RE: The spectrum of public involvement

[David James <james.david@epa.gov>]

Dan Dozier has done a great service by pointing out that defining  what public you seek to involve depends crucially on what level of involvement you anticipate allowing. Or of being forced by circumstances or law to accept. 

Mr. Dozier writes: "I think that identifying the appropriate public(s)depends to a great extent on the level of involvement that EPA is, either explicitly or implicitly, offering, although in nearly every matter, at a minimum, the Agency should (must) inform. However, I think most people would agree that informing is not nearly enough in many situations."

Who is the public? It's more than "anybody likely to be pissed off by the consequences of the decision." Sometimes I find myself thinking that the public would better be thought of as "anybody who SHOULD be interested in the outcome, whether they realize it or not." -- But that's a dangerously arrogant perspective, since who are WE to decide who should be involved?

Government bodies have an obligation to continually invite public involvement, and to identify potentially interested parties through a well-thought through iterative process -- but there has to be an end point at which we say, "ok, now we've done enough to invite the public in. It's now up to the public to step up to the plate." 

We're far from the first generation to struggle with the issues of identifying and involving the public in a complex society in which difficult trade-offs must be addressed. My hero John Dewey, in his 1927 book "The Public and Its Problems," famously pointed out that:

"The essential need, in other words, is the improvement of the methods and conditions of debate, discussion and persuasion. That is the problem of the public. We have asserted that this improvement depends essentially upon freeing and perfecting the processes of inquiry and of dissemination of their conclusions. Inquiry, indeed, is a work which devolves upon experts. But their expertness is not shown in framing and executing policies, but in discovering and making known the facts upon which the former depend....It is not necessary that the many should have the knowledge and skill to carry on the needed investigations; what is required is that they have the ability to judge of the bearing of the knowledge supplied by others upon common concerns."

-----John Dewey, The Public and its Problems (Chicago: Sage Books, The Swallow Press, originally published by Henry Holt and Company, 1927), at 208.

Like water, information becomes stagnant unless it is flowing. It requires an active, engaged populace to make dry data cohere into  useful knowledge. As Dewey observes:

"Publication is partial and the public which results is partially informed and formed until the meanings it purveys pass from mouth to mouth." (p. 219)

Let a thousand flowers bloom! Let's seek to identify and notify the public by EVERY method discussed today. To those who say there's no money allocated for such an action, let's set up three or four pilot demonstrations in different EPA Regions, and get the new Regional Administrators in those Regions to sponsor a two-to-three year effort. And see what happens.