Reconciling Social Unrest and Energy Demands
Location: New York
Date: 2013-08-26
Those who are responsible for permitting site specific or
linear facilities are well aware that, in today's environment of
regulatory requirements, polarized politics and litigation, citizen
opposition to proposed projects can be daunting. Determined citizens
have successful track records of delaying projects, driving up
costs, and blocking projects that are technically sound and
necessary. To relegate the causes of citizen opposition to a few
selfish people who do not want the project in their backyards is to
miss the crux of grassroots citizen activism, as China has just
recognized with a major policy announcement.
At China's 18th Party Congress in November 2012, the State Council
ordered that all major industrial projects must complete a "social
risk assessment with stated project impact mitigation schedules"
before any project can begin. This move at the highest levels of
government is aimed at addressing large, increasingly violent and
geographically dispersed environmental protests of the last several
years. The announcement was made because of the concern that, if the
underlying causes of these protests are not addressed, they have the
potential to bring the government down. Zhou Shengxian, the
Environmental Minister, said at the news conference, "No major
projects can be launched without social risk evaluations. By doing
so, I hope we can reduce the number of mass incidents in the
future."
Just in the last two weeks of October 2012, violent protests forced
the suspension of plans to expand a chemical plant, and protests
occurred in every region of China against industrial projects that
have been at the core of its economic boom. The promise of jobs and
rising incomes is being checkmated by the rising tide of young and
middle class Chinese who are fearful that new factories, power line
corridors and pipelines are causing environmental damage.
Environmental concerns trump the promise of jobs for the first time
in China's march to industrialization at all costs. Sound familiar?
Does Keystone XL pipeline come to mind, where the demonstrations
against TransCanada continue at the national, regional and local
levels? There are now over 400 energy-related opposition groups in
the United States and 2,000 internationally that are tied together
by wireless technology and informal networking who are interrupting
and stopping projects across the country.
By virtue of their long-standing practices, companies that are
building new infrastructure may, in fact, actually be facilitating
more opportunities for the local community to organize. As third
party activist groups are able to fine-tune their efforts against
projects in general, they become increasingly more likely to take
over control of local issues and impede projects, regardless of the
benefits to the community. In essence, project owners may be
enabling and encouraging the opposition.
Other protests include those against hydraulic fracturing in New
York, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and several other states. Another
contentious project is the Atlantic Wind Connection power line that
is potentially coming on shore at Assateague Island, a national
seashore site that spans across the states of Maryland and Virginia.
And on Molokai, the fifth largest island in Hawaii, the Big Wind
project is being held hostage by angry citizens.
At the World Gas Conference in June 2012, ExxonMobil CEO Rex
Tillerson addressed the importance of open communication with
leaders at all levels as well as local communities.
The Missing Link
What is missing in the approach to communities in the path of
projects that have launched such angry protests here in the United
States? At the World Gas Conference in Kuala Lumpur in June 2012,
CEOs from ExxonMobil, Shell and Total all addressed the importance
of public acceptance in their speeches. Christophe de Margerie, CEO
of Total said, "I believe stakeholders will be the main drivers of
change. Our business is not sustainable if we are not responsible
operators, accepted by all stakeholders, including civil society."
In his keynote address to the conference, ExxonMobil's Rex Tillerson
said that his company learned in North America about "the importance
of open communication with government leaders at all levels as well
as local communities." This announcement is quite a cultural shift
for a company like ExxonMobil, and reflects a growing concern
nationally that the old ways of centralized project development of
plan, design, and build-absent community engagement-is a surefire
way of generating citizen opposition and project disaster.
A crucial step that the United States took to avoid the situation
that China is now addressing was passing the National Environmental
Policy and Environment Act of 1969 (NEPA). NEPA is our national law
designed to address anticipated citizen resistance to projects that
intrude into people's physical, social and cultural environments.
Companies are often surprised to learn that NEPA requires a thorough
social impact assessment and mitigation program along with the
physical environmental studies. However, this social requirement has
all but been lost in NEPA studies. Yet, it is exactly this neglected
requirement where a company can actually learn what the real
community issues are, and what they can do to address them from the
very beginning of a project and throughout the project's life.
Companies that are involved with federal agencies must insist that,
thorough social assessments and impact mitigation, requirements are
met under NEPA.
However, with or without adequate NEPA implementation, it is time
for companies to protect their investment by developing and staffing
their own independent team of professionals skilled in the science
of community. By addressing community-related issues that cause
excess budget over-runs and project schedule delays, the team would
be responsible for understanding the community's concerns and taking
a proactive approach to preventing project disruption by assisting
citizens to participate in, predict and control their environment.
The social risk has become too great to not formally recognize and
systematically act upon the underlying causes of how and why
citizens go from potential healthy participation to organizing to
fight a project. Regardless of whether the project is on public or
private land, today's projects require and deserve this level of
attention.
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