CivicGreen Policy: Designing for Democracy

We report on important policy and program designs at all levels of the federal system in the U.S. that seek to engage ordinary people in civic work, coproduction, and inclusive and just problem solving for sustainable and resilient communities.

In May 2022, we convened scholars and practitioners from multiple sectors to review innovative models and to explore policy designs that could leverage innovation at scale over the following decades. Special thanks to the American Institute of Architects for hosting this 2-day national workshop.

See our report, Civic Engagement in American Climate Policy: Collaborative Models (October 2022).The biographies of our core group of 41 participants and 25 other contributors can be found in Appendix A. An extensive list of books, articles, toolkits, strategic plans, case studies, and the like can be found in Appendix B, many with online links.

A forthcoming book by our editor-in-chief builds upon further research among these and many other scholars and practitioners: Carmen Sirianni, Renewable Civic Energy: Engagement and Policy for a Climate Resilient America (Rutgers University Press, 2025).

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On our Policy page we also host discussions and debates on these and similar issues.

We link to proposals and programs that might be primarily about regulatory reform or infrastructure investment, but have also signaled a role for community engagement and public participation (with short notations on these).

In their essay, “Policy Tools and Democracy,” Steven Rathgeb Smith and Helen Ingram provide a wide ranging analysis of how policy tools across various policy arenas can enable responsible citizenship, social capital, and democratic deliberation, yet are not without conundrums. There are no certain strategies; the devil is in the details and the fruitful mixes and hybrid forms we might design.

To make suggestions, email our editor-in-chief: carmensirianni511@gmail.com

Policy Designs

Portland Clean Energy Community Benefits Fund (PCEF)

Building upon robust engagement at the neighborhood level for several decades, as well as early climate action planning, the city council unanimously adopted the Portland Clean Energy Community Benefits Fund (PCEF) on September 27, 2023. The fund will invest $750 million (since expanded by $300 million) in a range of sustainability and climate justice projects over five years (2023-2028), with considerable community and stakeholder engagement in the development of a detailed strategy.

The policy design developed a robust set of guiding principles: community powered, justice driven, democratically accountable, and with multiple climate benefits. These principles were based on neighborhood and environmental justice organizing, as well as a vigorous ballot campaign among groups such as Portland Audubon, Portland NAACP, Oregon Sierra Club, and 350PDX, resulting in 65 percent voter approval.

For details, see:

Portland Bureau of Planning and Sustainability, About PCEF.

Portland Bureau of Planning and Sustainability, Climate Investment Plan: Portland Clean Energy Community Benefits Fund (PCEF) Climate Investment Plan, Full Draft (May 2023),

Adriana Voss-Andreae, Template for Building a City Green New Deal: The Portland Clean Energy Fund (updated 2022).

California Marine Life Protection Act

The Marine Life Protection Act (MLPA) was passed in 1999 as a framework for collaborative conservation for 124 protected places along the entire California coast, amounting to a network of 852 square miles that allowed for larval flow among them to encourage ocean life replenishment. The policy design included state and regional deliberative forums among diverse stakeholders, such as conservation groups, commercial and recreational fishermen, tribes, port representatives, state and federal agencies. It also welcomed a philanthropic partnership to complement state investment, including funding for democratic deliberation. The design provided opportunities for ongoing relational and collaborative work, as well as creative tools for blending marine ecology with local and Indigenous knowledge, especially MarineMap.

For further detail and analysis, see:

Steven Lewis Yaffee, Beyond Polarization: Public Process and the Unlikely Story of California’s Marine Protected Areas (Washington, DC: Island Press, 2020).

California Ocean Protection Council, The California Collaborative Approach: Marine Protected Areas Partnership Plan (December 2014).

Amanda R. Cravens, “Negotiation and Decision Making with Collaborative Software: How MarineMap ‘Changed the Game’ in California’s Marine Life Protection Act Initiative,” Environmental Management 57 (2016): 474-497.

Hawk Rosales and the Baum Foundation, Stewards of the Wild Sea: North Coast Tribal Leadership Protecting Our Ocean Wilderness (InterTribal Sinkyone Wilderness Council, 2013).

