OSHA: Proposed Standard For Indoor Air Quality: ETS Hearings, September 27, 1994

OCCUPATIONAL SAFETY AND HEALTH ADMINISTRATION

PUBLIC HEARING

PROPOSED STANDARD FOR INDOOR AIR QUALITY

Tuesday, September 27, 1994

Interstate Commerce Commission

Constitution Avenue, NW

Washington, D.C.

The above-entitled matter came on for hearing, pursuant to notice, at 9:07 a.m.

BEFORE: HONORABLE JOHN VITTONE

Administrative Law Judge

AGENDA

PAGE

Questions of Ms. Peggy Jenkins

Ms. Ward 1488

Paul Christowski 1540

John Rupp 1548

Ms. Sherman 1555

William Turner 1560

Questions of Mr. William Turner

George Benda 1559

Rex Tingle 1585

Matt Chapiewski 1588

Forward Weiser 1592

John Rupp 1601

Michael Jower 1670

Mr. Hathon 1676

Ms. Sherman 1679

Ms. Kaplan 1684

Ms. Janes 1685

Sally Katharine Hammond 1688

Jeff Furr 1740

Ms. Sherman 1793

EXHIBITS

EXHIBIT NO. IDENTIFIED RECEIVED

34 1561 1561

35 1605 1605

36 1689 1689

P R O C E E D I N G S

(9:07 p.m.)

JUDGE VITTONE: Good morning. We ended last night with the direct testimony of Ms. Jenkins. I understand, Ms. Ward, you had some questions.

MS. WARD: Yes, Your Honor.

JUDGE VITTONE: Okay.

MS. WARD: Good morning, Ms. Jenkins. My name is Mary Ward, and I'll be asking you some questions this morning on behalf of RJ Reynolds Tobacco Company and other persons who have submitted their notice of intention to participate in this rulemaking.

First, I'd like to ask you a few questions about the California Activity Pattern survey -- the CPA study.

I notice that you mentioned in your written testimony, and I think you said words to the same effect in your oral testimony yesterday, that because interviewers play such a critical role in obtaining accurate information without bias, interviewers were trained and supervised extensively.

In the briefing sessions and the training that covered the objectives of the project, what were the interviewers told about the purpose of the study?

MS. JENKINS: They were told that the purpose was what I said in terms of our study objectives, on one my slides, that we were trying to obtain detailed information about the times -- the time and activities of Californians, where they spend their time and what they're doing during that time.

Essentially, we reviewed the three objectives on that slide.

MS. WARD: Okay. So, if you recall, were they told anything about environmental tobacco smoke exposure?

MS. JENKINS: I don't recall. I was not personally present at the first interviewer training session. I was present at the second. I don't recall any specific discussion.

MS. WARD: Yesterday you also mentioned that you had some pilot interviews in which you identified problems and so forth. What problems did you identify through the pilot interviews?

MS. JENKINS: Okay. First of all, I didn't personally do this. This was more Dr. Robinson,

Jim Wiley, and Dr. Wiley's staff at UC Berkeley Survey Center.

MS. WARD: Right. But you were --

MS. JENKINS: Right.

MS. WARD: -- overall, in charge? I mean they were reporting to you.

MS. JENKINS: They kept us up to date on what was going on. I'm sure I don't recall all the details of what they told us. Initially, there were some concerns over the wording of various questions.

The ones that come to mind had more to do with things like paints and solvents, and also they were asked by some of the initial people that they interviewed, I think we had a question about solvents, and they weren't sure what they included.

When we got to adhesives, they were asking, well, what about things like masking tape? Does that count if I use masking tape, because it has adhesive.

There were detailed questions like that about, you know, what does this cover, when someone asks me, do I include this in this category or not?

Other things we were looking at was just the time it took. It's a fairly lengthy interview if people ware giving you the kind of detailed information you want.

I don't recall a lot of other specifics. I mean, there were some questions that the interviewers asked us about. I don't recall the details of that, though. It's been a few years now -- middle age, you know.

MS. WARD: I realize that. If you recall, do you recall there being any problems identified about the question that says were you around any smokers while you were doing that activity?

