Plenary Session Transcripts

• Agriculture (AG) - review of prospective 1981 farm legislation; and report of the Subcommittee on Range Resource Management
• Community and Economic Development (CED) - state-federal initiatives in response to the housing crisis; and states and small business
• Criminal Justice and Public Protection (CJ) - delinquency prevention programs; current status of the National Guard and the "Portland Resolves;" update on the NGA project on comprehensive emergency management; and NGA policy on rural criminal justice
• Executive Committee (Exec) - Task Force on Low-Level Radioactive Waste Disposal report; and emergency management lessons of the Mount St. Helens disaster
• Executive Management and Fiscal Affairs (EM) - review of federalism reform action agenda; review of the FY82 federal budget and the Administration's federalism reform initiatives; and report on state spending and taxing limitations
• Human Resources (HR) - trauma and emergency medical services: the outlook for the future; and discussion of the findings of the National Commission on Unemployment Compensation
• International Trade and Foreign Relations (ITFR) - Administration's trade initiatives; and Caribbean-Central American policy initiatives
• Natural Resources and Environmental Management (NR) - review of proposed new comprehensive energy-environment policy positions; and the state role in energy/environmental policy
• Transportation, Commerce and Technology (TCT) - 1981 federal highway legislation from a state perspective; state highway finance: needs, marketing, and revenues; and state initiatives in highway finance
• Other Governors' Sessions - Food in the 1980s; state-federal strategies for economic stabilization; the state role in high speed intercity rail service; Subcommittee on Range Resource Management; presentation by the Education Commission of the States; and Human Resources Liaison Committee
• Plenary Session Discussion Subjects - Restoring balance to the federal system: an agenda for action; state initiatives to address the costs of health care; speech by U.S. Representative John B. Anderson; and the Governors’ energy policy: new directions for the 1980s

• Establish a commission that would devise a strategy to divide responsibilities between the federal government and state and local government; recommend legislation requiring estimates on the costs to state and local governments of new federal laws, policies, and programs; develop a system for ensuring flexibility in state/local administration of federal grants; and consolidate closely related grant-in-aid programs.
• Seek constitutional amendments to establish a sunset process for all domestic policy legislation and to give states equal power to initiate constitutional amendments.
• Require the federal government to work directly with states rather than bypassing them in favor of local governments.
• Use a regional approach to link the federal government to states.

Governors once again discussed ways of taming the rising costs of health care, and shared information on what they were doing to achieve savings in their own states. Speakers on the subject provided a variety of viewpoints. A representative of the American Medical Association (AMA) told Governors about a program called "Voluntary Effort" developed by the AMA, the American Hospital Association, and the Federation of American Hospitals to help contain costs. Dr. Marc Roberts, professor of health policy at the Harvard School of Public Health, talked of the need for effective regulatory programs to keep health care costs down. And Dr. Walter McClure, Director of the Health Policy Group of InterStudy, argued that the current health care system suffered the absence of market forces, in that neither the patient nor the provider of health care was rewarded for cost effectiveness.

Congressman John Anderson, independent candidate for President, made a presentation to the Governors in which he argued against Republican candidate Ronald Reagan's view that the solution to the nation's growing economic, environmental, and social problems was to repeal policies instituted under the New Deal. At the same time, he also rejected the return of a Democratic administration that he believed had shown little capacity for breaking new ground. Instead, he advocated an approach that he referred to as 'common sense in economics, common decency in social life, and plain dealing in government.' Plain dealing required consulting nations that most closely shared our traditions and interests, while common sense suggested that the United States should not expect those nations to blindly follow our lead. Moreover, the U.S. should provide encouragement and material support to less developed nations without the attachment of carrot-and-stick conditions.

In the midst of the Congressman's speech, a man later identified as Jose Calderon approached the plenary table and began hurling eggs. He was arrested and tried in U.S. District Court (Denver), convicted of assault on a Congressman, and sentenced in January 1981 to 30 days in jail.

During consideration of policy positions, Governors disagreed over how to respond to the wheat embargo that had been imposed on the Soviet Union in retaliation for the USSR's invasion of Afghanistan. Some Governors expressed the belief that the embargo was not having its desired effect, because the Soviets were able to meet their grain needs elsewhere. It was also argued that farm states suffered a disproportionate impact of the embargo. And some Governors felt that the embargo represented a reversal of traditional policy against taking action that brought humanitarian harm. The policy position that was adopted set strict conditions under which an embargo was justified, among which was that any costs of an embargo to on the United States must be shared equitably by the entire nation.

