Denise Meares, Communications Training Analysis Corporation
ABSTRACT
The Department of Energy (DOE) encourages public participation in decisionmaking, yet provides DOE communities with antiquated tools. It is difficult for the public, media, and regulatory groups to become fully involved in planning for waste management, environmental restoration, future land use, privatization initiatives, and plant closures when they have limited access to the relevant information, news articles, and records of decisions providing insight and education. Today's public and community groups need organized, on-line information in a format that is quickly accessible and easily understood. My presentation will cover requirements for information dissemination, current public resources including the public reading rooms, available information technologies to educate the public and enhance communication, costs/benefits of some viable options, and will highlight examples from other agencies, industries, and corporations.
INTRODUCTION
The Department of Energy has made a public commitment to involving stakeholders, community groups, and state and local governments in DOE's decision making process. This is especially important for the controversial issues of contamination, risk to human health and the environment, cleanup alternatives, and budget and scheduling planning. There are several federal regulatory requirements that mandate public access to information on decisions that may affect a geographic region, community or individual. These include:
In addition, former Secretary of Energy Hazel O'Leary initiated an "Openness Initiative" for the Department that encouraged complete disclosure of health and environmental risk and issues and public access to the hazardous and radioactive substance release and contamination records and data. Secretary Peña, the Presidential nominee to replace Secretary O'Leary, also pledged to maintain this commitment to openness during his confirmation hearing: "Secretary O'Leary made great progress in declassifying information, enhancing public participation in the Department's decision making, while maintaining protection of information and facilities that are truly sensitive. These actions have earned the Department greater public trust which is so necessary for success in all of its missions. I will maintain this commitment to openness."
The Office of Environmental Management (EM) has made a commitment to public involvement through the EM program's strategic planning and federal budget processes, including the annual Tribal and Stakeholder Budget Tele-Video Conference. All of these commitments involve providing relevant, reliable information to the public. The data must be both useful and understandable to enable any stakeholder to provide feedback to DOE that is based on accurate knowledge of the issues at hand.
PRESENT AVENUES FOR PUBLIC PARTICIPATION
There are currently several avenues for public participation and access to DOE documents and information, including:
Reading Rooms
Each DOE site has a public reading room located within the community surrounding the site. There are currently 19 FOIA Public Reading Rooms, as well as several additional public information sources for individual programs. Few people know what specific resources each of these rooms or centers contain. In addition, several of the Reading Rooms are located on-site at DOE Federal facilities. On-site locations are not readily accessible to the public and inconsistent with FOIA's purpose.
Information Centers
Many of the DOE Offices, including EM, have an additional public information assistance center or service. For example, EM has the Center for Environmental Management Information that provides a library of documents and a hot-line for resources, references, and assistance. DOE's Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EE) has numerous small information centers, and the Environmental Justice Clearinghouse provides information via a hot-line and a web page. These resources, usually located at one site, do not collect enough information on all site activities and the information is often outdated because site contacts are busy providing the information to local libraries, reading rooms, and stakeholders.
Web Sites
The Department has numerous home pages and web sites that can be visited by anyone with Internet access. The web sites have a wealth of valuable information, but it is difficult to find unless you are well-versed in the Department's mission and organizations. Also, much of the information is outdated and useless. To find information pertaining to environmental cleanup initiatives, a browser may be required to go through several page links before finding the relevant data. The EM home page cannot be accessed through the DOE home page, only the reverse. Thus, information a Savannah River citizen may need to make an educated decision on a waste storage or transportation issue may never be found.
Public Meetings
Public meetings are held in conjunction with CERCLA requirements, milestones, issues, or processes that require public involvement. Many sites hold meetings with several different stakeholder groups during the same week or month, and many citizens are involved in more than one group. Public meetings are usually held locally.
Stakeholder Advisory Boards
There are a number of stakeholder advisory boards that provide the public, community groups, and national organizations with an opportunity to become involved in DOE's decision making processes. These include the EM Advisory Board and several Site Specific Advisory Boards (SSABs). Many of these groups involve the same individuals, and require extended time and efforts from a small number of active, dedicated members.
