January 31, 1995

Summary Notes prepared by Jim Stewart, SCCED

Executive Summary

There were two events, the first was a national teleconference, sponsored by Renew America, with a panel in Washington, D.C. connected by satellite to 19 cities. The second was a local panel presentation and discussion with an audience at the California Polytechnic University in Pomona.

Moderator Deborah Potter explained the purpose of the teleconference and introduced the national panel members:

Jack Gibbons, White House Office of Science and Technology

Jacky Grimshaw, Center for Neighborhood Technology

Richard Barth, CIBA Chemical Corporation

George Becker, United Steelworkers of America

The panelists discussed how environmental regulations benefit workers, the community and the environment. They outlined examples of how environmental technologies have saved money and improved the bottom line for both businesses and governments.

In response to audience questions, they described the many job opportunities available in the environmental field. Expanding exports of our environmental technology will lead to many more jobs for Americans.

In response to a question on the impact on communities of color, the panel stressed the need for jobs in the inner city, as well as for the communities themselves to organize and raise the issue with state and federal legislatures.

Moderator Leroy Graymer, UCLA Extension, introduced the local panel members:

Steve Albright, Joint Powers Authority for March Air Force Base

Barry Sedlik, Southern California Edison Company

Freeman Allen, Claremont McKenna University

Steve Pontell, Center for the New West

John Sigsen, Oil, Chemical and Atomic Workers union

The panel members described Southern California as a good model for a location that balances the environment and the economy. There are 10,000 firms in California doing some environmental business, employing 120-180,000 people, with an annual gross income of $7-20 billion. The technologies prompted by our strict environmental regulations could make California a leader in the U.S. and internationally, providing many jobs. Environmental controls also promote tourism.

Major issues affecting expansion of environmental business are a lack of venture capital and uncertainty about the enforcement of regulations. There was also discussion of old rules, such as prohibiting electric golf carts on city streets, that need to be updated to promote a better environment.

Jobs and the Environment: A National Town Meeting

The national teleconference was opened by Moderator Deborah Potter (former CNN and CBS correspondent), who explained that Renew America is America's leading source for environmental solutions, working with community groups, environmental organizations, businesses, governmental leaders and civic activists involved in environmental improvement. Founded in 1979, it seeks out and promotes exemplary environmental programs to bring an understanding of environmental issues to everyone. It seeks environmental solutions and would honor 20 success stories by presenting the National Awards for Sustainability that evening.

She presented the purpose of the teleconference as surveying the issue of jobs and the environment, looking at the environmental benefits of environmental regulation, and analyzing economic development and environmental protection. She noted environmental protection can promote economic well-being, that those States with the best environmental protection seem to have the strongest economies. A key question is the trade off between environmental costs and benefits.

She introduced the panel members:

Jack Gibbons, Science Advisor to the President and Director, White House Office of Science and Technology

Jacky Grimshaw, Director of Transportation and Air Quality, Center for Neighborhood Technology

Richard Barth, Chairman, CIBA Chemicals; also member of the President's Council on Sustainable Development

George Becker, President, United Steelworkers of America; also member of the President's Council on Sustainable Development

Potter: Has there been a fundamental shift in the questions about jobs and the environment?

Barth: Yes, the focus has changed, consumers now want environmental friendly products, they see jobs are created by environmental protection programs.

Becker: The unions' goal has always been to protect workers' health. Their interest in environmental protection starts in the workplace, and goes beyond the workplace to protect their families and children. Environmental progress so far has been primarily from government intervention and workers insisting on a safe environment.

Grimshaw: The discussion of jobs vs. owls is no longer the issue. People care about their own health. The challenge now is education of the public to see that this approach is a win-win situation.

Potter: What is the approach of the Clinton Administration?

Gibbons: We try simultaneously for environmental quality and increased jobs and economic growth. In the early days of environmental protection, we saw a few industries shut down, but now people see the environmental industry is a major industry itself.

Becker: Some in industry say that environment protection will cost jobs, but our focus is both jobs and environment.

Barth: Yes, industry at first was pushed by government regulations, but I hope that most of industry is keeping pace with the environmental standards of the time, and some are moving ahead.

