Initial comment on the goals

[Chuck Elkins <ElkinsEnv@aol.com>]

Introduction and comment on the Goals:  

I am currently an environmental consultant, but I helped create EPA back in 1970 and worked in 10 different jobs before I retired from EPA after 25 years in 1995.  In particular I spent a lot of my time in EPA's air program and toxic substances program.  While at EPA I was naturally involved in seeking and responding to public input into EPA's decisions. I thought I was pretty open to public comment, but since leaving EPA I believe I have gained a broader perspective. For the past 5 years I have been an environmental consultant, helping companies and trade associations participate in EPA rulemakings.  To some of you, these companies and trade associations may be "the bad guys", but whatever your views on that, I want to assure you that, like many of you,  they have great difficulty figuring out how to present relevant facts and views to EPA staff at the right time and in an effective manner.  So, I will try to make comments in this forum that reflect the fact that I have sat on both sides of the table and recognize now how little content really gets communicated across that table.

In my view the goals of the draft PIP are vague, too numerous, and often paternalistic in tone.  Shouldn't the principal goal be to "maximize the ability of the public to assist EPA in making the best possible decisions"?  In reading the current goals, one could conclude that EPA staff believe that they will independently gather virtually all of the facts they need to make a decision and will do the necessary analysis of them.  Input from the public seems to be needed, if at all, to allow EPA to see these facts from other perspectives and views. 
 In fact, I believe that members of the public often have a lot to contribute in terms of facts and analysis and can be as creative as EPA staff in devising alternative options that should be analyzed and considered for adoption by EPA.  Often, however, by the time the public gets to participate, the basic alternatives for decision have already been identified and data collection and analysis begun or completed.  The public  then must either work within the potentially narrow confines of this pre-determined data set and analysis or submit alternative data/analysis and options in a somewhat adversarial manner in order to try to get EPA to deviate from its preferred course of action.

So, focusing on the goals, I find most of them to be statements about how EPA will run its PIP process, and not really goals but means to an end.  What is lacking is an full acknowledgement by EPA that the public should be an active partner in helping EPA make the best possible decisions.  Until EPA accepts the ability of the public to contribute in this profound a manner and then finds a way to design a public participation process that makes this possible (a tall order!) we will all continue to be frustrated about our ability to get EPA's attention at the right time and to have EPA staff consider facts, analysis, and viewpoints that we believe would allow EPA to make even better decisions than it does now.

I believe a place for EPA to start is to invite the public into the very early stages of decision making?at the stage now called the blueprint stage?when initial decisions are made on what alternatives to examine and what data to collect to support a choice among these alternatives.  This would be a radical departure for EPA, but if they can buy into the idea that the public might actually make a constructive contribution to the intellectual challenge of figuring out what to do, then it will be worth the effort!