EPA-190-B-11-005
SEPA
United States
Environmental Protection
Agency
FY 2011-2015 EPA Strategic Plan
Cross-Cutting Fundamental Strategy: Expanding the Conversation on Environmentalism
Engage and empower communities and partners, including those who have been historically under-
represented, in order to support and advance environmental protection and human health nationwide.
We have begun a new era of outreach at EPA and seek to include a broader range of people and
communities in our work and expand our engagement with communities historically under-represented
in our decision-making processes. We will build stronger working relationships throughout the country,
particularly with tribes, communities of color, economically-distressed cities and towns, young people,
and others.
To accomplish these goals, we will:
1. Call for innovation and bold thinking and ask all employees to bring their creativity and talents to
their everyday work to enhance outreach and transparency in all our programs.
2. Ensure that our science is explained clearly and accessible to all communities, communicating and
educating in plain language the complexities of environmental, health, policy, and regulatory issues.
3. Educate and empower individuals, communities, and Agency partners in decision making through
public access to environmental information and data.
4. Ensure that the Agency's regulations, policies, budget, and decision-making processes are
transparent and accessible through increased access to environmental data sources, community
right-to-know tools, and direct stakeholder engagement.
5. Address barriers to improve engagement with historically under-represented sectors of the nation.
6. Use traditional and new media to inform and educate the public about Agency activities and provide
opportunities for community feedback.
7. Encourage citizens to understand the complexities and impacts of environmental issues and
environmental stewardship, and provide avenues and tools that enhance their ability to participate
in processes that could affect them.
FY 2012 Action Plan: Expanding the Conversation on Environmentalism
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FY 2012 Action Plan: Expanding the Conversation on Environmentalist!!
This Action Plan lists the specific actions that the EPA will carry out in FY 2012 to achieve the goals of
the Strategy for Expanding the Conversation on Environmentalism as described in the FY 2011-2015
EPA Strategic Plan. Annual Action Plans will be developed for each year of the Plan.
In FY 2012, a continuing focus is institutionalizing broader access and outreach of information across
the Agency. The following actions are expected to result in more standardized documentation and data
availability, via new and increased traditional vehicles, to population groups that have been historically
under-represented in environmental decision making. This will support additional goals of engaging
citizens, increasing transparency, and otherwise expanding the conversation on environmentalism.
1. Expand interactions with historically under-represented groups (Supports Principles 4, 5, 6, and 7).
• Implement the One EPA Web Content Development Strategy by developing at least 10 new
websites for high-priority topics, such as reduce/reuse/recycle, enforcement, and Puget Sound,
by the end of FY 2012.
• To reach historically under-represented groups, throughout the fiscal year, continue to develop
and implement innovative media and stakeholder communications and engagement plans,
targeting newspapers, magazines, and web sites; and, by the end of FY 2012, develop a
process for translating high-priority materials.
2. Improve environmental awareness and stewardship through implementation of the One EPA
Environmental Education initiatives (Supports Principles 3 and 6).
• Launch the ecoAmbassadors program in fifty (50) colleges and universities during the academic
year September 2011 - May 2012.
• Increase the integration of environmental education activities into Agency programs and expand
the creation and distribution of educational resources for a range of target audiences.
o National Program Managers (NPMs) and the Office of Environmental Education (and
Regions as appropriate) will collaborate to complete development of educational materials
for at least 5 of the most significant environmental and public health programmatic areas by
September 30, 2012. Issues will be selected by the Administrator's office with input from the
NPMs.
o The Office of Environmental Education, in collaboration with the NPMs, will cultivate and
establish 3 national and 5 regional/local partnerships to leverage both new and established
distribution and outreach channels during FY 2012 to expand the reach of environmental
education resources.
3. Improve communication of environmental sampling results to the public in environmental
emergency situations and at contaminated sites by using new communication methods to improve
community engagement (Supports Principles 2, 3, 4, 6, and 7).
• Evaluate the effectiveness of the color-coding methodology to explain sampling results being
piloted at Superfund remedial and removal sites selected in FY 2011 in all 10 Regions, and
develop an interim report on the results of the pilots by the end of FY 2012. The results could
help us determine the potential for expanded use of this methodology in FY 2013 and beyond.
4. Improve access to and transparency of the EPA's environmental data to support community and
citizen involvement in decision making (Supports Principles 1, 2, 3, 5, and 7).
• By the end of FY 2012, publish an additional 20 datasets and 20 data tools from the EPA's
national programs in Data.gov to improve access to the EPA's data in support of community and
citizen involvement in environmental decision making.
• By the end of FY 2012, establish and implement a process to collect public input on the types of
data that are most useful to the public, our partners and stakeholders and use this input to
create a formal process to identify and prioritize environmental data sets for publication.
FY 2012 Action Plan: Expanding the Conversation on Environmentalism 2
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• Use the expanded capability of the Environmental Dataset Gateway to create an inventory and
dashboard to facilitate discovery and use of the EPA's data sets by the end of September 2012.
5. Expand public awareness and opportunities for involvement in advance of and throughout the
development of rules and regulations through social media tools including regulations.gov, the
rulemaking gateway, Greenversations, webinars, and other tools (Supports Principles 3, 4, 6 and
7).
• Continue the expanded use of the Exchange tool and other social media tools to support
programs such as the Toxics Release Inventory (TRI) in soliciting public input regarding the
expansion of industry sectors covered under the Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-
Know Act (EPCRA) section 313 during the pre-proposal stage. The TRI is one of the most
versatile and widely used data resources for understanding industry impacts on the environment
and any modifications to the reporting base are seen as very significant, making this an
extremely appropriate topic for early public engagement.
• The OpenGov initiative will continue to seek out and support efforts that extend public
participation, transparency, and collaboration from across the Agency by promoting the efforts
through the Agency's OpenGov website and via quarterly progress reports that are often picked
up by external parties and noted as leading examples of engagement.
6. Transform Public Access and Communication of Environmental Data. The EPA will seek
opportunities to leverage the creativity of the public to address environmental or human health
problems. The EPA will invite the public to build environmental applications or suggest ways to
improve environmental protection. Such efforts enhance government effectiveness by using the
creativity and energy of the public (Supports Principles 3, 4, 6, and 7).
• Building on the momentum created by the Software Applications Development Challenge (the
Apps Challenge) event in November 2011, promote use of EPA data in outside applications and
recommend approaches to encourage development of additional environmental software
applications and make them accessible to the public by the end of FY 2012. Explore
approaches to obtain applications for EPA mission-related work.
FY 2012 Action Plan: Expanding the Conversation on Environmentalism
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