1 million people could develop cancer over a lifetime
- Holly Dixon reveals that OHA has been working on reviewing and updating these TRVs for over 3 years
- Holly Dixon states that ATSAC members provided feedback that resulted in OHA updating 113 TRVs across 70 toxic air contaminants, with 92% of changes made in direct response to ATSAC feedback
- Holly Dixon reports that of 623 current TRV proposals, 47% are exactly the same as adopted in 2018, 32% are new TRVs, and 21% are changes to 2018 TRVs
- Mike Poulsen explains that risk is a combination of inherent toxicity of a chemical and exposure - how much contact with the chemical including concentration, frequency, and duration
- Mike Poulsen clarifies that to get an RBC, rather than asking what is the risk for a given concentration in air, they ask what is the concentration in air for a given risk level
- Geoffrey Tichenor argues that this proposal will reshape massively the Cleaner Air Oregon program and that the triennial review requirement is regulatory, not statutory
- Mary Peveto expresses concern about delays in the rulemaking regarding original statutory requirements but is glad to see the process on track
- Sharla Moffett raises concerns that there really was not a public process around when ATSAC was meeting, making it difficult to have robust scientific discussion
- J.R. Giska announces that due to internal issues, meetings two and three needed to be rescheduled and pushed to sometime in spring 2025
Topics
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