Environmental Collaboration and Conflict Resolution (ECCR): Enhancing Agency Efficiency and Making Government Accountable to the People
Publisher: Federal Forum on Environmental Collaboration and Conflict Resolution
Date: 2018
Topics: Dispute Resolution/Mediation, Land
Countries: United States
The Federal Government spends millions of dollars and thousands of hours dealing with environmental conflict each year. In 2005, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and the Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) issued a Memorandum on Environmental Conflict Resolution directing Federal agencies to address this “fundamental governance challenge” by increasing the effective use of environmental conflict resolution and building institutional capacity for collaborative problem solving. On August 15, 2017, Executive Order 138071found that “more efficient and effective Federal infrastructure decisions can transform our economy, so the Federal Government, as a whole, must change the way it processes environmental reviews and authorization decisions.”
Through Environmental Collaboration and Conflict Resolution (ECCR), neutral, third-party facilitators work with agencies and stakeholders using collaboration, negotiation, structured dialogue, mediation, and other processes to prevent, manage, and resolve environmental conflicts. The Executive branch has successfully utilized ECCR in more than 3,800 documented cases since 2006. This report, based on more than a decade of experience and research, identifies quantifiable benefits of federal government ECCR use, including cost reduction, improved relationships, and better outcomes that avoided litigation, and makes recommendations on improving the effective use of ECCR, including within the context of federal infrastructure permitting.