Explaining NABER

[Lenny Siegel <lsiegel@cpeo.org>]

It's Saturday night and I don't have much time to respond to
ARC's lengthy commentary on the NABER (National Advisory Board
on Environmental Restoration) proposal. I'll make a few quick
points, and I'll try to fill in more later.

1. DERTF (the Defense Environmental Response Task Force) and its
makeup were established by Congress. I believe that law still
governs its makeup. I believe it would be hard to change.

2. FFERDC (the Federal Facilities Environmental Restoration
Dialogue Committee) had a charter under FACA (the Federal
Advisory Committee Act). I don't think its FACA requirements
made a whole lot of difference. But FFERDC made a positive
difference, not only in the formation of RABs, but in improving
the way that all parties work together in the federal facilities
cleanup decision-making process.

3. The NABER concept can co-exist with one or more RAB
(Restoration Advisory Board) caucuses. I believe that the
dialogues among stakeholders can identify and resolve key policy
problems, but each constituency is entitled to caucus among
itself. While I do think that the RAB caucuses in California
have played positive role, some of the participants clearly did
not represent their own RABs or their broader communities. And
neither the Bay Area nor California-wide caucus were able to
sustain their activity for long.

4. There is also a value in having larger convocations of public
stakeholders, but those meetings are harder to pull off. And
often participants in large meetings merely talk AT each other,
than WITH each other. But we're working on one such meeting now,
because we see a need for a specific discussion.

5. The establishment of NABER would not require an executive
order or rulemaking process. If the Defense Department and EPA
want, it could be created quickly. However, I think key
decision-makers still need to be convinced, so any step in the
right direction could take a while.

6. I've spent nearly five decades opposing the policies and
practices of the U.S. military, but I don't agree that RAB
members who feel otherwise, or a retired military personnel, are
somehow not genuine public stakeholders. The most effective RABs
bridge ideological and political differences.

7. I actually think that EPA's Environmental Justice office
could do a good job of ensuring EJ participation, but I'm
willing to look at other mechanisms.

8. Since the founding of the nation, it's been difficult to come
up with representational schemes that represents population
centers and underpopulated regions equitably. I'm perfectly
willing to look at different approaches to resolving this
problem.

9. RAB members participate in a variety of national and regional
meetings. Some of them are constrained from "representing" their
RABs, but still represent their constituency well. Others only
need a vote to designate them as representatives. I don't see
how that would limit effective participation in NABER or any
other group.

10. It's naive to think that any discussions carried out within
RABs, NABER, DERTF, or the RAB caucus is going to solve the
principal problem facing the cleanup program: The majority of
members of Congress would rather spend less, not more, on
military environmental programs.

11. Several people have contacted CAREER/PRO asking about the
RAB caucus, because they learned about it through our network.
However, we did not participate in convening the meeting. We are
happy to serve as a platform for a wide variety of views,
including ARC's, but it should be clear to readers that we are
pursuing a different organizational approach from ARC.

Lenny Siegel
Director, SFSU CAREER/PRO (and Pacific Studies Center)
c/o PSC, 222B View St., Mountain View, CA 94041
Voice: 650/961-8918 or 650/969-1545
Fax: 650/968-1126
lsiegel@cpeo.org