A Process for Incorporating Comparative Risk into Environmental Policymaking in Louisiana

Abstract

The goal of Louisiana's 1990–1991 comparative risk project, also called the Louisiana Environmental Action Plan (LEAP), was to incorporate risk assessment into state environmental planning and policymaking. Scientists, government officials, and citizens were brought together to estimate the relative risk to human health, natural resources, and quality of life posed by 33 selected environmental issues. The issues were then ranked according to their relative estimated risks. It was hoped that this ranking of “comparative risks” would enable state policymakers to target the most important environmental problems and allocate scarce public resources more rationally and efficiently. As a result of the project, the governor issued an Executive Order forming a permanent Public Advisory Committee to continue this type of comparative risk assessment in Louisiana.

Refining and testing joint fact‐finding for environmental dispute resolution: Ten years of success

“…If the objective is simply to clarify technical uncertainty and package information in a useful form, as was the case with the TBT dialogue and the Louisiana Comparative Risk Project (Thompson et al, 1994), we suggest that the mediation team lead these steps working again in concert with the host institution:…”