Governors also debated the question of whether the federal government should or should not have the power to intervene in state imposition of severance taxes on natural resources. Governors of states that depended on the receipt of natural resources from other states were concerned that without allowing for a federal interest in the issue, natural resource producing states could conceivably raise severance taxes to a point that caused resource prices to rise beyond what users could afford to pay. In the end, members agreed on language confirming the ultimate authority of states to impose severance taxes, but leaving open the potential for federal interest.

Governor David Treen of Louisiana said: "When the federal government starts dealing directly with the creatures of the states—the counties, the municipalities—we certainly have the seeds of the destruction of the federal system, and I think that ought to be condemned. The relationship should be between the states and the federal government, and we should end this direct relationship between the federal government and the creatures of the states."

Regarding rising health care costs, Marc Roberts of the Harvard School of Public Health said: "...consumers at the time that they confront health care consumption decisions don't pay the cost of those decisions. They have no reason not to ask for more and better, and providers have no reason not to provide it. As a result, we have had expansion and duplication of facilities, the construction of major new buildings, and in general an unrestrained health care armaments technology race. We have had more staff, more services and more devices...this rate of cost increase in my judgment is not likely to go away because of a voluntary effort...The real question is what percentage of the gross national product does the United States spend on health care costs relative to that of other advanced industrial societies and what do we get for that money. We tend to spend more than most other advanced nations on health care and we still have one of the highest infant and neonatal mortality rates and one of the less attractive rates of life expectancy. So it's not clear that we are getting returns for the money that we are spending..."

Representative John Anderson, who was an independent candidate for President in 1980, said: "...I do not believe that the so-called New Conservatism of Ronald Reagan or of the right wing that he represents provides [new answers]...They simply suggest that we repeal many of the policies that have come to be accepted many years ago under the rubric of New Deal legislation and that we return to the policies of some easier era. I believe very deeply that modern America cannot afford the politics of nostalgia and escape. We cannot repudiate the covenant that we have made among ourselves to help those who are in need, to provide security to the ill and the aged, and to protect the civil, social and economic rights of all our citizens. Nor do our citizens appear to be happy at the prospect of returning to power a Democratic administration that has shown so little capacity for breaking new ground, for providing genuine leadership. The outdated quarrel between liberalism and conservatism, which the two major parties seem now about to resume, has ceased to illuminate our most pressing public problems...what is my approach? I think it can be summed up very simply. In economics, common sense. In our social life, common decency. In government, plain dealing."

Charging that farm states bore a disproportionate burden of the cost to the United States of the wheat embargo that had been imposed on the Soviet Union in retaliation for the USSR's invasion of Afghanistan, Governor Charles Thone of Nebraska said: "I would like to offer that it's the United States farmers who have shared the full impact of that January 4^th embargo that was unilaterally imposed by President Carter...the aggregate income of the U.S. farmer will likely fall by one-third this year to around $22 billion, the sharpest single-year drop in more than fifty years."

Selected Resolutions Adopted:
(1) Supporting embargoes of sales to other nations only when such suspensions of sales clearly produce the intended effect on the embargoed nation, when embargoes are administered efficiently and effectively so as to minimize domestic cost, and when the costs of such policies are shared equitably by the entire nation; (2) expressing support for the International Year of Disabled Persons; (3) encouraging Governors and the states to take a special interest in the promotion of people-to-people programs between the United States and countries of Central America and the Caribbean through public institutions, private citizens, and businesses in the states; (4) encouraging Governors to promote systemwide planning ad coordination of criminal and juvenile justice services; (5) suggesting that in its development of rural policy, the Administration consider the problem of rural crime; (6) recommending a 90 percent federal share of the interstate resurfacing program and bridge replacement; (7) supporting: a guarantee of the right of states to determine at what state unemployment rate the national trigger for extended benefits would become effective; a phased increase in federal unemployemt taxes; and immediate action to remove state unemployment trust funds from the unified federal budget; and (8) emphasizing the traditional state role in imposing severance taxes and opposing federal interference in state setting of reasonable severance tax rates.