ECA CALLS ON DOE TO MAINTAIN ROBUST LOCAL COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT
In ECA’s transition paper to the next Administration, “Ensuring Long-Term Success: Recommendations for the Next Administration on the U.S. Department of Energy’s Environmental Management Mission”, ECA provides multiple recommendations to tackle challenges the Department of Energy Office of Environmental Management (DOE-EM) faces.
Maintaining partnerships and providing opportunities for meaningful engagement between federal decision makers and local elected officials are vital to ensuring a unity of purpose that advances mission priorities. To be successful, DOE missions require community acceptance and thrive with community support. DOE and local governments work best when fully engaged in the decision-making at a site for issues that may impact the community. Fortunately, DOE has primarily moved away from announcing a position publicly and then expecting support.
Successes comes when DOE engages directly with the local government prior to announcing a position publicly. ECA recognizes that this is not always feasible but prioritizing local government engagement can go a long way toward facilitating success of the mission. ECA also recognizes that a local government will not always be supportive of a decision, but the engagement may facilitate a path forward and it provides a candid discussion of the issues. Local governments are responsible for the health, safety, and economic welfare of their communities, including the wellbeing of DOE employees and contractors. Local government input and support should not be taken for granted as ECA has found that meaningful, ongoing engagement by site managers and headquarters officials can alleviate confusion and build trust on all sides by reducing conflict (in some cases saving DOE hundreds of millions of dollars). The highest levels of DOE leadership should ensure that every site manager and prime contractor actively engage local government officials on a regular basis. DOE success stories (nuclear energy, cleanup, defense activities and others) share this fundamental tenet.
ECA supports open communication channels among DOE, sites, communities, and site managers when making short-term and long-term decisions. ECA’s goal is to foster and encourage a strong working relationship between the DOE and local governments. These strong relationships include a necessary base of trust and communication to be fully operative and functional. All these components -- trust, communication, input, and support -- are pivotal to the identification of shared objectives, and mutual goals are a strong component in any project or undertaking.
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All ECA publications, including the new Transition Paper are available at www.energyca.org/publications.
If you have any questions about the paper please reach out to ajr@energyca.org.