1) to assess and rank environmental threats to human health , ecological health, and social welfare;
2) to critique the risk-ranking model and explore other models for environmental protection and priority-setting, outlining their values and their implications;
3) to incorporate public input in the discussion of the diverse issues that contribute to environmental priority-setting; and
4) to seek consensus among the many perspectives and identify those issues for which there is a lack of consensus.

Component 1 - Rank environmental threats
Component 2 - Critique the risk-ranking model and evaluate other models
Component 3 - Integrate the results of Component 1 and Component 2 into recommendations to California Environmental Protection Agency (Cal/EPA)

The ranking took place during Component 1. During this component, the Human Health, Social Welfare, and Ecological Health Committees collected and analyzed data relative to their respective environmental issues and constructed initial environmental topic area rankings.

All of the above stakeholder groups had representatives on at least one of the Human Health, Social Welfare, and Ecological Health Committees. The General Public were provided the opportunity to participate through a series of three regional roundtable discussions to discuss environmental priorities and the decision-making process. These discussions were coordinated by the Education Committee during Component 2 of the project.