MS. JENKINS: Not specifically. There was some direction eventually placed in the sort of a final training manual I believe. The main question there that came up early in the study -- I don't recall if this was during the pilot testing or before that -- but the question was what about if the person had identified, prior to that, when we asked the question, did you smoke any cigarettes, cigars or pipes, during your day, if they had answered yes, they were asking -- the wording of the question, as it was originally written, didn't fit those individuals.

It raises a question of should they report being around ETC if they themselves were smoking, and that's why, for smokers, the word "else" cam up in that question. Were you around anyone else who smoked, in that environment.

MS. WARD: I see.

MS. JENKINS: So that clarification was made pretty early in the process. You forget just when.

MS. WARD: Okay. When a subject was reached on the telephone, when you had, I suppose, a successful, contact, what was he or she told about the purpose of the interview?

MS. JENKINS: I don't recall the exact wording. It was a very short introduction and it was short on purpose, so as not to really bias them in any way. I think it basically indicated that we were trying to obtain detailed information about where Californians go and how they spend their time.

I believe I have that -- the written introduction in my files -- which I would be happy to provide. I think was very general.

MS. WARD: Oh, thank you. I would like to see that.

MS. JENKINS: I think they did identify the Air Resources Board as the funding agency, I believe, although I recall there was some discussion about that, even. They have changed it just to a state agency, but I'm not sure.

MS. WARD: Okay. I have a few more questions about the subjects. In the paper to which you referred yesterday, for which you are first author that was filed in Atmospheric Environment in 1992, and I believe it's attached to your docket submission as Item 13G-A, you said the eligible population for sampling excluded between about 6 and 12 percent of the population, since non-English-speaking persons accounted for about 6 percent of the households contacted and about 6 percent of California households may not have telephones.

Further, you went on to say these included groups almost certainly overlap, and thus total less than 12 percent, since some ethnic groups in California are likely to have a disproportionately percent of households without telephones.

My question is: do you know what percentage of the California workforce does not speak English?

MS. JENKINS: No, I don't.

MS. WARD: Do you know how one would go about finding that information from California? What state agency would have that?

MS. JENKINS: There are several that could have information related to that topic, however, I think it would be inaccurate. In California, we have a large number of migrant workers. These are seasonal workers in the agricultural field, and I just think they've ever gotten a very solid count. There is a problem with illegal migration and so on.

MS. WARD: That's what I was going to ask. One certainly, from reading the newspaper, get the impression that there is a high percentage and maybe some politicians are claiming that it's higher than it is.

MS. JENKINS: I don't know who you're talking about there.

MS. WARD: Illegal immigrants and so forth. But what it be -- in your professional opinion, is it likely that California has a higher percentage of non-English speaking persons in the workplace than the rest of the United States?

MS. JENKINS: I really don't know. I would indicate, though, that our study was of California residents, and by virtue of the way we define the study, in terms of the definition of residents, what we came up with, when you're talking about the 6 percent values, our best estimate, the percent of California residents that we miss was between 6 and 9 percent, and that was just using the data that we had available at the time. I personally didn't collect that. One of my staff did from several California agencies.

There wasn't enough to really hang your hat on, but there was enough to say, our best estimate is -- so I think, again, that's why we did a very detailed look at comparing out data to the California population data for that year, so we could determine, does their sample match the California population.

As I indicated, if anything, we're a little bit high on the socioeconomic; not very high. You know, we're again, technically speaking, in the right economic range. The income range was correct.

By most survey research standards for survey you research, that was a very good comparison between the population we were sampling from.

MS. WARD: okay. Well, I understand, and it certainly sounds as if you were very thoroughly in meeting the objectives of your study with regard to California residents. As you've said, that was the objective of your study.

Some of my questions are related to helping OSHA decide how representative your study is for the working population. Of course, the working population may reflect others.

So I take it you would not know what percentage of the California workforce people who were coded under that labor status does not have telephones or how that percentage -- well if you don't know that, you don't know how the percentage would compare with the rest of the United States. I won't ask that question.