Potter: The easy decisions have been made. Now how do you respond when industry says it costs too much for more environmental protection?

Grimshaw: In Germany the government requires the manufacturer to be responsible for the product from birth to death. So BMW has designed a completely recyclable car. The government can give incentives to industry to do the right thing.

Gibbons: The responsibility of industry is to see that if you are smart about environmental protection, you also improve the bottom line. The best way is preventing pollution by process redesign.

Potter: What about exports? We export only 5% of the products of our environmental technology.

Gibbons: Yes, other countries' governments support the export of technology more than us.

Barth: Also, many American businessmen have been comfortable concentrating only on the US market because it is so huge.

Potter: We agree on the possibility of vast increase of jobs from export, but are there trade-offs for the current workers?

Becker: We do not use the term trade-offs. Working people are not going to trade their health willingly for jobs, unless the technology does not exist to protect them. Preventive technology is what we need to concentrate on for the year 2000 and beyond.

Grimshaw: A stress on prevention of pollution will create jobs.

Becker: We need involve the community in this issue, because industry is interested mainly in short term profits. We will have a balanced approach if we involve the community that surrounds the plant.

Potter: Will the money saved by environmental improvements really go into more jobs?

Barth: The companies that grow over the long term are those that reinvest, we reinvest 10% of our profits into research and development (R&D) and 10% into the education of employees. If companies do not do this, they will not prosper and survive.

Grimshaw: Some companies have moved operations to other countries to continue polluting practices, with results such as the disaster in Bopal, India.

Becker: In the U.S., we knew a lead smelter was dangerous years ago, but at that time there were no laws for us to control that. It is now a Superfund site and being cleaned up.

Barth: The companies that failed with the implementation of environmental standards have really failed economically because they mismanaged their affairs.

Gibbons: We need international standards of performance to keep a level playing field. We need public awareness behind any regulatory system.

Becker: In the maquiladores plants in Mexico, the US-owned plants went to the lowest common denominator and have produced much pollution.

Audience Question: What incentives are the best way to change business to move toward long term sustainability?

Gibbons: Make business more aware of the downstream costs of environmental pollution. For example, dumping out the back door will cost 100 times more to clean up later than to prevent at the beginning. Exercising environmental responsibility has an economic advantage because consumers are educated. The government can encourage this.

Grimshaw: For example, housewives posted in supermarkets the soaps that were destroying the Great Lakes and the manufacturers changed.

Gibbons: If we're smart, we can create jobs, have economic growth and protect the environment at the same time, by creating a public-private partnership. The Partnership for Sustainable Development is holding 30 workshops around the country. On Earth Day we will roll out a national environmental strategy. There is a book, Technology for Sustainable Development.

Barth: Industry doesn't look for subsidies directly, because they usually mask a lack of competitiveness. In the US the consumer is interested in more environmentally friendly products. For example, we now reclaim and reprocess our chemical drums, because it makes both good economic and environmental sense.

However, advanced technology is a 2-way sword, for example, high productivity in the fishing industry has almost destroyed our stocks of fish.

Grimshaw: Government can provide incentives to promote industries. However, Illinois subsidizes industries that build incinerators, rather than encouraging recycling which actually creates more jobs.

Audience Question: How can we help small businesses save environment and protect jobs?

Becker: Both big and small businesses depend on the market place, which will help, but government regulation is the key, the Clean Air Act and the Clean Water Act have made a big difference. But still over 100,000 people die from industrial disease each year.

Potter: How has the new Congress affected all this, e.g. the legislation on unfunded mandates?

Becker: I hope saner heads prevail, they seem to want to stop regulation. We need the people involved, Congress is crisis-driven, the people will make noise and stop it.

Gibbons: A problem of the Republican "Contract with America" is too much sense of urgency. We need not to over-focus on the weaknesses of our environmental laws and forget the good. Environmental standards should reflect real costs of rules or the violation thereof.

Audience Question: What new jobs will result from environmental initiatives in the transition to a sustainable economy, what jobs will be available, what skills will be needed?

