I.G: Stakeholder Engagement in Plan Development

Use a number of methods to solicit and receive public input on suggestions for our Open Government Plan

Other Information:

EPA stakeholders are a broad and diverse cross-section of organizations and individuals, including our partners (federal agencies, states and tribes), local government, the general public, regulated businesses, scientists and Congress. To reach out to this large and varied group, we used a number of methods to solicit and receive public input on suggestions for our Open Government Plan. 1. Electronic Outreach - To collect input from the public electronically, we relied on OpenEPA - available from EPA’s Open Government Web site (www.epa.gov/open); blog entries from Greenversations (blog.epa.gov/blog/); and input received from Twitter, Facebook and e-mail. EPA sent notifications to over 135,000 individuals and organizational stakeholders to request their participation. To identify and reach these stakeholders, we used EPA listservs, Twitter feeds, Facebook fans and other similar electronic methods. Our broad outreach most likely contributed to the number of entries we received. EPA had the third highest level of activity for those agencies using the IdeaScale tool—the primary mechanism used by most agencies to solicit public input. Public feedback provided via OpenEPA focused on the Agency's mission, operational activities, and areas where we should consider in developing this plan. As another method to encourage the public, we will conduct a virtual town hall meeting announcing the publication of the Agency’s Open Government Plan. This meeting is tentatively set for Q3/2010, providing the public time to review the plan. We will answer questions and solicit suggestions that will be considered for future versions of the plan. 2. Non-Electronic Outreach - EPA also reached out in more traditional ways. We invited stakeholders to attend a face-to-face meeting to solicit ideas for our plan. A summary of the meeting can be found at www.epa.gov/open or by sending a letter to the address listed below. US EPA / MC: 2822T Attention: Open Government 1200 Pennsylvania Ave., NW Washington, DC 20460 Printed copies of the Plan are available upon request. We welcome your comments on the plan, and you can provide them by visiting OpenEPA at www.epa.gov/open or by sending a letter to the address provided above. 3. Ongoing Open Government Efforts and Plan Updates - EPA expects to gain experience while executing this plan and to apply resulting best practices and lessons learned to existing and future activities. We also plan to share our experiences with other agencies and to solicit feedback on their successes and challenges. EPA will provide project-specific updates on components of the plan, and we expect to update our Open Government Plan more often than the recommended two-year cycle. We will review the plan every 180 days, and it will be a living document. Notifications of any planned revisions and revised documents will be available on our Open Government Web site. In response to suggestions the Agency received, EPA will continue to operate the OpenEPA tool as a principal point for the public to offer suggestions and continue the dialogue on this plan. The public is welcome to submit ideas and feedback on ongoing efforts described in the plan, and we will explain how the Agency will consider input. We will also share how the public can follow our progress and identify opportunities for participation. 4. EPA Communications Regarding the Open Government Directive - In developing our Open Government Plan, we actively sought public and EPA employee input. We established an Open Government Web site (www.epa.gov/open) and used many Web 2.0 applications to communicate and engage with the public and EPA employees. As we implement and refine the Open Government Plan and activities, we will communicate changes and updates via our Open Government Web site. We will also rely on this Web site to advertise the release of upcoming data sets. We also plan to develop an Agencywide strategy that includes how and when to use outreach events such as public meetings, electronic town hall meetings and/or webcasts.

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