Yesterday, at your Slide 15, that was taken from your '92 paper, it may not actually be necessary to look at that slide, but I have a question about that and about the other data in the '92 paper and the atmospheric environment.

MS. JENKINS: Okay.

MS. WARD: In the data presented there, were the calculations about potential duration of ETS exposure, did that include smokers who reported potential duration as well as nonsmokers?

MS. JENKINS: I believe it did. I would have to double check. But, again, it would include the smokers reporting exposure to other smokers.

MS. WARD: To other smokers?

MS. JENKINS: Right. We had always excluded them reporting exposure to their own.

MS. WARD: I understand.

MS. JENKINS: Okay.

MS. WARD: In fact, as you showed yesterday, smoking status is the factor most associated with the likelihood of being around another smoker. Is that correct?

MS. JENKINS: This correct.

MS. WARD: Now, you have described a modification to the random digit dialing method, in order to capture potentially significant regional differences in activity patterns. You also mentioned that the data were weighted for analysis in order to generalize the results of the survey to the entire state population.

Now, were these procedures undertaken because information and data taken only from the Los Angeles area would not be representative of the entire state?

MS. JENKINS: Well, that was essentially our hypothesis going into the study, or that was our assumption. One doesn't know, of course, until you collect the data --

MS. WARD: Right.

MS. JENKINS: -- whether there are significant differences. We knew we would end up with a sample size of close to 2000 -- a little under 2000. That's clearly enough to obtain very good estimates of central tendency.

What it would not necessarily get for us would be any sort of good estimates for individuals at the two tails of the distribution -- in other words, the very high and the very low. We weren't sure if that would be enough to -- if, just on straight random sample, sufficient to identify any differences -- any significant differences, even, between say people in the rural areas versus the heavily populated areas, in order to try to tease that out, to give us a sample that would allow us to do that.

That's why we over sampled in the other parts of California. When we weighted it back, it was in the 1 to 2 to 4 ratio for that sampling region.

MS. WARD: Well, I appreciate all of your explanations, but so that I won't get a little confused, did it turn out, then, that information and data taken only from the Los Angeles area, was not represented above the entire state?

MS. JENKINS: I don't think we ever looked at quite in that fashion. We did identify some differences between, for example, the LA population and the San Francisco population and the rest of the state. They're fairly small differences. From what we could tell, there were no huge differences.

We did not go through and do a methodical assessment of that. What we did was, there were certain factors we were interested in looking at.

MS. WARD: But your assumption going in was that information and data, only from the Los Angeles area and presumably, also, only from the San Francisco Bay area, wouldn't necessarily be representative of the entire state.

MS. JENKINS: Well, I would say that it may not be representative, or of the United States as a whole. We've made no assumptions at that time regarding applicability to the rest of the U.S.

MS. WARD: In report No. 3, from the California Activity Pattern Service by Robinson, et al., which is in the docket as No. 4-271, the authors note the following about one of the features of CAPs.

At page 3, if you'd like to refer to it, eligible respondents in each selected household were chosen strictly at random and not by convenience of willingness to participate. Thereby avoiding two factors that could introduce serious biases into the sample for exposure estimation purposes.

Do you agree that selecting subjects by convenience or by their willingness to participate has the potential to introduce serious biases?

MS. JENKINS: It has the potential.

MS. WARD: That's yes, you agree it has the potential to do that?

MS. JENKINS: But with the emphasis on "attention".

MS. WARD: I understand. So, for example, advertising for subjects to participate in a passive smoking study might introduced a bias into the sample; would you agree?

MS. JENKINS: That it might, yes.

MS. WARD: The questionnaire used for CAPs is presented in Appendix B of the final report, and that's attached, I believe, to your testimony as docket entry 13-GB.

You have described in your testimony yesterday when the interviewers were collecting the information for the 24-hour recall diary, for each activity and location reported, the respondents were asked: Were you around who anyone who was smoking a cigarette, cigar or pipe while you were doing this activity.

So I would like to address your attention, please, to Appendix page B3-6.

[Pause.]

MS. JENKINS: I'm there.

