Getting information out to the public

[Lindsey Christ <lchrist@nrdc.org>]

When it comes to community issues, the general public will more than likely bear the brunt of any environmental decision.  It is important that every avenue to engage the public is tried.  Below are a few idea on disseminating information so that more people can be informed/involved.

1) The public must be able to attend and know about public stakeholder meetings. EPA should provide significant advance notice of public stakeholder meetings, and should do its best to make sure the affected public is invited to the meeting. This includes advertising the meeting in public spaces (other than just the Federal Register notice), providing scholarships for the public to attend these meetings, and possibly holding meetings in "the field" as opposed to Headquarters or regional EPA offices.

2) EPA should post public notice of comment periods in a LOCAL paper. Often posting in just statewide papers does not get to local populations that are truly affected.

3) The public should be given a reasonable amount of time to comment on policy documents. This includes posting the document for comment on the same day announcement of the document. While using the Internet to post documents for comment is a good, if EPA does not make these documents available electronically as soon as the comment period begins they are really shortening the comment period. This puts the public at a disadvantage-- those who have a full-time job not related to the policy have a hard enough time commenting on documents during most comment periods.