ms. mccabe on the rational behind this proposal, and so mr. chairman i think i am out of town and i yield back the balance of my time. >> at this time, ms. mccabe i want to thank you for coming here at 9:30 and we apologize for the delay, but we are delighted that janet mccabe is with us, the acting assistant administrator at the epa and you are recognized for five minutes for your statement on the owezone rule. >> thank you for the opportunity to testify today on epa's proposed updates to the ozone national ambient national air quality standards and i will try to be brief so we can get to your questions. the clean act requires the epa to review every five years to make sure they continue to protect public health with an adequate margin of safety. for at risk groups including at ranking member rush noted the estimated 25.9 million people who have asthma in the united states of whom 7.1 million are children this is critical work. for this review epa examined the thousands of scientific studies including more than 1,000 new studies published sin

ms. mccabe for being with us. i want to start out, as my colleague from north carolina was pointing out. basically, the concerns we have in north carolina. just in our home state alone, this rule will kill over 13,000 jobs a year and decrease the state's gdp drastically at a time when we can afford it the least. this proposal raises serious concerns. i look forward to this discussion. i definitely have some questions for you, starting off with in september of 2011, president obama requested that your agency withdraw its proposed ozone standard based on his, quote, concerns about the importance of reducing regulatory burdens and regulatory uncertainty, particularly as our economy continues to recover, end quote. your agency agreed to withdraw the proposed standard, and now you're issuing the revised standard. can you tell us what changes you made to decrease the regulatory burden which now allows you to move forward? >> first, let me explain that at that time, the agency was engaged in a reconsideration of the 2008