CONSENT VERSUS CONSENSUS Stakeholder Involvement in the Identification of Necessary and Sufficient Transportation Safety Requirements

摘要

Radioactive materials transportation is stringently regulated by the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) to provide for the protection of the public and the environment; historically these regulations have proven quite sufficient. Even so, when the Department of Energy (DOE) makes radioactive materials shipments, that are deemed to be a major federal activity, regulations under the National Environmental Policy Act require that public input on safety issues be sought. This requirement leads to interactions with State, Tribal and local stakeholders that often result in the imposition of extra-regulatory requirements - requirements beyond those prescribed by DOT and NRC regulations. Unfortunately, these additional requirements virtually always increase costs and delay schedules, and usually do so without significantly increasing, and possibly even decreasing overall transportation safety. We believe that this problem arises because of efforts to achieve stakeholder consensus rather than stakeholder consent, where "consensus" connotes universal agreement with all aspects of the program, while "consent", as used here, is simple agreement with the overall course of action. Gaining consensus entails extensive negotiations because each stakeholder must agree to all aspects and requirements of the project. Gaining consent, on the other hand, requires only that stakeholders be satisfied that the project, as planned, provides adequately for their safety needs. This article addresses the issue of consent versus consensus and proposes a systematic, decision science process for reaching consent. Key steps in this proposed process are early identification and involvement of stakeholders, compilation of their concerns, perceptions, needs, causes, and translation of that information into an appropriate set of "derived requirements." These derived requirements, along with already-established DOT and NRC regulatory requirements, form the necessary and sufficient conditions for safe transportation and for obtaining stakeholder consent.