Public Participation and Environmental Regulation: Continuities, Changes, and Challenges

Abstract

This article revisits William Ruckelshaus’s essay, The Citizen and the Environmental Regulatory Process , published a half century ago when he was the first Administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Ruckelshaus urged regulators to place citizens at the center of environmental policy, a message that remains as vital today as it was at the time of EPA’s founding.

In this article, I assess continuities and changes in U.S. environmental policymaking since the time when Ruckelshaus advanced his argument. Even though public support for environmental protection has grown dramatically since the 1970s, political tumult and partisan polarization have introduced new challenges for regulators in earning public trust for their decisions. Regulators today need to look beyond Ruckelshaus’s concerns and focus on additional considerations, such as incorporating concern for racial equity into their decision-making and taking steps to combat the misinformation that can proliferate on social media. The future of environmental democracy must remain true to the core tenets outlined by Ruckelshaus while also overcoming new challenges to meaningful and inclusive public input.

This article serves as an introduction to a symposium in the Journal of Law and Public Affairs organized around a series of contemporary commentaries on Ruckelshaus’s essay. As such, this article also introduces reflections on the future of environmental democracy offered in the symposium by Monika U. Ehrman, Sara Rinfret, Wendy Wagner, Daniel Walters, and Shelley Welton.

Keywords: Environmental policy, environmental regulation, EPA, racial equity, decision-making, climate change, public engagement, regulatory process, digital technologies, public trust, Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, democracy, governance, citizen participation, William Ruckelshaus