Commission's Big Tent Committee backs guidance to clarify decision-making on complex issues

The Big Tent Committee reviewed and largely endorsed a new draft decision-making guidance designed to help commissioners and staff sequence and evaluate issues brought before the commission.

Morgan Carlson, the staff facilitator, presented a condensed guidance document that repackages prior question checklists into three focused buckets: identify the problem and objectives, identify essential supporting information, and assess areas of agreement and certainty. Morgan described the product as a tool to be used early in scoping topics so staff and commissioners can choose the appropriate level of decision support.

Commissioners responded positively. Commissioner Barbara Baker said a standard template for staff presentations would be useful and suggested an IRAC-like structure (issue, rule, analysis, conclusion) to make policy presentations clearer. Chair John Lemkoole said his analysis of recent votes showed "85% of our decisions are near unanimous," and argued the guidance should be used selectively for the more contentious items that require additional support.

Suggestions from commissioners included embedding the guidance into a template for presenters, flagging when external facilitation is required for highly contentious issues, and clarifying how the guidance dovetails with the commission's rules of procedure. Staff said they will continue iterating the draft with the agency's science-policy interface team and bring a revised product back for testing on a specific issue.