In the first half of 2004, when the Environmental Protection Agency solicited public feedback for a proposed rule that would limit mercury output from power plants, it received almost 540,000 comments over the Internet. A staff of 15 people was assigned to make sense of this veritable mountain of e-mail.
Of these comments, almost 173,000 were electronic form letters that came from a single Web site—Moveon.org. Other advocacy groups also contributed a fair amount of the e-mail. These special-interest groups normally set up a Web page—or hire companies to provide such services—that allow citizens to easily send e-mail protesting a proposed regulation. In the EPA’s case, few of these dispatches had any original comments.
Such is the emerging nature of electronic communications. On behalf of the populace, Congress makes the laws and the agencies write the regulations interpreting those laws. Such bodies consider public feedback, but historically input from the populace has been limited by the natural barriers between lawmakers and the public—the effort involved in writing a letter or visiting a representative from Congress. Now, thanks in large part to e-government initiatives, e-mail and Web sites offer an easier way for making one’s view known. How will agencies grapple with the possible influx of communications? Will such input even be beneficial for decision-makers?
These are questions now being addressed by the National Science Foundation’s Digital Government Research Program, an NSF research effort to investigate ways computer information sciences can improve government. The Digital Government Research conference, held this year in Atlanta, showcased research and technologies that the agency funded to address the challenge of citizen interaction.
When NSF started the Digital Government program, many agencies were still thinking of the Internet as a one-way conduit, with the Web site acting as a kind of electronic brochure, said Lawrence Brandt, program manager for the NSF’s Digital Government program. “Now I see a lot more citizens interacting with the government,” Brandt said.
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