RE: Introduction

[Tom Beierle <beierle@rff.org>]

My name is Tom Beierle, and I'm with Resources for the Future, an environmental policy think tank in Washington, DC.  Over the last four years, I've been conducting research on public participation in environmental policy.  Much of my work has centered on public participation at EPA, but it has included other federal agencies and state and local efforts as well.  I look forward to this dialogue as a chance to hear from a wide variety of people about what they think about public participation in practice.

As you may have noticed on the registration form, I'll be conducting an evaluation of this on-line dialogue in cooperation with EPA and Information Renaissance, and with funding from the Hewlett Foundation.  The point of the evaluation is to get a better understanding of how on-line dialogues work as forums for public involvement.  The evaluation report will come out later this summer, and it will be available to everyone who is interested.  I'd like to thank all of you who signed up to take the survey at the end of the dialogue.  In the survey, you'll get an opportunity to write about what you liked or didn't like about the dialogue, but I also encourage people to email me with your thoughts about the dialogue as it moves along.