Mitigating Adverse Socioeconomic Impacts of Energy Development: Present Programs and Mechanisms; Further Policy Options

摘要

New energy development and/or energy policies may lead to serious problems for communities accommodating sudden growth, new stresses; and conflicts in local economic and institutional relationships. Potential problems include: boom town impacts (infrastructure financing shortfalls, housing shortages, abandonment, social disruption) or conflict impacts (changes in comparative economic advantage, competition for scarce resources, interjurisdictional and regulatory conflicts, social disruption). Effective mitigation of adverse impacts will involve satisfactorily addressing known problems under each of these issues. In order to determine whether a program or institution is actually accessible and workable in meeting these needs, it is also necessary to take into consideration several factors concerning the circumstances under which it will need to be employed: communities with boom town problems will tend to be small and rural and to have little public administrative expertise; needs will frequently be immediate once they are perceived; local socio-economic and physical environments have important differences in Western, Central Appalachian, Outer Continental Shelf (OCS), and Indian communities. These differences in local environment produce differences in the seriousness of problems and in the applicability of programs and policy options; however, there is remarkable similarity in the existence of both boom town and conflict impact categories in all communities. The last two sections array present Federal, state, industry efforts and evaluate them based on their ability to meet the detailed performance criteria for each issue area and to be accessible and workable in the local environments described. (ERA citation 03:035361)