Behind the Scenes: Where Real Environmental Policy Takes Shape Beyond Legislation

Terry Gerton You’re an expert in environmental policy. Let’s start there. There are many people working on climate and environmental issues these days, and many of them are focused on the science, perhaps without a full understanding of the policy machinery. Where do you see the biggest gaps between the motivated scientific community and their ability to influence policy right now?

Mai Sistla Yeah, so great question. One of the biggest gaps that I have seen, especially working with scientific expertise, is thinking about how you can change policy beyond legislation. So I would say 90%, 95% of the time when I talk to scientific experts on how they think X, Y, or Z problems should be solved in the policy arena, they will respond, I think a law should be passed that does A, B, or C. And while legislation, of course, is incredibly important, it is very hard to get passed and it’s very hard, especially federally right now for obvious reasons. So one of the things that we teach and one of the skills that I really try to impart on people is what are the other levers that you can pull within government beyond legislation to move policy forward? So can you, for example, affect a regulation? Can you affect how a specific program is run? Can you think about influencing other actors outside of government, whether that’s trying to push for a company to do something internally or a foundation? So that I think is a big gap that I have seen is just this idea of how can we think beyond legislation, just because legislation is hard to pass, when thinking about policy solutions to a problem.

Terry Gerton That makes a lot of sense and you’ve probably seen a lot of folks with a lot of different questions, your environmental policy accelerator is really designed for climate professionals not career policy makers. So as they get into the process and you start describing all of the different kinds of levers that they might have access to, what kind of response do you typically see?

Mai Sistla Yeah, so I think folks are really surprised to learn about all of the different levers that government has to pull to move policy forward. So we also work with technologists in addition to climate scientists, and I think a lot of our technology folks start thinking about and are surprised about how government is a purchaser. They can think about, for example, procurement policy as a way of changing policy. So I think there is just a surprise of how many levers there are, again beyond legislation, beyond regulation that folks can pull. I think another thing that we also see, so we also train everyday folks on how to advocate for change within their local communities in addition to scientific expertise and I think folks are also surprised at thinking about how they can look at other actors, including again companies and philanthropies and how you can push folks even beyond government to move a particular policy forward.

Terry Gerton Within the Aspen Policy Academy, you’re getting ready to launch an environmental policy accelerator. Tell us a little bit about what that kind of program is designed to do.

Mai Sistla Yeah, so this program is both for environmental experts and for everyday people who want to change local environmental policy in their community. And it’s really for folks who have a kernel of an idea. So they have some semblance of a policy change that they would like to see either locally or federally or at the state level, but they still need some help workshopping it, figuring out whether this is the right solution and also figuring out how they can actually advocate for this change to happen. So this program specifically, there’s a series of six sessions over the course of a few months where we’ll teach folks our framework for impacting policy. We have a six-step process. We essentially will have folks go through each of those six steps on an idea that they are particularly excited about. And then by the end get feedback during those sessions. So they’ll get feedback from staffers, but we’ll also bring other policy experts in to give them feedback as well. And of course they’ll get feedback from their peers and then by the end of this program, every single person would have actually identified a solution to a problem that they are passionate about and actually pitched that solution to a decision maker and they should also have a suite of materials, whether that is a draft policy, a draft advocacy plan that they can then use to pitch their solution to the of info.

Terry Gerton Mai Sistla is senior climate policy advisor at the Aspen Policy Academy. Mai, as I read it, some of the recent fellows that you’ve had go through this program have already had an impact. Maybe they’ve informed legislation at their state level or devised some other sort of implementation strategy. What is it that allows these kinds of ideas to move from concept to practice, something lawmakers could actually act on?

