The Evolution of The Keystone Center and the Development of The Science and Public Policy Programs
By: Robert W. Craig, 2/11/02
Policy Dialogue Series: 1974-2002
The doors to The Keystone Center opened in 1975 after a commitment to funding for startup by the Board of Directors of Ralston-Purina Co. in the amount of $250,000. With the assistance of R. Hal Dean, Chairman Ralston-Purina, Dr. William Danforth, Chancellor Washington University, and Robert A. Maynard, President Keystone Resort, Robert Craig began assembling a national board of trustees representing the various sectors and constituencies in which it was anticipated the center would be involved.
It was recognized that The National Environmental Policy Act of 1971 would be the regime under which environmental regulation of the private sector and, indeed, all parts of American life would proceed and that the arena of NEPA would generate new regulatory frameworks in which government, the environmental community, industry, labor and citizens at large would control. In 1985, looking back on eleven years of effort, the President said in his Annual Report statement, “Eleven years ago, the Center was launched on the supposition that the crucial environmental problems confronting the United States could be dealt with if thoughtful representatives of all the parties having stakes in those issues could be brought together in a detached atmosphere and examine, in careful fashion, the scientific, technological, and social components of those problems. The driving objective of those assemblages has been to discover policy consensus that could be applied to the resolution of conflict surrounding the basic issues. What has emerged from those early and continuing efforts has come to be called The Keystone Center.”
To give a sense of the evolution of consensus dialogues, that have emerged since the first effort in 1976, the following chronological listing of projects in offered:
1976
The Next Million Years: An Examination of the Capability of the Planet Earth as a Repository for High Level Radioactive Waste
This project was under taken with and funded by Sandia National Labs, Shell Oil Company, and Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution and marked the beginning of collaboration/partnership endeavors the Center has pursued to the present. The “Next Million Years” was a one time experiment which had the virtue of causing the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, G.E., Westinghouse, EPRI?, and Allied Chemical to encourage the Center to undertake a series of workshops on the management, disposal, and storage of high level radioactive waste.
One dialogue addressed the issue of geologically characterizing a high level waste repository (ie: tuft, granite, salt seated) which launched the process that led to the development of the Yucca Mountain facility. Another project examined the possibility of increasing the capacity for spent fuel storage at U.S. commercial reactors. A consensus recommendation from the Keystone group led to a Presidential Order by President Carter in 1978 authorizing increased capacity for the storage of spent fuel rods at commercial reactors.
In 1978, under funding from the Rockefeller and Ford Foundation, the Center conducted a dialogue in “International Implications of High Level Radioactive Waste Management” involving the U.S. Department of State, representatives from Japan, Germany, Sweden, France, Canada, and the International Atomic Energy Agency. Additionally participants from Rockefeller, Ford, the Union of Concerned Scientists, Friends of the Earth, Sierra Club, G.E., Westinghouse, Allied Chemical, and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission took part.
Two important new project areas also developed at this point: The Keystone Indian Business Roundtable which sought to develop private enterprise to the advantage of U.S. tribes on the tribal reservations; and the U.S. Energy Futures Program which led to the development of the Keystone Energy Program.