MS. WARD: Okay. Is the question at the bottom of the page labeled OSMK --

MS. JENKINS: Yes, it is.

MS. WARD: -- the only question that was asked that provided information for you on environmental tobacco smoke exposure?

MS. JENKINS: It's certainly the major one and I think it is the only one. We asked elsewhere about active smoking, and I think we asked about other smoke in their workplace -- are you around smoke.

MS. WARD: And there were no follow up questions asked to determine the exact duration of this potential exposure?

MS. JENKINS: No, because of the way -- well, I think I know what you're getting at, but just to clarify, I think as I said yesterday, the way the response to this question was coded, it was a "yes" for the activity and location that they had just described, and the time -- for each location, we have a time frame. In other words, they gave us the start and stop times, so that's the time to which the reported ETS exposure was allocated.

MS. WARD: While they were in that place, until they changed locations?

MS. JENKINS: Right. Until they changed. That's right.

MS. WARD: Or, presumably, they could have changed what they were doing in the same location? Would that given them --

MS. JENKINS: No, that would have triggered another --

MS. WARD: Another --

MS. JENKINS: If they changed either their activity or their location, that triggered a new round of the three questions, the activity, the location, and the ETS.

MS. WARD: So there were no questions, though, about how many smokers were present?

MS. JENKINS: That's correct.

MS. WARD: And no questions regarding the number of cigarettes that were smoked?

MS. JENKINS: That's correct. That's correct.

MS. WARD: All right. Now, do you have an understanding of what, looking at the question, "around ano who was smoking" means, in terms of proximity to a smoker?

MS. JENKINS: There were instructions in the interviewers' manual. Generally, this was let up to the individual respondent. However, if they questioned it and asked what do you mean, there was guidance given in the manual, and I don't recall the exact wording of the guidance.

There was, I think, general guidance, well, if you can see someone smoking, if you smelled it; in other words, if they were truly conscious for a valid reason, that there was smoke in that environment.

MS. WARD: Oh, I understand. I've asked questions to which you've referred to that manual. Would you be willing to make the manual available to be a part of this record?

MS. JENKINS: Certainly.

MS. WARD: Thank you.

Now, beginning on pages B-1-8 through B-1-10 of that final report, on B-1-8 at the question coded

HTYS -- do you have that?

MS. JENKINS: Yes, I do.

MS. WARD: Okay. There are a series of questions that run over through B-1-10 that seem to be roughly ventilated to ventilation; that is, to heating and cooling in the home. In particular, questions are asked about the type of heater, about doors and windows being open, using of any type of fan and any type of cooling system.

My question is, were there any similar questions asked regarding any of the other locations in which the respondents spent time during the preceding 24 hours?

Let me cut to the chase.

MS. JENKINS: I don't believe so.

MS. WARD: Okay. Specifically, there were no questions regarding the respondent's workplace, if the workplace was a location other than the respondent's home; is that correct?

MS. JENKINS: You mean in terms of ventilation-related questions?

MS. WARD: Yes.

MS. JENKINS: There is a series of questions at page B-1-3 refers to. Does their job involve working on a regular basis; that is, once a week or more often, with, but it does not include ventilation information.

MS. WARD: Thank you.

On page B-3-6 -- would you turn to that page, pleas, because I'd like to ask you a few questions about the location entries that are coded under the designation, WHR.3.

With regarding to entry No. 2, labeled industrial plant factory, is there any way to tell whether a respondent who designated that as a location was working indoors or outdoors?

MS. JENKINS: There was or is -- was.

MS. WARD: Okay.

MS. JENKINS: But it's not as clean of a cut, perhaps, as what you're after.

In the series of recall, the individual indicated what their activity was, and then

where they did it.

MS. WARD: Right.

MS. JENKINS: When they indicated a work activity, first of all, we know from earlier questioning, their occupation and when the activity is reported, it's generally not just, I went to work.

Generally, they were asked, what were you doing at work. Well, like I said, I'm an office worker, so I sat at my desk and did paperwork. That response is typed in to the actual diary itself.

