Breakout Session #2 - Public Incentives vs. Market Forces

Chair:
Craig Schiffries, Director of Science Policy and Senior Scientist, National Council for Science and the Environment

Discussants:
Bruce Babbitt, United States Secretary of the Interior, 1993-2000
Richard Doege, Director of Research, Pioneer Institute for Public Policy, Northwestern University
Tom Donlan, Editor, Barron's Financial Newspaper
Mindy Lubber, President, Coalition for Environmentally Responsible Economies (CERES)

Click here for information on the Apollo Energy Plan

Bruce Babbitt biography
[Bruce Babbitt is the author of Cities in the Wilderness, published by Island Press.  For further information about the book, to request additional review copies, or to arrange an interview with Mr. Babbitt, please contact Roger Stephenson 603 772 7784 r-stephenson@comcast.net ]

Bruce Babbitt served as U.S. Secretary of the Interior from 1993 to 2001, as Governor of Arizona from 1978 to 1987, and as Attorney General of Arizona from 1975 to 1978.

Mr. Babbitt is the son of a northern Arizona ranching family and was exposed to Arizona’s cultural and natural heritage from an early age.  His father had helped to found the Arizona Wildlife Federation and the Arizona Game Protective Association. 

With degrees in geology, geophysics, and law, Bruce Babbitt was elected to statewide office on his first foray into elective politics in Arizona at the age of 36.  In 1978 he became governor, was twice reelected to that office and served nine years in all.  In 1988, Babbitt was a candidate for the presidency of the United States and from 1988-1993 he practiced law and served as head of the League of Conservation Voters.

As Secretary of the Interior from 1993-2001, Babbitt was perhaps the best-qualified person ever to hold that position. He combined experience and enthusiasm with a deep commitment to environmental protection and restoration.  He tackled some of the most complex and controversial issues in public land management, resulting in long overdue reforms to mining, grazing, and endangered species law, and the protection of millions of acres of federal land from development through the designation of several national monuments. He used his skills as an effective public advocate and teacher to counter the inevitable criticism from political opponents, and he was instrumental in defeating the environmental rollback propositions of the Republican’s 1994 manifesto, Contract with America.

Among the highlights of his tenure are:
• Bringing peace to California’s water wars with the historic Bay Delta accord;
• Shaping the old growth forest plan in the Pacific Northwest;
• Drafting interagency plans to restore the ecosystem of South Florida, the Everglades and Florida Bay, creating the largest environmental restoration project in history;
• Helping to enact the massive California Desert Protection Act, the largest land protection bill ever enacted in the lower 48 states;
• Forging new legislation for protection of The National Wildlife Refuges;
• Returning entrance fees and concessions back into the National Parks that generated them;
• Helping to preserve the incomparable old growth Headwaters Forest; and
• Negotiating the largest state-federal land swap in the history of the lower 48 states in order to create the two-million-acre Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument and other parks in Utah.

Babbitt’s other restoration actions include being the first Interior Secretary to restore fire to its natural role in the wild and to tear down dams, restoring rivers flowing into the Atlantic and the Pacific. He was personally involved in demonstrating catch and release programs for endangered trout and salmon to highlight how restoring native fish habitat restores economies.

At the end of his term, he provided recommendations to President Clinton which led to the creation of 21 new monuments protected under the Antiquities Act, resulting in several million acres of spectacular resources on federal land coming under new conservation management.

Richard Doege began his career as economist for Price Waterhouse.  While at Price Waterhouse, he assisted in the reorganization of the outdoor advertising industry to comply with new environmental standards.  Transferring toMexico City, he developed metrics to assure sustainable production from Mexico’s national forests.  His work was published in the Journal of Accountancy.  Beginning in 1976, as an executive with Control Data Corporation, he developed renewable energy technology for agriculture.  In the 1980s, as vice president of Meteor Communications Corporation, he delivered environmental technology to North Africa.  As a director of Pyro Industries from 1987 to 1998, he worked to develop renewable fuels for low-emission, domestic appliances.  Richard has served on many corporate boards.