Congressional Input
Any person, group, or agency can contact their local Congressperson to express their concerns or opinions on matters concerning DOE and EM actions. Members of the committees that govern DOE activities can also be contacted. Although members are not often available in person, congressional staff members are often assigned responsibility for public correspondence.
IMPROVING PARTICIPATION THOUGH PUBLIC INFORMATION CENTERS
Although there are several different avenues for pubic involvement, efforts are scattered and decentralized at both DOE Headquarters and among the sites. The burden rests upon John Q. Public to become resourceful; attending meetings, visiting the local reading room, and wading through several layers of Home Pages, web site addresses, and documents to retrieve relevant information.
During the past year, efforts have been underway to improve DOE's use of technology and improving electronic communication throughout the DOE complex. Last April, the Secretary initiated a Change Summit, where one of the topics discussed was integration of communications throughout the Department. No action items have been published yet as a result of this meeting.
This integration and centralization of electronic (Internet-based) public information has several advantages:
Information is quickly available. The time involved with printing, binding, filing, distributing, and registering of paper copies of documents can be lengthy. Days and weeks can pass between a request for a document and its actual availability to the public. A centralized, electronic public information center provide information within minutes of publication. Word processing systems such as Microsoft Word will automatically convert documents to HyperText Markup Language (HTML) format for transmission of on-line electronic documents via the Internet. Electronic document formatting and delivery is also a strategy for meeting the Paperwork Reduction Act requirements for Federal agencies. An E-mail distribution system with subject-specific mailing lists can automatically distribute public information, including meeting agendas, briefings, and minutes, newsletters, press releases, fact sheets or other documents, or to notify the public about decisions reached or issues under consideration.
Information more widely available. Posting documents to a central on-line location will allow the public to access information from their home, school, work, or branch library. Citizens will no longer be required to visit a designated site (often within DOE facilities that may have sign-in or escort requirements) to access the information they seek. In addition, interested members of the public would be able to access information about other sites, allowing them to make comparisons between their local site and other DOE facilities. Currently, working with public information documents from multiple sites requires document request forms, a 6-week waiting period for copy and distribution, and possible fees for copies and postage. This is a very cumbersome and time consuming process.
Quick response to questions. Each site could compile and integrate answers to frequently asked questions (FAQs) in an on-line database. On-line FAQs are a easy way to answer basic informational inquiries, and would save DOE the time of answering such questions individually, and the potential embarrassment of having the same question answered differently by two separate people. DOE Headquarters could coordinate across the various sites, and develop a set of DOE-wide FAQs about such complex-wide issues including the 10-Year Planning Process, the regulatory status of radiation clean-up levels, and current site funding and staffing levels.
Vehicle of public input and coordination. DOE, on a national or site-specific basis could establish forums for on-line public involvement. Members of the public would have the opportunity to exchange comments, questions, and concerns with DOE managers, Environmental Protection Agency regulatory specialists, and other public citizens and organizations. "Chat"rooms could be established and monitored by DOE to serve as a method of soliciting public comment and questions, and to allow for citizens across sites to communicate and interact. By monitoring -- but not censoring -- a DOE public involvement chat room, DOE could proactively assess the issues that concern each site and collectively across the complex. This would prepare the Department for potential issues before they become crises.
RECOMMENDATION
My recommendation is to coordinate public involvement opportunities and public information resources across the complex through a centralized information repository. A centralized source of information would provide stakeholders with:
Access to Department-wide information that affects the public can be attained through the use of multi-media kiosks within each DOE FOIA Public Reading Room, or at a location in close proximity to the DOE site facilities; for example, kiosks could be set up in a public or university library. These kiosks, utilizing proprietary software developed for DOE, would provide the public with access to all of the above information, as well as links to DOE's home pages. These pages could be integrated by a touch screen that is designed, with assistance from stakeholders, to reflect the needs of the public. By providing centralized information in a format designed specifically for stakeholders, DOE will vastly improve the communication potential between the Department and the public. The use of information kiosks across the complex would enhance the information retrieval process, and provide stakeholders with the information they need to provide valuable feedback quickly, efficiently, and easily.
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