From August 24 through August 26, 1999, nearly 60 social scientists and personnel of the Minerals Management Service (MMS) Environmental Studies Program (ESP) gathered in Park City, Utah, to discuss the program’s agenda for socioeconomic research. Their task was to review past and ongoing research and identify the issues that, in their view, were most pressing. As Larry Roberts, Chief of the MMS Environmental Studies Program, pointed out in his opening remarks, in terms of the quantity of research funded, the program has tripled in size in the past ten to twelve years. While one cannot predict the levels of funding the program will receive in years to come, he doubted that the need for a strong socioeconomic studies effort was likely to diminish. Roberts reinforced this point by observing that research indicates that outer continental shelf (OCS) oil and gas development has much greater long-term impact in the social and economic sphere than in the biological sphere. The socioeconomic component of the ESP has grown along with the rest of the program. The burgeoning of this research effort and the importance of the issues it addresses, Roberts said, made timely a gathering of minds to review its focus and direction.

In his opening remarks, Roberts called for an open and candid discussion among the MMS personnel, research contractors and academic social scientists present. He noted that while the studies program has limited funds, conference participants should not let that constrain their dialog or limit their suggestions for useful avenues of research. They should remember, however, that the program does not fund basic research but must confine itself to studies relevant to decisions regarding lease sales and permits for oil and gas development activities.

Roberts posed several broad questions for conference participants to keep in mind:

• Is the studies program properly focused?
• Is it doing relevant research?
• Is it making the most of opportunities to conduct studies that have applications to more than one of the program’s three geographic regions?
• Is it making the most of opportunities to leverage funding by collaborating with academic and business organizations?

Roberts also stressed the importance of mitigating the social and economic impacts of oil and gas development and the need to clarify the responsibilities of the MMS in this regard. He asked conference participants to devote some of their energy to considering what is known about how to mitigate social and economic impacts.

Rodney Cluck, Environmental Studies Program Social Scientist, in his opening remarks, seconded Roberts’ call for seeking common research interests among the regions, whether conceptual or methodological. He also noted the importance of linking macro-level issues, such as industry trends or public policy shifts, with micro-level concerns, such as the social constructions of reality and values that inform and affect life in communities.

The conference owed much of its success to the variety of perspectives represented. Research contractors and university faculty mixed with MMS personnel from across the country, and social scientists with a wide variety of specialties brought their perspectives to bear on MMS research activities. The result was rich and lively discussion in which conference participants raised dozens of socioeconomic issues for the further attention of the ESP. The conference was not intended, however, to produce a comprehensive list of topics for socioeconomic research or a definitive description of the socioeconomic component of the ESP. Rather, it contributes the perspectives of the distinctive group assembled in Park City to the larger process of planning the ESP's research agenda and developing its National Strategic Plan. (The latter, which is updated annually, identifies ESP programmatic directions for the coming two to four years. The planning process includes preparing Annual Studies Plans (ASPs) in each region. In preparing their ASPs, the regions solicit ideas for studies not only from within the MMS but also from a broad range of interested parties outside the agency, including non-profit organizations, private sector groups, environmental activists, scientific experts and state and local government entities.)

To provide essential background for considering the results of conference discussions, the report begins with a description of the legal mandate for MMS environmental, including socioeconomic research and a description of the activities of the conference. The next section summarizes the outcomes of the conference proceedings, providing a synopsis of the issues identified, and a summary of observations on the proceedings offered by two members of the Environmental Studies Program’s Scientific Committee. The following section presents more detailed descriptions of the issues identified by conference participants; this section constitutes the bulk of the report.

Appendices contain written versions of the presentations made on the first day of the conference (Appendix A), background descriptions of the MMS socioeconomic studies effort in each of its three geographic regions (Appendix B) and the text of an MMS document outlining the nature and purpose of applied social science in the MMS (Appendix C).