1980-1985
The following Publications and Reports emerged from the growing Keystone consensus efforts:
- Siting Non-Radioactive Hazardous Waste Management Facilities – An Overview, September 1980
- Public Participation in Developing National Plans for Radioactive Waste Management, October 1980
- Siting Non-Radioactive Hazardous Waste Management Facilities – A Second Look, August 1981
- Developing New and Better Drugs for the Public – An Initial Assessment, September 1981
- A Consensus-Building Effort on Strengthening U.S. Energy Security, October 1981
- Report on the Planning Session for The Keystone Center’s Project on Improving Energy Efficiency, March 1981
- Public Participation in Decision Processes Concerning Radioactive Wastes, March 1981
- International Implications of Radioactive Waste Management, May 1981
- Report on the Planning Session for The Keystone Center’s Project on Non-Radioactive Hazardous Waste Management Policy, August 1981
- Implementation of the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act of 1980, February 1982
- Evaluating Public Involvement in the National Low-Level Radioactive Waste Management Program, March 1982
- The Role of Natural Gas in Fuel Use Decisions in the Industrial Sector, April 1982
- Siting Waste Management Facilities in the Galveston Bay Area: A New Approach, August and October 1982
- Report on Acid Precipitation Research Coordination Workshop, November 1982
- Energy Efficiency Preparedness: Possible Approaches to the Free Market Distribution of Oil Products During Times of Shortfall, December 1982
- Keystone Siting Process Handbook, December 1983
- Energy Emergency Preparedness: Possible Approaches to the Free Market Distribution of Oil Products During Times of Shortfall, April 1984
- Keystone Indian/Business Roundtable: Phase I Final Report, November 1984
- Potential Approaches for Toxic Exposure Compensation: A Report on the Conclusions of a Keystone Center Policy Dialogue, January 1985
Before examining the record of S&PP projects from 1985 through 1992, perhaps a few general observations: As mentioned above, The Keystone Center’s initial success in addressing radioactive waste problems led to both the Keystone Energy Program (as a free-standing element within S&PP) and the startup of the National Hazardous Waste Strategies Program (with its ultimate detailed involvement in CERCLA & RCRA). Synergistically, because of interest generated by The Energy Program, we were approached by John Dingle, Chairman of The Energy and Commerce Committee in 1983 to consider emerging regulatory problems occasioned by the rapidly emerging biotechnology industry. Thus developed the Keystone Biotechnology Forum which led to Keystone’s examination of FIFRA & TOSCA as regulatory regimes for the regulation of engineered organisms in the environment.
In general I believe it can be said that successes in one sector of policy conflict and deliberation led to our being invited into other problem areas. In some instances we intuited potential conflicts and simply jumped in. Overall, I cannot emphasize strongly enough that Keystone has not been successful primarily because of its facilitation skills – its conflict resolution capability. That capability goes without saying (and while we were early innovators the number of practitioners has grown enormously), but what has and still does distinguish Keystone has been its ability to select and have a the table the best representative of all parties at interest in a particular issue and to assure that the dialogues that emerge are kept honest by the discipline of the best science and technological knowledge underlying that issue. Perhaps equally important has been Keystone’s ability to intuit and understand ‘what is coming’ in environmental and science based controversy.
The question of the role of science in The Keystone Process is something that must repeatedly be re-visited. It was one reason that I, with the notable assistance of trustees, Dr. Ronald Cape inaugurated the Scientist to Scientist Colloquium in 1990, a statement that Keystone science as an endeavor sufficiently to sponsor inter-disciplinary exchanges at the cutting edge.
1985-1992
Between 1985 and 1992 the Science & Public Policy Program matured in many ways. An increase in staff led to our capacity to undertake a wider variety of policy issues and the effectiveness of the Washington office greatly increased the Center’s capability to function rationally as a force in public policy.
1992-1996
Between 1992 and 1996 work continued within S&PP in the Federal Facilitators Dialogue; the Food Safety and Pesticides Dialogue; The National Ecosystem Management Forum; the Agricultural Management System and the Environment Dialogue; the Incentives for Private Landowners and Protect Endangered Species Dialogue; the Department of Defense Biodiversity Management Strategy Dialogue; and the EPA Food Safety Advisory Committee Summary of meetings between September and December 1996.
1997
Finally, I believe the report of the Workshop on Critical Variables and Long Term Projections for Sustainable Global Food Security which was issued in the spring of 1997 should be mentioned. This meeting, funded by Rockefeller Foundation had the prospect of growing into an on-going international dialogue with the promise of affecting significant policy decisions in the developing and developed world. It had a cross-section of able scientists and food producers from the fields of nutrition, agronomy, agriculture, and biotechnology, and economics.
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