Opening Remarks

[Romel Pascual <rpascual@calepa.ca.gov>]

Good day everyone.  My name is Romel Pascual and I am the Assistant Secretary for Environmental Justice at the California Environmental Protection Agency (Cal/EPA).  In this capacity, my main responsibility is to ensure that Cal/EPA is moving towards achieving environmental justice

It has been my experience that effective public participation at all levels of government requires, as many have already stated, an early engagement of affected communities.  I think that over the years, public agencies have done a better job in this arena.  We've been making incremental shifts away from the old paradigm of "decide, announce, defend" model of public participation.  But as we become more adept and seasoned in the mechanics of public participation, I am reminded that our focus on the front-end of the process sometimes overshadows our investment in the tail-end of the process - how  we incorporate public comments the decision-making process. 

In the environmental justice context, one of the main tenets of EJ is meaningful public participation, both the early and upfront process as well as the backend process of incorporating the input in the decision-making process.  Often times, we, as public agencies, fall short in the backend process, which translates into frustration on the part of the public.

In the state of California, we now have two pieces of legislation (SB115 and SB89) on environmental justice, and written within the obligations of the legislation is the need to expand our public participation efforts in a manner that facilitates tangible environmental improvements in our communities.  In order to identify how we get there, the state will be establishing an external Advisory Committee on Environmental Justice.  I say this because I think that the inclusion of all stakeholders (community, locals, and private sectors) in the planning and development of policy can prove to be a useful model in identifying and address the shortfalls of public participation early in game.  

Additionally, we will be involving other state agencies in our environmental justice efforts.  We are mindful of the realities that issues affecting communities are not limited to the environmental arena, and the active partnerships with other agencies can yield a more effective result.

I look forward to a fruitful dialogue.  Particularly, I would like to hear examples of public participation practices/efforts that have included multiple public agency involvement.