LexBlog Q & A: Marcus Peacock of the Environmental Protection Agency
Today’s very special guest in the LexBlog Q & A hot seat is Marcus Peacock, Deputy Administrator of the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Marcus – who was nominated by President Bush in June 2005 and took over the post shortly thereafter – operates The Flow of the River, a blog detailing developments within the Agency. He is one of a growing number of government officials who use blogs to interact with the general public (Kevin listed a few in a post earlier this month). Check out our e-mail interview below.
1. Rob La Gatta: Tell me about how The Flow of The River first got started. How long ago did this happen? Was developing an EPA blog your idea, or somebody else’s?
Marcus Peacock: We’ve got 17,000 employees at EPA. The sheer number means it can be frustrating trying to communicate with them. In the course of a conversation at a wedding last spring it struck me that blogging could be a worthwhile way to communicate with EPA employees, and everyone else who might care, about how the Agency does its work and is performing. Some folks were skeptical given how few government blogs existed at the time (and none by a political appointee). So I tried to let go of it. But I couldn’t. So I used my prerogative as the Deputy Administrator to set it up.
It’s working so far because, in part, I stick to what the scope of my blog is and don’t go wandering off, as fun as that might be. My blog’s about what I work on and see as a Deputy Administrator. I don’t try and provide the same information that comes out of the Office of Public Affairs or other parts of the Agency.
2. Rob La Gatta: You seem to have the art of blogging down to a science – guest bloggers, short posts, links, etc. How did you learn how to adjust your writing style for the web?
Marcus Peacock: That’s nice of you to say. I’ve gotten a lot of good advice from the web team at EPA. As far as the writing, I still see room for improvement. Fortunately, my natural writing style fits this medium. Most people have the problem of writing too much in a first draft and then cut it back. I have the opposite problem. I tend to be too short, too clippy. So I often have to add words after my first cut. I’m more Hemingway, less Hawthorne.
3. Rob La Gatta: Today many Americans are untrusting of and cynical towards government organizations. You’ve wrote that you started the blog to “make what [the] EPA does more open to the public.” Do you think taking this approach of entering into discussions within the blogosphere could potentially bridge the gap between governing and governed?
Marcus Peacock: No.
That’s a first draft answer.
4. Rob La Gatta: Come November, you’ll be opening the blog up for direct comments from readers. What prompted this move, and how do you expect the blog to change – if at all – once commenting is allowed?
Marcus Peacock: I’ve wanted to be able to post comments from the beginning, but a lot of questions were raised regarding, for instance, who would moderate the comments and how much it would cost. Rather than tackle all that, I just wanted to get the blog up and running to see if it would even work, comments or no. Well, it does seem to work and be of interest, so now we’re able to focus on taking the next step and post comments.
I expect four things to happen. First, we’ll get a lot of comments and then it will die down to a lower steady state. Second, I think a lot of people will want to comment on EPA’s policies rather than the main topic of my blog, our operations. Third, I expect I will have to resist the temptation to spend more time responding to comments and questions. I’m already spending enough time on this compared to my other duties. Finally, and most importantly, I think comments will make it a richer and more interesting discussion, especially among commenters, and that can’t be anything but good.
5. Rob La Gatta:
In regards to the 2008 election: more than any election in America’s history, the Internet (and blogs in particular) is proving to be a powerful and important campaign tool. Do you think this web-based, user-influenced approach is the new face of politics? Will we ever see a presidential blog on the White House website?
Marcus Peacock: I don’t think it will be THE new face of politics, but it is an additional face of politics that will continue to grow. Like television before it and radio before that, politicians will increasingly figure out how to use this medium to communicate to the people. But it only joins other tools, it won’t replace them.
I will be very surprised if we don’t see a blog out of the White House at some point in the next few years, although I’ll be surprised if we see one by the President. It takes a fair amount of time and effort to create a worthwhile blog. I doubt the leader of the free world is going to have that kind of time.