Press Release

Salt Lake City – After hearing from Western governors, top Bush administration officials and environmental leaders, nearly 500 participants in the Environmental Summit on the West II  rolled up their sleeves to develop recommendations for policy-makers on a diverse set of issues. Among the topics they  reported on today are conserving open lands, reducing wildfire risks and restoring forest ecosystem health, improving air quality, conserving species while assisting landowners, and expanding the use of renewable energy.

The summit, cosponsored by the Western Governors' Association and White House Council on Environmental Quality, is promoting the use of the Enlibra principles for environmental management. Those principles call for greater participation and collaboration in decision-making, focusing on outcomes rather than just programs, and recognizing the need for a variety of tools beyond regulation that will improve environmental management.  A copy of today’s recommendations is available on the WGA Web site at www.westgov.org/wga/initiatives/enlibra/summit2_rec.htm.

Gov. Jane Dee Hull of Arizona, WGA Chairman, said the Summit "is an opportunity to bring together diverse constituencies to build an understanding on a wide range of issues, resulting in environmental progress that meets the needs of our citizens while protecting our remarkable natural resources."

Govs. Mike Leavitt of Utah and John Kitzhaber of Oregon serve as WGA's lead governors for Enlibra.

"Enlibra is not a process. Enlibra is a philosophy," Leavitt said. "Our goals should be to double our environmental progress at half the cost. Our economic survival rests on that progress."

Kitzhaber said use of the Enlibra principles by communities, watersheds and regional organizations is growing. "It is an expression of sustainability of our environmental, economic and social resources in a way and at a rate for people to meet their needs of today without compromising future generations," Kitzhaber said.

On Thursday, participants heard from CEQ Chairman Jim Connaughton, Secretary of Interior Gale Norton and Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Christie Whitman.

Connaughton told Summit participants that his office was created at the same time as the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), and "CEQ will work on numerous collaborative approaches to improve our environmental stewardship in line with the eight Enlibra principles." As an example, he said NEPA should be a "living process."

Fred Krupp, Executive Director of Environmental Defense, offered a challenge to governmental leaders and summit participants to "act sooner, rather than later" in making environmental progress and suggested a three-pronged approach. He said when the potential loss of natural resources is at stake to remember they cannot be recovered. "Second, banish the trickster of polarization…and third, open the frontiers of innovation. Not only technology, but public policy needs innovation," Krupp said.

During a luncheon address Thursday, Whitman signed a proposed revision to the agency's Regional Haze Rule to incorporate a plan developed by the Western Regional Air Partnership to reduce sulfur dioxide (SO2) emissions from large industrial sources in the West. The proposed program will use voluntary measures to reduce industrial SO2 emissions by more than 40 percent from 1990 levels by the year 2018. The proposal includes a backstop market-trading program, if the voluntary program is unable to reach targeted reductions.

Secretary Norton concluded Thursday's events with a dinner speech. She addressed many of the topics Summit participants are exploring, including efforts to reduce hazardous fuels to reduce fire risks. She also discussed on-the-ground conservation efforts by "citizen conservationists," and President Bush's proposal to provide $100 million in grants under his Cooperative Conservation Initiative.

Whether we call the concept cooperative conservation, or new environmentalism, or Enlibra - we are all recognizing that we can accomplish more through cooperation than conflict," Norton said.

The Summit concludes today at noon, after policy-makers receive recommendations for making progress on several fronts. Breakout sessions include:

· species conservation while assisting landowners in maintaining working landscapes;
· meeting growing and competing demands for water;
· expanding the use of renewable energy resources;
· cooperative siting of interstate energy infrastructure;
· reducing wildland fire risks to communities and the environment while restoring forest ecosystem health;
· industrial environmental innovation: value for the community, globe and bottom line;
· assessing Western perspectives on multi-pollutant proposals for utilities and carbon dioxide strategies;
· successful partnerships and new tools to conserve open lands; and
· coal bed methane development.

The Western Governors' Association is an independent, nonprofit organization representing the governors of 18 states and three U.S.-Flag islands in the Pacific. Through their Association, the Western governors identify and address key policy and governance issues in natural resources, the environment, human services, economic development, international relations and public management.

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