Plenary Session Transcripts

• Economic Development and Commerce (EDC) - challenges, opportunities, and strategies in the 21st Century for states with respect to trade
• Human Resources (HR) - the graying of America: seniors giving back; and teaching values and valuing teachers
• Natural Resources (NR) - benefits and risks of applying biotechnology to crops; and the Administration's view on national energy policy
• Other Governors' Sessions - Smart Growth in Action: New Tools for Helping Communities Plan Their Future; and Building Better e-Government: Tools for Transformation
• 2000-01 Chair Maryland Gov. Parris Glendening's Initiative - Where Do We GROW From Here?
• Plenary Session Discussion Subjects - Sustainable development/growth management; and the future of higher education

Discussion focused on "working land" conservation programs, which had been the subject of a report called Private Lands, Public Benefits issued with input from NGA's Center for Best Practices. A key point of the report was that policymakers needed to recognize the environmental superiority of "working land conservation" programs over "land retirement programs" or regulation.

Theodore Roosevelt IV, the great-grandson of President Theodore Roosevelt, who had called the Governors together for the first time in 1908 to discuss conservation, talked about the apparent conflict between "conservation" and "private land." As Chairman of the League of Conservation Voters, he emphasized that whatever conflict existed needed to be resolved, because public lands had simply been overtaxed beyond their productive and ecological capacity. Current protected lands accounted for only five percent of the land in the lower 48 states, and one-fourth of that land was on the least productive soil while nearly one-half was in the highest elevations. At the same time, 80 percent of the habit requirements for most species existed on non-federal land and more than 60 percent of listed species were found principally on private lands. Private lands also served to protect one of the world's most prized and rare resources: water. Yet there was currently no market value for the ecological services provided by the good stewardship of private land resources. Roosevelt said that it was unfair to ask ranching, farming, and timber communities to carry a societal burden of such great importance without providing them with support.

Governor Jim Geringer of Wyoming asked Roosevelt how he recommended addressing the issue of land in the West, which was largely under public control. Roosevelt responded that environmentalists were concerned about how well westerners would manage their lands. But he emphasized that the long adversarial relationship between environmentalists and the West needed to change.

Governors also delved into the issue of sustaining state university systems. Peter Harkness of Governing Magazine noted that between the mid-1980s and the mid-1990s, undergraduate enrollment had shot up by 30 percent in the southern states, 17 percent in the West, and 15 percent in the Southwest. This trend was expected to continue, with projections of a 20-percent rise in the number of high school graduates between the year 2000 and 2012. The effect was a tremendous demand for space, some of which was being dealt with through year-round operations. In addition, on-line education was burgeoning. But while higher education promised to help close the income gap in the United States, educational costs were rising as state revenues were falling, a serious concern that Governors needed to address.

Other speakers on higher education urged that schools partner with businesses to help secure funds necessary to keep up to date with new technology as well as to ensure that students were prepared for the kinds of jobs that were available in their communities. It was also emphasized that states needed to view educational expenditures not as operational expenses but as capital investments that would ultimately bring positive returns.

In closing the session on higher education, Governor Glendening referred to the results of a survey that had been published in the Wall Street Journal, revealing that top CEOs for emerging technology companies rated "workforce quality" as the number one factor in their decision about where to locate and invest—ahead of accessibility to major research institutions, quality of life, and tax/cash incentives.

Selected Policy Positions Adopted:
(1) Committing Governors to reducing the growth of per-capital solid waste generation, supporting the inclusion of "composting" in the list of source reduction efforts for which voluntary standards should be set, and supporting source reduction efforts in all sectors—residential, commercial, and industrial; (2) calling on Congress to address the lack of assistance available to agricultural businesses affected by adverse weather conditions; (3) emphasizing the importance of developing a comprehensive national energy policy for the 21^st Century; (4) outlining the need for a national drought policy that would incorporate a comprehensive drought preparedness plan with disaster relief programs; and (5) calling for maximum flexibility for states to design state-specific State Children's Health Insurance Programs (SCHIP).