“We should be creative, and we should accommodate the needs of every community to open up the process. We should make it easy and accessible for every citizen to participate.” As this quote from the late Rep. John Lewis emphasizes, public participation in government is essential to our democratic principles because it ensures that decision-making processes produce the most representative and conscientious results.  

Engaging the full public as decisions are made leads to better informed decision-making and stronger solutions to problems. It is worth the investment of government, community groups, and organizations that work for the common good. Public engagement enhances an agency’s credibility by fostering transparency and trust, promoting diverse knowledge, and addressing concerns, such as health and environmental impacts, which may not be revealed without concerned members of the public shining a light on them.   

Not all agencies have processes that enable easy public participation or engagement, even as studies indicate that critical decision-making is being done without all segments of the public weighing in. In particular, overburdened communities remain unrepresented in energy planning and decision-making processes that drive energy production, distribution and regulation. 

For example, community organizers in Detroit have been calling for more access to local permitting processes. After the Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy’s (EGLE) released an updated draft of their public participation policy, public “concerns [were] raised about the timing of EGLE’s public engagement in the permitting process, with residents having limited time to consider proposals compared to regulators who have months for deliberation.” Residents concerned about the health impacts of predetermined pollution decisions on overburdened communities also realized that having their say on such topics would be challenging when public hearings are marked by the use of technical jargon.   

States are taking steps to proactively expand access, realizing that public engagement and transparency are key to addressing local skepticism about proposed energy projects. For instance, Ohio solar developers such as Vesper Energy and Open Road Renewables hosted listening tour sessions this spring in both the Dayton suburbs and rural Logan County to learn about residents’ concerns.  

Thinking about utility regulators’ role in upholding the public interest, we wanted to revisit some highlights of work we did on this topic with the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners (NARUC) earlier this year. With NARUC, we organized and co-hosted a three-part webinar series, one of which focuses on “How the Regulatory Process Can Advance Equity.” Representatives from the public utility commissions of Hawaii, Colorado, and Oregon were among the panelists, discussing their commissions’ efforts to improve equitable access to the regulatory process: 

• Eric Sippert, a clean energy innovator at the Hawaii PUC, highlighted his state’s Energy Equity & Justice Docket (2022-0250). He conducted thirty-one interviews to explore procedural equity and identified three main categories highlighting the unique role utilities can play in public engagement — noting that his interviewees called on the PUC to “primarily be facilitators, drawing on communities to set the agenda.”
• Jessie Ciulla, advisor to the Colorado PUC, discussed that state’s recent efforts to advance equity, including the passing of Senate Bill 21-272 and the development of an equity framework. The commission has created an equity page on its website, formed an equity advisory focus group, held commissioner information meetings, and learned from other states to improve strategic planning and communication. 
• Michelle Scala, program manager for energy justice at the Oregon PUC, noted that the establishment of rules can help create intentional equity in decision-making processes, pointing to her state’s House Bill 2475, which provides funding for environmental justice communities’ participation in PUC proceedings.  

As these panelists noted, the structure of many state agency engagement practices contains barriers to diverse public participation. But there are solutions for each of these: 

Timing. Many agency proceedings and opportunities for public comment happen during the day. This is convenient for public officials and for groups seeking to understand or influence the process, such as interest groups, consultants and paid experts, news media, professional associations and nonprofit advocacy groups. But members of the community, particularly those with lower-paying jobs, have difficulty getting off work to participate in agency decisions. 

• Solution: Agency proceedings and opportunities for public comment should be scheduled at a variety of times of day and days of the week (including at least one weekend time and one evening time) to increase the likelihood of getting useful public input. Providing childcare, compensation and refreshments can allow working people or parents of small children to participate more fully.  

Notice period. Agencies must follow legal notice requirements for public meetings, including specific notice periods. If a notice period is too short, however, it may not allow interested individuals the time to make arrangements for childcare, transportation or time off work.

• Solution: Longer notice periods can provide more opportunity for individuals to get  informed on key decision points and make the necessary arrangements to attend. 

Publicity. Agencies may have legal requirements to publicize notices of meetings, but these requirements do not guarantee that the notices will be widely seen. 

• Solution: Posting notices in places people commonly go — such as sports arenas, schools, places of worship, community centers and social media — will reach more of the public. Social media is accessible to most demographics.

Venue locations. Agency buildings, which usually host meetings, may be a long distance from or otherwise difficult to get to.

• Solution: In addition to providing virtual meeting capabilities, agencies should adopt a variety of locations for informal meetings, including gathering spaces familiar to marginalized communities, in neighborhoods whose residents are predominantly people of color and in rural locations across the state. 

Language.  For those who are hearing impaired or not fluent in English, there may be a language barrier to full participation in a public meeting.

• Solution: Agencies should in addition to providing translation in American Sign Language, the agency should provide language services in, for example, the top two languages of the community as determined by the most recent census. This will mean translating and making available informational materials in these languages.  

Technical language. Highly technical language can be confusing for members of the public who are not experts in the subject matter handled in a public proceeding.

• Solution: Agencies should provide relevant information and data that is accessible to a nontechnical audience — including one-page summaries, infographics or short policy briefs. When outreach materials concerning the proposed agency action are provided in layperson’s terms, people will be more likely to be meaningfully informed and have opportunities to offer input.  

RAP has more resources on this topic, too. Public access and participation is the subject of one of the sections of RAP’s Building Modernization Legislative Toolkit, which contains analysis of how different state legislators have authorized reform across state agencies. And Public Access and Participation Plans: A Starter Kit for State Agencies, developed from work we did for state officials, lays out guideposts for agencies seeking to carry out state objectives on public accessibility.