Generally, one can tell if they're indoors or outdoors, but we have not --

MS. WARD: Does that appear anywhere in the coded printout that you get? I think there was an example of one of those printouts in Dr. Robinson's report, No. 3, but I could not tell from that.

MS. JENKINS: I don't think it appears in the printout, no.

MS. WARD: All right. As far as these questions, I was unable to find a specific question that referred to indoors or outdoors, and let me rephrase and see if you agree with this.

What you are saying is, that it was possible in some cases to tell whether it was inside or outside by the way the person described their occupation.

MS. JENKINS: Yes.

MS. WARD: Let me give you an example. If the person said the worked on the loading dock, even though the location was this entry No. 2 under WHR.3, would y assume that that's outdoor employment?

MS. JENKINS: On the loading dock?

MS. WARD: Yes.

MS. JENKINS: Yes.

MS. WARD: You must have had some way of breaking this down because I believe you published statistics on the amount of time that people spend indoors versus outdoors.

MS. JENKINS: Yes.

MS. WARD: Do I understand that that breakdown was made by someone looking at each interview, on a case by case basis?

MS. JENKINS: We looked at a sample of the interviews, and it ended up being almost all of the interviews. It took quite a long time. This was done by one of my staff.

My recollection was that, for certain categories, it was virtually maybe all but five or six times indoors. The one category that comes to mind that showed up was for people who went to the bank, and this was listed under office building bank/post office.

When they went to the bank, if their activity was cashing a check or whatever, it became clear to us that in our society, in the olden days, if you went to the bank, you went inside the bank. Now, you could just walk up to the ATM.

So, for bank individuals, that was the one area where we found some discrepancy.

MS. WARD: My interest in asking the questions an I think OSHA's interest, is in when people were working; when they were being paid for working, and that's what I have looked primarily at this WHR.3, because you presented information to OSHA at their request, regarding non-smokers who worked outside the home.

MS. JENKINS: That's correct.

MS. WARD: Would the same kind of analysis go on if someone had designated No. 8, which is labeled "Restaurant"? In fact, many restaurants, especially in Southern California, have outdoor areas, don't they?

MS. JENKINS: They do.

MS. WARD: Would that have been labeled as indoor or outdoor or might it have been either?

MS. JENKINS: Generally, I think we labeled it indoor, but I don't recall what the proportion of outdoor was. Generally, it's indoors.

MS. WARD: How about for the Category No. 12, Other people's home?

MS. JENKINS: One thing I should note, though, we did not go through any analysis I provided for OSHA. Those are a workplace. We were not stating or implying that they were all indoors.

MS. WARD: You are not.

MS. JENKINS: Well, I did not in my presentation or in my written materials.

MS. WARD: No. And I'm not saying that you did imply that, because that's the purpose of the questions, is to find out.

MS. JENKINS: Okay.

MS. WARD: Are you saying that that data and information that you've presented in the tables appended to your testimony has the possibility of including work that is performed outdoors?

MS. JENKINS: It has the possibility, but I do know from our prior inspection of the data that the categories that we did assign to indoor categories in our prior analyses, were at least 95 percent indoors by virtue of inspection of the actual diary responses.

MS. WARD: Well, maybe I misunderstood you, then.

I thought I understood you to say that in the information that you have provided to OSHA --

MS. JENKINS: Right.

MS. WARD: -- that you weren't asked to took at indoor and outdoor. So, for example, on that tables that refer to non-smokers who worked outside the home, who were exposed, who reported that they worked around other smoking for any part of that time, was there any designation made that they were indoor or outdoor, or might they have been in either categories?

MS. JENKINS: You mean in the tables that I provided to OSHA?

MS. WARD: Yes. That's what I'm referring to.

MS. JENKINS: The work category there could include individuals who worked outdoors.

MS. WARD: Thank you. I appreciate that, because then I won't go down under all these other categories.

Ms. Jenkins, yesterday I appreciated your testimony -- your oral testimony -- on the definition of exposure, which you identified in the slide and also in your written submission as concentration times time.

Now, you've made clear, haven't you, that the information from the CPA study, only collects information relating to the latter half of that equation; is that correct?

MS. JENKINS: That's correct.

