Plenary Session Transcripts

Governors Attending:

Guests:

Discussion Subjects:

• Agriculture (AG) - prospective 1982 farm legislation; the impact of emerging food technologies on American agriculture; report of the Agricultural Export Task Force; and report of the Subcommittee on Range Resource Management
• Community and Economic Development (CED) - federalism and economic development: the changing state role; and state issues in capital formation and business development
• Criminal Justice and Public Protection (CJ) - state and federal efforts to control violent crime; problems facing American prisons; new state initiatives in crime control; new directions for the Federal Emergency Management Agency; and shared cost approach to the cleanup of Three Mile Island
• Energy and Environment (EE) - Clean Air Act and regulatory reform initiatives; and pending environmental and energy legislation
• Executive Committee (Exec) - update on the International Year of Disabled Persons; review of the status of the Governors' agenda to restore balance to the federal system
• Executive Management and Fiscal Affairs (EM) - federal regulatory reform initiatives; and review of FY83 federal budget
  Human Resources (HR) - state actions to facilitate implementation of block grants; regulations and technical assistance from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services
• International Trade and Foreign Relations (ITFR) - Administration's international tourism policy; reports of the Subcommittee on State Initiatives and the Subcommittee on Administration and Congressional Initiatives; report of the Task Force on North American Cooperation; and trends in the international economy
• Transportation, Commerce and Technology (TCT) - user financing for transportation (including Administration and congressional views); and report of the Task Force on Technological Innovation
• Other Governors' Sessions - Task Force on Refugees; Task Force on Technological Innovation; special work session on block grant implementation; special work session on management government effectively at a time of reduced resources; and meeting of the Task Force on North American Cooperation
• Plenary Session Discussion Subject - Restoring balance to the federal system: next steps on the Governors' agenda

Points of Interest:

Association chairman George Busbee of Georgia remarked that there had been an erosion of fundamental state sovereignty and a confusion of roles and responsibilities among various levels of government. He recommended four items of focus for the Governors in the coming year: (1) initiating a process to sort out which level of government should perform which functions; (2) seeking a return to the states of revenue sources preempted during federal expansion; (3) ensuring that newly secured federal block grants to the states were implemented in an orderly and responsible manner; and (4)establishing a closer working relationship between state and local government officials. With respect to the first item, Governor Busbee argued that states should move toward assuming responsibility in areas where federal involvement had been recent, limited in scope, and directed to special needs that states had previously ignored but were no longer overlooking. These areas included education, criminal justice, transportation, and community development. The federal government should move toward responsibility for income maintenance programs under which guaranteed minimum support was established nationwide.

Vice President George H.W. Bush addressed the Governors, telling them of President Reagan's success in securing congressional enactment of his budget and tax recommendations. Regulatory relief would now be a focus of the Administration, and the Vice President commented that a list of prospective areas of reform sent by the Governors to the Administration's Task Force on Regulatory Relief promised to be helpful. He also emphasized that the Administration's philosophy was to stop unnecessary expansion of federal programs and spending and to give greater responsibility to state and local governments.

Memorable Quotes:

Regarding restoration of balance to the federal system, the association's chair, Governor George Busbee of Georgia, said: "...we cannot simply stand by and watch the states slowly become a political museum piece of interest only to historians, to map makers and sentimental songwriters, and perhaps congressmen once every ten years...state and local governments have been coerced and cajoled by the carrot and stick of categorical grants. They have been flatly commanded by edict to become involved in implementing federal programs of a purely national character, often because the federal government, with all of its taxing power and printing presses, does not have the resources to carry out its own overambitious agenda."

Vice President George H.W. Bush said: "Those who look to the federal government for the creation of more and more federal programs, those who seek more and more federal spending and those who look to Washington to assume responsibility that rightly belongs to the state or local level will find themselves badly disappointed by the philosophy of government being pursued by this administration...To those state and local officials who viewed the administration's philosophical shift as an opportunity for greater responsibility, for greater achievement, for the chance to improve the qualify of life for all of our people, we say to them, "You're right."...the confidence of the people is...up...This confidence is relatively new after a very, very troubled decade. At the end of the last administration, the Gallup organization asked the people if they were satisfied with the way things were going in the United States. Seventy-eight percent said that they were not satisfied. That I think was part of what contributed to this mandate for change...This President, I think we would all agree, Republicans or Democrats, has astonished Washington simply because he is doing what he promised the American people that he would do during the campaign."

Selected Policy Positions Adopted:
(1) Urging Congress and the Administration to maintain and strengthen existing block grants, to approve new block grants in such areas as highways, airport development, energy, housing, and employment an training, and to develop proposals to return revenue sources to the states to pay for their increased responsibilities; (2) calling for broad guidelines from the federal government to the states for industrial development bonds, with states retain primary responsibility for defining appropriate public purposes of the bonds; (3) asking the Federal Emergency Management Agency to work with the states on development of a flexible cost sharing formula for disaster aid and a system of negotiated cost sharing for multiple or catastrophic events; (4)seeking the commitment of adequate federal funds to ensure the provision of modern equipment to the National Guard and the provision of adequate resources for the Guard to initiate recruiting and retention programs in order for it to maintain its authorized level of full-time personnel; (5) calling for capping the escalating penalty tax for states with outstanding federal loans for unemployment insurance provided the states were taking adequate steps to ensure solvency of their own state trust funds; (6) calling for federal tax incentives to spur mandatory or voluntary conversions from oil and gas to coal; and (7) seeking support for long-range limits on federal contributions for wastewater treatment construction programs in return for a streamlining of the federal project review procedures and maximum flexibility for the states in targeting funds to state priority water problems.