An additional approach?

[Chuck Elkins <elkinsenv@aol.com>]

This idea may have already been mentioned, but I did not see it in the summary.

Could we develop a good way for people to self-identify their interests to EPA ahead of time?  Having been an EPA manager who had to figure out how to find people who might be interested in a particular topic so that they could participate in EPA decision making, I realize how hard it is to reach the right people.  As a way to supplement EPA's own outreach efforts, would it make sense to start a registry of people who are interested in particular subjects?  This might work particularly well for geographically-based concerns--a particular river, superfund site, airshed.  I see this working particularly well in the email/internet setting where EPA could sort the list easily for the right group and then send out an inexpensive notice.  Obviously, this leaves out a large segment of people, but it would be a start.

In summary, maybe we need to think of a two-way street to identifying people.  EPA needs to continue to seek people out and people should have a way of self-identifying themselves ahead of time.