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Panel to discuss whether environmental industry is 'essential or obsolete'

The U.S. Department of Commerce's Office of Technology Policy and the School of Forestry and Environmental Studies will sponsor a roundtable discussion titled "The Environmental Industry: Essential or Obsolete?" at 10 a.m. on Thursday, Oct. 22, in the General Motors Room at 55 Hillhouse Ave. The event is free and open to the public.

The roundtable discussion is intended to provide an opportunity for leaders in business, government, the environment and academia to discuss U.S. environmental industry competitiveness and the future of environmental policy. Discussion will focus on the Commerce Department's new report, "Meeting the Challenge: The U.S. Environmental Industry Faces the 21st Century," which analyzes the environmental industry and highlights the declining demand for environmental improvement. The report describes the need to create market drivers for continuous environmental improvement; to merge environmental and economic policies in the quest for sustainability; and to coordinate and strengthen public/private partnerships to foster environmental exports and enhance the global competitiveness of the U.S. environmental industry.

Kelly Carnes, deputy assistant secretary in the Commerce Department's Office of Technology Policy will be among the participants in the roundtable discussion. Appointed by President Clinton in 1993, Carnes is the highest ranking woman in the Commerce Department's technology administration. For more than four years, she has served as a key point person for addressing technology issues that impact U.S. economic growth and competitiveness, and she frequently represents the Clinton administration in public forums, roundtables and town meetings across the nation.

The Office of Technology Policy, which Carnes directs, is the federal government's primary advocate for technological innovation. Using an "industry as customer" focus, this office works in partnership with the private sector to identify barriers preventing the rapid development of technology, develop federal policies that promote innovation and ensure that industry's views are reflected in federal technology policy.

Other panelists will include R. Darryl Banks, former senior fellow, World Resources Institute; Don Deieso, chief executive officer of EA International Inc. and co-chair of the CEO Coalition to Advance Sustainable Technology; Cheryl W. Grisé, senior vice president and general counsel of Northeast Utilities; and John DeVillars, regional administrator for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. The panel will be moderated by Marian Chertow, director of the industrial environmental management program at the forestry school.

Questions from the audience will be encouraged in this open forum. For more information, contact Tammie Grice at (202) 482-1581 or grice@ta.doc.gov; or Janet Testa, 432-6953 or janet.testa@yale.edu.

Copies of the report "Meeting the Challenge: The U.S. Environmental Industry Faces the 21st Century" will be available at the roundtable or through the Publication Line, (202) 482-3037. It can also be accessed online at www.ta.doc.gov/reports. For technical assistance, contact Cheryl Mendonza, (202) 482-8321, or Jon Paugh, (202) 482-6101 at the Commerce Department; or report authors Grant Ferrier, Environmental Business International Inc., (619) 295-7685, ext. 15, and David Berg, Commerce Department, (202) 482-1581.