Public Involvement and NEPA

Increasing public involvement in environmental decision making and employing alternative environmental conflict resolution techniques has, over the past few decades, become a priority for federal natural resource management agencies. Although providing public notice regarding decisions that affect public lands has always been a requirement of the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), it is now widely recognized that there is a need to engage the public more meaningfully. But efforts to incorporate more collaborative methods of environmental decision making have been hampered by uncertainty about how to proceed within the existing NEPA regulatory framework. As policy directives calling for more public-private cooperation roll out of Washington D.C., how are things changing “on the ground”?

This is a question that several MUSIC interns are addressing through a research study for the Department of the Interiorʼs Office of Collaborative Action and Dispute Resolution (CADR) and the Offi ce of Environmental Policy and Compliance (OEPC). The study examines the public involvement techniques that federal agencies have used in recent NEPA actions. Over the past two months, Marina Psaros (MCP2), Anna Brown (MCP2), Lindsay Campbell (MCP2), Sharlene Leurig (MCP1), Katherine Wallace (MCP1) and Basilia Yao (MCP2) have conducted almost three dozen in-depth interviews with employees at the Bureau of Land Management, the National Park Service, the Fish and Wildlife Service, and the Bureau of Reclamation.

The purpose of the study is to examine the challenges that federal agencies face when moving from traditional public involvement practices (such as hearings and public comment periods) to innovative practices (such as citizen advisory committees, deliberative polling, and joint research). The results of the study will be shared with DOI staff in order to help them develop policies and tools that enable more meaningful public involvement. Results will also be used to expand a Public Participation Toolkit that Marina Psaros has developed for CADR. This research will continue next year and will expand to begin to explore how NEPA decisions can be made within an adaptive management framework.