I.F: Open Approach to Expand the Conversation on Environmentalism

Embrace openness in a variety of ways

Other Information:

Over the last year, EPA’s leaders have embraced openness in a variety of ways. The Administrator began holding Internet video press conferences and town hall meetings and recording other important events, both with staff and external groups, on key environmental issues (see various videos from the Administrator and other EPA leaders at: www.epa.gov/multimedia/mm-video.htm. Other senior managers also began holding Internet video meetings on critical environmental issues involving water, waste and pesticides. The public can watch these live webcasts at http://www.epa.gov/live and join video town halls at http://www.epa.gov/oswer/videotownhall.htm. We also publish general-interest videos on YouTube at http://youtube.com/usepagov. In addition to our use of Internet video, we dramatically expanded our use of podcasts, Twitter, blogs and Facebook over the last year to engage the American people. To promote the Administration's OGD internally and externally, EPA launched our Open Government Web site (www.epa.gov/open) on February 4, 2010, providing several tools for the public and EPA staff to submit ideas. This unprecedented outreach provided the Agency with hundreds of ideas from EPA staff and the public on how to expand our openness. Administrator Jackson has also taken other actions toward an open environment such as tweeting regularly on her Twitter account http://twitter.com/lisapjackson. She also opened her calendar, posting public appearances and meetings with external parties on EPA’s public Web site (http://www.epa.gov/lisa). In fact, appointed senior staff members who head major headquarters and regional offices have also opened their calendars (http://yosemite.epa.gov/opa/admpress.nsf/Calendars?OpenView). The Administrator, other EPA staff and guest bloggers keep EPA’s Greenversations blog active (http://blog.epa.gov). These actions not only open EPA to the public, they give EPA staff at all levels of the organization insight into their senior leadership. This helps all EPA staff stay connected to the mission. We connect to the public through Twitter (http://twitter.com/epagov) and Facebook (http://facebook.com/epa), and several offices maintain more subject-specific accounts (http://www.epa.gov/epahome/socialmedia.html). EPA’s open government groups are actively investigating other means to continue expanding the conversation at EPA, including incentives/recognition, financial awards, training and the development of a communication plan.

Stakeholder(s):

• Administrator


• EPA Leaders


• Senior Managers

Indicator(s):

Indicator:1

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