In response to "stakeholders" following the trail of breadcrumbs that lead to 888 First Street, N.E., Washington, DC, FERC's Office of Energy Projects has come out with a "Suggested Best Practices for Industry Outreach Programs for Stakeholders."
*sigh* Reads no better than any industry propaganda, beginning with its title. Was FERC really attempting to mollify the public and prove that it's acting in the public interest with this? FERC staff needs to take this brochure home to grandma and ask her if she thinks it was written in a conversational and informative manner. She'll probably buy you some gigantic, ugly, 1940's-style underwear next Christmas in response. Or knit you a suit jacket and pop into the office with cookies at random intervals to make sure you're wearing it.
FERC realizes that landowners are "stakeholders!" Yay! But it's all downhill from there. While FERC recommends involving "the public" early in the process on the first page, venturing further shows recommendation that the company involve local elected officials before landowners, in order to "sell" them on the project (while making campaign contributions?). In this way, the company can head off landowner concerns by indoctrinating the public's representatives in the "company way" so that when landowners find out about the project and turn to their local elected officials for help, there is none to be had. Of course, this is easily turned around with enough landowner (voter) pressure, making early elected official notification sort of useless.
There's also recommendations for a whole bunch of "stakeholder" meetings, where only selected "key stakeholders" are invited to participate. Landowners aren't invited to these, they only get to participate in public "open house" meetings, where they are presented with the project as a fait accompli. FERC supposes involving "key stakeholders" can "result in developing partnerships with special interest groups, municipalities, and community business organizations." Holy back room deal, Batman! Is FERC suggesting that a company buy cozy relationships with certain community groups that can benefit from the project so that they can throw the impacted landowners under the bus for their own profit, or for the simple benefit of making sure the project is not constructed in their own back yards, but in the back yards of others who are politically powerless or not participating in this process? Wrong approach!
This whole brochure fails because it's based on the "information deficit" model. It presumes that the only reason people oppose projects is because they lack enough information. It supposes that if a person is bombarded with enough "information" (propaganda) that they will acquiesce to having their lives turned upside down for benefit of others. It doesn't work. Never has. Never will. It actually increases the potential for entrenched opposition and local political battles.
FERC obviously doesn't notice that it has placed itself squarely in the corporate camp. Maybe they didn't intend to, but this brochure reveals who FERC identifies with... and it's not landowners. FERC presumes a proposed project must be built as proposed. FERC could use a crash course in how and why opposition develops. Come out of your ivory (city soot coated) tower! There's much to be learned!
Presenting the public with a project as a fait accompli is the first crucial mistake. Nobody likes to learn that a company, or their elected officials, or the Sierra Club, or the Chamber of Commerce, or the "good ol' boys" in their town (or even FERC... especially FERC) have been secretly developing a project that takes their property. People's property is sacred to them. You might as well show up with a plan to conscript our children. You'd never do that, right? But it's the exact same punch in the gut feeling when a landowner learns others have been conspiring to take what belongs to him.
If you really want impacted landowners to get on board with a project, you need to involve them in the decision making from the start. Instead of saying, "we need to build this," how about saying, "we have a problem and here are several ways to solve it, but we're open to suggestion"?
Only when the public gets some ownership of the decisions made are they likely to work cooperatively toward a solution. This is a still a democracy, right?
*sigh* Reads no better than any industry propaganda, beginning with its title. Was FERC really attempting to mollify the public and prove that it's acting in the public interest with this? FERC staff needs to take this brochure home to grandma and ask her if she thinks it was written in a conversational and informative manner. She'll probably buy you some gigantic, ugly, 1940's-style underwear next Christmas in response. Or knit you a suit jacket and pop into the office with cookies at random intervals to make sure you're wearing it.
FERC realizes that landowners are "stakeholders!" Yay! But it's all downhill from there. While FERC recommends involving "the public" early in the process on the first page, venturing further shows recommendation that the company involve local elected officials before landowners, in order to "sell" them on the project (while making campaign contributions?). In this way, the company can head off landowner concerns by indoctrinating the public's representatives in the "company way" so that when landowners find out about the project and turn to their local elected officials for help, there is none to be had. Of course, this is easily turned around with enough landowner (voter) pressure, making early elected official notification sort of useless.
There's also recommendations for a whole bunch of "stakeholder" meetings, where only selected "key stakeholders" are invited to participate. Landowners aren't invited to these, they only get to participate in public "open house" meetings, where they are presented with the project as a fait accompli. FERC supposes involving "key stakeholders" can "result in developing partnerships with special interest groups, municipalities, and community business organizations." Holy back room deal, Batman! Is FERC suggesting that a company buy cozy relationships with certain community groups that can benefit from the project so that they can throw the impacted landowners under the bus for their own profit, or for the simple benefit of making sure the project is not constructed in their own back yards, but in the back yards of others who are politically powerless or not participating in this process? Wrong approach!
This whole brochure fails because it's based on the "information deficit" model. It presumes that the only reason people oppose projects is because they lack enough information. It supposes that if a person is bombarded with enough "information" (propaganda) that they will acquiesce to having their lives turned upside down for benefit of others. It doesn't work. Never has. Never will. It actually increases the potential for entrenched opposition and local political battles.
FERC obviously doesn't notice that it has placed itself squarely in the corporate camp. Maybe they didn't intend to, but this brochure reveals who FERC identifies with... and it's not landowners. FERC presumes a proposed project must be built as proposed. FERC could use a crash course in how and why opposition develops. Come out of your ivory (city soot coated) tower! There's much to be learned!
Presenting the public with a project as a fait accompli is the first crucial mistake. Nobody likes to learn that a company, or their elected officials, or the Sierra Club, or the Chamber of Commerce, or the "good ol' boys" in their town (or even FERC... especially FERC) have been secretly developing a project that takes their property. People's property is sacred to them. You might as well show up with a plan to conscript our children. You'd never do that, right? But it's the exact same punch in the gut feeling when a landowner learns others have been conspiring to take what belongs to him.
If you really want impacted landowners to get on board with a project, you need to involve them in the decision making from the start. Instead of saying, "we need to build this," how about saying, "we have a problem and here are several ways to solve it, but we're open to suggestion"?
Only when the public gets some ownership of the decisions made are they likely to work cooperatively toward a solution. This is a still a democracy, right?
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