National Environmental Education Act (NEEA)

After an earlier law was rescinded under President Ronald Reagan (1981-1989), the 101^st Congress passed NEEA in 1990 and it was signed into law by President George H.W. Bush (1989-1993), with the full support of William Reilly, administrator of EPA, where the new Office of Environmental Education was housed. This law has provided resources for the development of environmental education (EE) in a wide array of settings, such as schools, communities, youth associations, and national environmental groups (National Audubon Society, National Wildlife Federation).

NEEA policy design provides partnership incentives, funding resources, and administrative support among a consortium of EE organizations and state associations to enable training across the field, including on EE Guidelines for Excellence. The National Environmental Education and Training Program, authorized by the Act, has been the organizational vehicle for this, with leadership and program design rotating every five years or so. The North American Association for Environmental Education (NAAEE) – which includes individual and institutional members across the field – has led the past two programs (ee360 and ee360+).

Along with professional scientific and educational standards, civic engagement and hands-on stewardship have become a core part of many EE approaches, and NAAEE has also developed guidelines for excellence to promote collaborative and grassroots work.

Several other components of NEEA policy design have been important to the growth of the field, especially the National Environmental Education Advisory Council (NEEAC) and the National Environmental Education Foundation (NEEF).

NEEA has achieved much over the past decades, though it has been underfunded and sometimes under political attack. Climate education remains contentious in many states and school districts.

National Environmental Education Act, Public Law 101-619, November 16, 1990.

David M. Bearden, National Environmental Education Act of 1990: Overview, Implementation, and Issues for Congress (Washington, DC: Congressional Research Service, August 2006).

National Environmental Education Advisory Council (NEEAC), 2015 Report to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Administrator.

North American Association for Environmental Education, Community Engagement: Guidelines for Excellence (Washington, DC, 2017).

National and Community Service Act and AmeriCorps

This 1990 act, as amended in 1993 and 2009, established the framework for AmeriCorps and various service and conservation corps within the Corporation for National and Community Service. Ambitious proposals for a Civilian Climate Corps have attempted to build upon this institutional foundation, as did President Biden’s more modest American Climate Corps.

The policy design of AmeriCorps incorporates some components of previous national service programs (especially VISTA), but accommodates the complex array of nonprofit, state, and local organizations that have developed partnerships to accomplish a wide array of community and national projects, including conservation, disaster response, and climate resilience.

Most AmeriCorps programs are run through state service commissions, appointed by governors. Some national nonprofits (City Year, Teach for America, YouthBuild) have affiliates and projects in multiple locations. Conservation and climate corps exist in many forms at the local and state level, as well as in a variety of federal agencies, such as the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and USDA Forest Service, enabled by the Public Lands Corps Act of 1993.

The Corps Network serves as the national association of 150 or so corps. Its network helped shape AmeriCorps design from the beginning, as well as recent efforts to expand climate and conservation corps.

AmeriCorps is designed as “policy for democracy” to the extent that it builds civic and nonprofit capacity to help solve public problems, enables partnerships with public agencies, and develops the civic skills, social capital, and public ethos for democratic engagement and leadership that can extend well beyond service projects.

For further details and analysis, see:

Conservation and Climate Corps in our CivivGreen Glossary.

Melissa Bass, The Politics and Civics of National Service: Lessons from the Civilian Conservation Corps, VISTA, and AmeriCorps (Washington, DC: Brookings Press, 2013). CivicGreen Bookshelf for a full review.

Peter Frumkin and JoAnn Jastrzab, Serving Country and Community: Who Benefits from National Service? (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2010)

National and Community Service Act of 1990. (Public Law 101–610, Nov. 16, 1990, 104 Stat. 3127) (42 U.S.C. 12501 et seq.) [As Amended Through P.L. 111–13, Enacted April 21, 2009]

Environmental Justice Collaborative Problem Solving (EJCPS) and Community Action for a Renewed Environment (CARE): Two Models at EPA

These two programs at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) emerged as a response to rising claims of environmental justice (EJ) communities for greater voice in local problem solving. Communities wanted to see tangible results that improved the lives of children and families, health and environment, while also creating institutional capacities for tackling further challenges down the line. Both programs served as models for various grant programs in the Inflation Reduction Act (August 2022).

Critics have argued that such grant programs largely demobilize EJ activism and are counterproductive. We thus need to appreciate their designs more fully.

The Trump administration is poised to eviscerate such programs, but they will remain important as models for future policy design.