MS. WARD: You concluded in your testimony that the value of the data for the purposes of the proposed rulemaking is that they provide a reasonable estimate of duration of exposure to ETS in different locations? That's correct.

MR. TURNER: That's correct.

MS. WARD: In your testimony, you indicated that air measurements of pollutants of interest from other studies could be combined with the activity patterns derived from CAPS to calculate exposure using the concentrations times time equation.

MS. JENKINS: Right, for population estimates.

MS. WARD: For population estimates.

MS. JENKINS: Right.

MS. WARD: And I understand the practical limitations and the cost constraints that you've explained regarding the CAP study, but in an ideal world, wouldn't a study that provided both information about intensity of exposure and duration of exposure using the same data set give a more accurate picture of total exposure?

MS. JENKINS: If the study were properly designed and included a truly representative sample of the population that one was trying to characterize, and in an ideal world, we would have all kinds of additional information beyond that. The whole point of gathering this type of information is so that we can model or estimate exposure; if we had true dose data, and so on.

MS. WARD: Well, dose is a separate question from exposure, right?

MS. JENKINS: That's right.

MS. WARD: Dose is a further calculation that involves respiration rates and some pharmacological business. But if you could have had personal monitoring data from the workplace of a variety of ETS indicators for the 462 nonsmokers in Table 1, let's say, you'd have a far more definitive picture of their exposure at work, wouldn't you?

MS. JENKINS: I would say you might have a far more definitive; again, if that population were truly representative, and it would depend upon the size of the population.

MS. WARD: I'm talking about your 462 persons in Table I. To your knowledge, are they unrepresentative in any way?

MS. JENKINS: No, to my knowledge they're not. But you were, I thought, bringing up a more hypothetical...

MS. WARD: No. If in your study you had been able to monitor at work those persons at work for a variety of environmental tobacco smoke indicators, then you'd have a very good picture of their actual exposure at work, because you would know the time, and you would know something about the concentration as well, correct?

MS. JENKINS: If the monitoring methods were good. At the time we did this study, and to my knowledge, even today, I think nicotine and other markers, it's difficult to get good air measurements.

One can, I think we in our particle team study did approach that, but again, you have to have devices that have sufficiently low detection limits.

MS. WOODS: I understand.

MS. JENKINS: ...non-interference, and so on.

MS. WOODS: Yesterday, you discussed some reasons regarding comments that have been made about the CAP study, about whether the data overestimate the duration of exposure or whether they underestimate it.

Now in your written testimony, at least, you said, with regard to the overestimation argument that others have raised, that some components of ETS adhere to carpets and other materials, and some components are re-emitted from the materials.

Which components of environmental tobacco smoke are re-emitted from furnishings and surfaces?

MS. JENKINS: Primarily semi-volatiles; really, there are a number of components that I think have been estimated in a variety of studies.

MS. WARD: Nicotine is one. Do you know that?

MS. JENKINS: Nicotine is generally primarily in the vapor phase, of some particle.

MS. WARD: Yes. And when you say semi-volatiles, are you referring to vapor phase?

MS. JENKINS: Semi-volatiles are compounds that can exist in either phase. I'm not a chemist, so I don't really know the details of absorption and emission. Like many others, I've simply looked at some of the literature in that area and have come away with an awareness that a variety of components do attach and can be re-emitted later on.

MS. WARD: Has your reading indicated anything to this effect: Isn't it true that most volatiles will be removed by ventilation and not be either deposited or re-emitted?

MS. JENKINS: I don't know.

MS. WARD: Are you aware of any literature that indicates that respirable-suspended particles would re-emit after deposition?

MS. JENKINS: I'm aware of some literature that indicates that.

MS. WARD: That indicates re-emission of ESP?

MS. JENKINS: Yes.

MS. WARD: If you don't have it handy, would you provide a citation to that literature in the post-hearing comments?

MS. JENKINS: I could, yes.

MS. WARD: Thank you. I have one more question about the question in the duration in the activity. From the way it is coded in the questionnaire, is it possible to tell at what point during the duration of the activity that smoking began occurring?

MS. JENKINS: Do you mean in response

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