Token advisory processes can serve as pretense for predetermined siting decisions

Evidence

Environmental justice activists have been less than satisfied with participation offered them by, for example, the EPA in its advisory committees on environmental justice. The National Environmental Justice Advisory Committee (NEJAC) began as the EPA named environmental justice as a top priority early in the Clinton administration. Composed of stakeholders, many of whom had traditionally been ignored by the EPA, the NEJAC listened to hundreds of community members around the country give testimony on local environments. They passed numerous resolutions and gave the EPA much advice—but it was only an advisory body, and could not make policy. While many local and individual problems have been addressed via the NEJAC, numerous members have questioned its influence. One major participant called the NEJAC ‘a kind of federally sanctioned, formal mechanism for offering advice to EPA, which they generally don’t pay attention to’. This inauthenticity does not go unnoticed. A ‘place at the table’ will be welcomed, but will be seriously questioned if that participation does not result in a real change in the level and quality of community recognition in the development of environmental policy. Just because one is given some sort of ‘voice’ does not mean that they will be satisfied with a process that continues to deny them real results. — David Schlosberg, Defining Environmental Justice, 708 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Advisory committees can exclude the affected community from representation entirely; Failed advisory processes permanently suppress future civic engagement in communities; Regulatory process capture by developers predates formal public participation (+4 more)

Related

• Advisory committees can coopt movements by serving as substitutes for direct action (similarity 0.90)
• Failed advisory processes permanently suppress future civic engagement in communities (similarity 0.88)
• Advisory participation that yields no policy power reads as inauthentic cooptation (similarity 0.85)

Broader Connections

• Advisory committees can coopt movements by serving as substitutes for direct action #expands (0.88)
• Advisory participation that yields no policy power reads as inauthentic cooptation #corroborates (0.85) — David Schlosberg, Defining Environmental Justice, 708
• State permitting laws structurally determine community influence over siting #qualifies (0.78)
• Token environmental gestures breed complacency and can backfire. #complicates (0.72)