Mai Sistla Yeah. So one specific skill that I think is really important for these folks that are successful is making sure they actually have a concrete recommendation that a policymaker is able to act on that is explained easily. So for example, we have had a group of fellows who recently were able to impact legislation in Utah focused on data centers. They essentially helped the state of Utah pass a law that mandates that data centers disclose how much water and energy that they’re using. One of the reasons that these folks were so successful is they had a really concrete recommendation. They weren’t just sitting there admiring the problem of how much energy and water that data centers use. They had a real concrete recommendation that was relatively easy for the state to implement here. So that was really important for them getting their solution across the finish line. And then second of all, they also did a lot of stakeholder mapping. So once they figured out what policy they wanted to move forward, we worked with them to create a stakeholder map of who are the important players at the local level and the state level that they’ll need to talk to, and they’ll needs to convince to push this policy forward. So I think that is a second really key important skill is like, how do you stakeholder map and how do figure out who you need to to talk to get a solution for it, and how do you also frame solutions in a way that each of those stakeholders is going to be receptive towards it?

Terry Gerton Those sound like key steps in your six-step framework.

Mai Sistla Yes, exactly.

Terry Gerton Can you tell us a little bit more without going through the full training about what that framework opens up to people?

Mai Sistla Yes, so I think it opens up a really clear way on how to advocate for policy change. I think if you talk to most folks, if you even talk to folks who have worked in policy, I think if you ask them how do you advocate

For a policy to be changed, many people don’t have a clear plan in mind. I think we offer a clear plan that is easy for anyone to understand, whether they are a policy expert or just an everyday person. And how do you actually make change happen? I think having that clear plan makes it more achievable for people to do it themselves.

Terry Gerton As you think about the role of policy advocates, how has that space changed in the post-Chevron environment?

Mai Sistla Yes, so this has changed quite a bit at the federal level. First, I want to say it’s important to state that we’re still learning how advocacy will change in a post-Chevron environment. This core ruling that is now a couple of years old that courts should no longer defer to agency interpretations is settled. The application itself is still in flux as lower courts develop new methods for reviewing agency actions. But that being said, there are a couple key tips that we’ve been advising folks, especially at the federal level. So A, to definitely advise folks if they’re thinking about advocating for legislative change, to try and fill in as many details as they possibly can when they’re advocating for change. So it’s going to become really important for outside advocates to think about, for example, how legislation will be implemented and make sure that detail gets included in the text of a law, since folks are going to be deferring to the text of the law more. Second, if outside advocates want to work with agencies, they should prepare not only to convince agencies that their policy idea is right, but also help those agencies prepare a record to defend against lawsuits. So we’ve been advising folks to do that as well. And then third, we’ve been advising NGOs to really expect to work with the courts more in the future. So litigation has, and it’s going to continue to become a key advocacy tool for NGOs, but we’ve really also been training NGOs to think about how they can be effective expert witnesses in a case or potentially be named plaintiffs in a court case, for instance. So that’s sort of a third level or thinking about how they’re going to interact with the judicial branch.

Terry Gerton Where are you seeing advocates have the most success? Is it at the local level, state level, federal level? Does it just sort of depend on the issue that they’re bringing forward?

Mai Sistla Yeah, so it really depends on the issue. I am a big advocate for folks working on state and local issues generally because I think there is more room for change. And I also think it tends to be an under-leveraged area. In a lot of cases. I think a lot of cases, a lot of folks think about federal policy change as being the thing that they want to do, but they don’t necessarily think about how local and state governments actually have a very, very important role to play when it comes especially to service provision when you’re thinking about things like education policy or criminal justice reform or any of those things. Like a lot of that is happening at the state and local level, and there’s a lot more levers there to be pulled than necessarily at the federal level.

Terry Gerton So for folks who are interested in environmental policy and maybe want to take advantage of the upcoming accelerator experience, tell us where they can find more information.

Mai Sistla Yeah, so they can go to AspenPolicyAcademy.org. We have applications open until May 21st. And basically the application is gonna ask you what is sort of this kernel of an idea that you’re interested in moving forward but you need help with moving forward. So we’re gonna ask to describe that idea a little bit and sort of what you need assistance with. And then we’re going to actually be running the program between July and November of this year. So applications are due May 21, and we’ll sort of go through applications, pick a subset of folks and start the program in July.