Richard entered public service in 1998, as legislative counsel for natural resources and environment in the U.S. Congress.  He focused on Superfund, endangered species, energy, conservation, forests, fisheries, and climate change. 

From 2001 to 2004, Richard was affiliate fellow in Energy and Natural Resources at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University.  From 2004 to 2005, he was research director for the Pioneer Institute in Boston.  He is currently adjunct faculty in economics in the University of Maryland system.

Richard went to college at Northwestern University and to law school at Harvard.  He has M.B.A., M.P.A., and Ph.D. degrees.  He is a Northwestern University Regent.

Thomas G. Donlan, Editorial Page Editor of Barron's National Business and Financial Weekly, has been writing on business, finance and government for more than 20 years. Based in Washington, he writes a weekly opinion column on a wide variety of topics. He is the author of  Don't Count On It: Why Your Pension May Be In Jeopardy And How To Protect Yourself,  published October, 1994 by Simon & Schuster, and of  Supertech: How America Can Win The Technology Race, published 1991 by Business One Irwin. Mr. Donlan joined Barron's in 1979 as an associate editor in New York. He was Washington Editor from 1981 to 1991, and became Editor of the Editorial Page in 1992. He is a graduate of Hamilton College, Clinton, N.Y., as an English major, holds a master's degree in English Literature from Indiana University and attended Princeton University’s Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs on a one-year graduate school fellowship for journalists studying economics. 

Mindy S. Lubber is the President of Ceres, the leading U.S. coalition of investors and environmental leaders working to improve corporate environmental, social and governance practices. She also directs the Investor Network on Climate Risk (INCR), an alliance that coordinates U.S. investor responses to the financial risks and opportunities posed by climate change.

INCR activities include organizing the Institutional Investor Summit on Climate Risk at the UN Headquarters, hosting fiduciary training programs for pension fund trustees, producing research reports to improve investor understanding of climate risk, and coordinating engagement of its members with companies, money management firms, and policy makers.

Ms. Lubber has held leadership positions in government as the Regional Administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency; in the financial services sector as Founder, President and CEO of Green Century Capital Management, an investment firm managing environmentally screened mutual funds; in the private sector as the President of an environmental law and policy consulting group; and in the not-for-profit sector for more than a decade leading environmental and public interest law organizations, including the National Environmental Law Center, which she founded. She was the Senior Advisor and Communications Director to former Governor Michael Dukakis, and for a decade, held leadership positions with the Massachusetts Public Interest Research Group (MASSPIRG), including Chairwoman of the Board of Directors.

Ms. Lubber holds a Masters Degree in Business Administration.

Craig Schiffries is Director of Science Policy at the National Council for Science and the Environment.  He previously served as a Congressional Science Fellow on the staff of the United States Senate Judiciary Committee; Director of Government Affairs at the American Geological Institute; Director of the Board on Earth Sciences and Resources of the National Academy of Sciences / National Research Council; a visiting faculty member at Yale University; and a consultant with Monitor Company.  

Dr. Schiffries is Co-Chairman of the USGS Coalition, an alliance of 69 organizations united by a commitment to the continued vitality of the unique combination of biological, geological, hydrological and mapping programs of the U.S. Geological Survey.  He serves on the British Ambassador's Advisory Council for Marshall Scholarships and is Chairman of the Selection Committee in Washington, DC.  

Dr. Schiffries simultaneously earned his B.S. and M.S. degrees from Yale University, where was he was elected to Phi Beta Kappa, graduated summa cum laude, and double-majored in Geology and Geophysics and in Economics and Political Science.  He was a Marshall Scholar at Oxford University, where he earned an honors B.A. in Philosophy, Politics, and Economics.  He received a Ph.D. in Geology from Harvard University, where he held a fellowship from the Hertz Foundation.