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-The air concentrations of ozone and other oxidants that cause harm to crop plants, forests, and natural ecosystems are appreciably lower than the concentrations of ozone and other oxidants that cause harm to most people. -Ozone pollution is not just an urban problem associated with high peak concentrations of ozone during exceptional weather episodes but also a problem of longer-term chronic exposures of plants to much lower, but still toxic, concentrations under persistent weather conditions. 3) A secondary standard clearly different in form from the primary standard will also have significant and pronounced effects on the nature, quality, and policy relevancy of ozone-related scientific research that will be undertaken during 1997 and beyond. Avery important objective of that research should be to: -fill the persistent gaps in available knowledge, and - decrease the continuing scientific uncertainties that have plagued ozone decision making in the past and, if we do not change the way we think about the ozone problem, will continue to plague the periodic updates and CASAC reviews of the Ozone Criteria Documents that are now scheduled to occur in 2002, 2007, 2012, 2017, etc. Every CASAC member is aware of the 10 principal fmdings of the 1991 NRC report entitled "Rethinking the Ozone Problem in Urban and Regional Air Pollution" and the call for reform of the precepts for decision making about tropospheric ozone that were advanced in Milton Russell's classic paper: Ozone Pollution: The Hard Choices (Science 241:1275-1276, 1988) - see attached reprint. The title-words Rethinking in the NRC report and Hard Choices in Milton Russell's paper were chosen very deliberately. The intent in both cases was to encourage a significant change in the way American scientists, regulatory officials in industry and government, and the public at large think about ozone pollution and its management. Without a radical change in the quality of scientific, regulatory, and public thinking, both the NRC committee, and Milton Russell, former Assistant Administrator of EPA, were convinced, the United States will continue to fall short of its own objective - to develop robust, scientifically sound, and cost effective strategies and tactics by which to manage ozone pollution during the remainder of this century and beyond. The NRC report of 1991 indicated that despite 20 years of expensive and well-intentioned attempts, America's efforts to manage ozone near the ground "lazgely have failed." These attempts failed for two primary reasons: 1) Because the identical primary and secondary ozone standards established in 1970-71 and in 1978-79 were neither statistically robust nor founded on an adequate scientific understanding of the biological, chemical, and meteorological processes that lead to ozone accumulation near the ground, and 2) Because previous decisions about the kinds and quality ofozone-relevant biological-effects reseazch and atmospheric-science research that was done were too often driven primarily by short-term regulatory deadlines, and, frequently, by incomplete scientific perceptions and policy assumptions. V~- 1 L-Y C-8