CSTPR/IBS-ESP Noontime seminar
"The Colorado Air Quality Control Commission: Decision making on issues with scientific and technical content"
by Rad Byerly
Center for Science & Technology Policy Research

October 5, 2009
12:00 pm
Center for Science and Technology Policy Research Conference Room
click here for directions

Rad Byerly, Research Scientist at the Center for Science and Technology Policy Research, will give a talk on "The Colorado Air Quality Control Commission: Decision making on issues with scientific and technical content" on Monday, October 5, 2009. The talk will be from 12:00 - 1:00 pm in the CSTPR Conference Room.

The talk is free and open to the public and will be held at the Center for Science and Technology Policy Research's conference room. Click here for directions.

This will be a "brown bag seminar". Feel free to bring your lunches if you wish. This series is being co-sponsored by the CIRES Center for Science and Technology Policy Research and the Institute of Behavioral Science, Environment and Society Program.

Abstract: The mission of the Air Quality Control Commission is -- too simply put -- to approve emissions control regulaltions in Colorado. The first part of the talk will very briefly describe where the Commission gets its authority and expand on its mission. The bulk of the talk will deal with its use or non-use of scientific and technical information. I will focus on the case of photochemical ozone pollution as ozone presents a thorny regulatory challenge. Ozone is not emitted from any source but forms in the atmosphere as a result of photochemical reactions among emitted pollutants. Further, the variable that best correlates with ozone concentrations is not any emitted pollutant but the weather. Finally, the ozone that comes into Colorado across its borders is almost half the new standard.

Biography: Rad Byerly received his Ph.D. in experimental atomic and molecular physics at Rice University in 1967. After a postdoctoral fellowship at JILA, Rad moved to science management and policy at the National Institute of Standards and Technology. He joined the staff of the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Science and Technology in 1975 with responsibility for environmental research programs. He became staff director of the House Space Subcommittee in 1985. In 1987 Rad became director the University of Colorado's Center for Space and Geosciences Policy. Rad was appointed Committee chief of staff in 1991. He retired in 1993, and now writes on science policy and serves on various committees.