Understanding Public Policy Making through the Work of Committees: Utilizing a Student-Led Congressional Hearing Simulation

Abstract

In an effort to help students better understand the complexity of making environmental policy and the role of policy actors in this process, we developed a mock congressional hearing simulation. In this congressional hearing, students in two environmental policy courses take on the roles of members of Congress and various interest groups to examine the issue of hydraulic fracturing (or fracking). Here, we describe the details of the mock congressional hearing and discuss some of our reflections about the simulation. Our students have responded well to the inclusion of this simulation and we have found it very effective in achieving the learning outcomes for the students. We argue that this simulation could be easily replicated in various policy courses on a variety of topics.

Keywords:

• fracking
• environmental policy
• mock congressional hearing
• simulation

Supplemental data

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed at www.tandfonline.com/upse.

Notes

Please keep in mind that the congressional hearing is a semester-long project for each course and that students also have additional requirements such as exams, readings, and discussions to understand U.S. environmental policy more broadly.

Fracking refers to the process in which a mix of water, chemicals, and, oftentimes, sand are injected into wells to fracture rock formations and allow natural gas to be captured. With fracking, oil and gas developers can reach these resources in much deeper rock formations. Moreover, the use of horizontal drilling allows the developer to access a much larger pool of natural gas. After the process is complete, much of the fracking fluid—also known as frack water—returns to the surface as produced water that generally contains additional natural minerals and metals as well as the original chemicals used in the process. It is worth noting that the mixture of chemicals and other substances to dislodge the rock formations is generally considered proprietary information—much to the chagrin of fracking opponents—and disclosure of the mixture’s contents is not required by law. This produced water is stored in tanks or pits then treated, disposed of, or recycled back into the process. In some cases, it is injected back into the ground, and in other cases it is treated by wastewater treatment facilities (EPA 2013). The use of hydraulic fracturing has increased over time because the technology has improved, making the extraction of shale gas rather cost effective.

The layout of the group contract included a statement from the instructor explaining that students were to complete the following contract, collectively as a group. However, failure to comply with the terms of the contract would result in the expulsion of a group member and thereby an alternative assignment would occur or zero points for the congressional hearing, depending upon the time in which an incident occurred in a given semester. Contract items for consideration for each group included the following: (a) group goal to successfully complete the project; (b) group strategy in order to stay on task; (c) parameters about how the group will complete individual tasks; (d) a statement on how the group will avoid conflict; and (e) statement on how the group will encourage participation from all group members.

It was crucial for the instructor to be forthright about the timeline for the group representing members of Congress. While this group assignment entailed far less research than the other stakeholder groups, the timeline was compressed for them to digest different and usually competing policy options and to prepare for the mock hearing.

This group did an excellent job digesting and synthesizing the white papers and turning around response memos. It is imperative to prepare this group for the timeline they face. As more and more students seem to leave assignments until the last minute anyway, this did not seem to be too much of a challenge for the group representing Congress.

The instructor provided a segment from C-Span so that students could visualize the processes of a real-life congressional hearing on the environment. This was provided in class and through the college’s online course supplement Desire 2 Learn (D2 L) in which all students are enrolled in and that is readily available for all students to watch. D2 L allows for the instructor to monitor which students watched the hearing in order to ensure that this task was completed.

Student groups fill out a sheet that they write their name and group members. Next to each name, including their own, they circle A, B, C, or D to indicate the grade. I average the student input and combine this with their simulation grade.