Barth: There are many environmental jobs, in every field, including manufacturing, R&D, sales, marketing and administration. For example, we need technical people ready to measure the environmental impact. We also know that recycling efficiency needs to improve. I see economic opportunity throughout the job market.

Becker: Every type of environmental technology needs somebody to design, produce, sell, install, and maintain it.

Grimshaw: I agree, there jobs in the environment for every level of skill.

We need to respond to the "Contract with America" by educating the people, showing them it is not so easy to cut the budget, and that you are profitable if you respect the environment.

Gibbons: America now uses 1/3 less energy per unit of output than 30 years ago, making us more competitive internationally.

Audience Question: What city is a leader in environmental careers?

Gibbons: There are many cities that demonstrate leadership, such as Seattle, Washington,; Chattanooga, Tennessee; and Osage, Iowa. Osage invested some money in energy improvement, and now saves $1 million per year.

Barth: The President's Council has had meetings in Seattle. We have found that each area has its own issues, e.g. Seattle is concerned about forestry issues,

Potter: With environmental progress, some people cannot keep the jobs they currently have,

Becker: Yes, there are some workers that will need retraining. For example, the benzene business has decreased because of the dangers of benzene. Timber is not a renewable resource in the short term. The question is whether you want to cut it all down and ship it to Japan. You have to involve business, the community, and the state and federal governments to deal with the issues.

Grimshaw: We're working in Chicago to stop dry cleaners from using dangerous solvents by going to a wet cleaning process that will keep jobs without hurting the environment.

Potter: Calstart, in Los Angeles, is an honoree of Renew America. It helps defense conversion, which will create 70,000 new manufacturing jobs in 7 years,

Gibbon: The question of the spotted owl is an interesting analogy to the canary which was used to warn of bad air in mines. The owl is a canary species that shows how the silting of the streams from clear cutting is killing the salmon and having other bad effects. We need to look at what are sustainable uses of the forests and the streams over the long term.

Becker: You can not rely on the marketplace to maintain the environment.

Audience Question: Communities of color are disproportionately affected by environmental concerns, how can you keep the communities of color in mind?

Grimshaw: Yes, there are different kinds of pollution in inner city communities, e.g. some are surrounded by waste dumps, but cleaning up dumps will provide jobs. Some companies have left the inner city and built out in the suburbs, we need to have companies reinvest in the inner city. The people who live there can work, but we need capital to create jobs. We need to reduce the concentration of the poor in some areas, such as housing projects. We need government incentives to get businesses back into the inner city.

Potter: What incentives will help industry to go to the inner city?

Barth: We can first clean up the dumps, by reforming the Superfund program and use the money for clean up. Second, encourage reinvestment by business.

Becker: The people have to organize themselves and create the crisis that will cause the state and federal legislatures to respond. Unions are encouraging local health and safety committees in each plant and get them to form community coalitions to promote action.

Audience Question: The media always sees things as a matter of conflict, what can be done about the media?

Gibbons: You do need to have an argument to interest the American viewer. It is important to have both yes and nay sayers arguing. But the media should also cover stories like how come the US is 1/3 more energy efficient than it used to be and how can it improve, plus discussions about jobs in the environment, etc.

Becker: The 1992 Clean Air Act required a new standard for coke ovens. Pittsburgh Steel could not meet the standard, so the workers asked if they could help meet the standard. The workers found out how they could meet the standard without spending any money, by redesigning the procedures. Often the workers know more ways to help the environment than management.

Audience Question: New Jersey is approaching over a 30% recycling rate, we need to share the technology with others.

Grimshaw: Illinois could learn from New Jersey. EPA has a mobility partners program to help share the information on transportation technology that works, that could be expanded.

Audience Question: What needs to happen to increase environmental cooperation from business?

Barth: the Chemical industry is doing an environmental program called Responsible Care. Some smaller companies are not part of our Association, but we are reaching out to them to help them use the new technology.

Gibbons: Partnering means getting the public and private sectors to work together to develop pre-competitive capabilities, e.g. research and development (we may need to modify the anti-trust laws for this). Then they can compete later with specific products. We need to provide a public policy framework, including tax credits and capital gains tax credits for this kind of research and development.

Barth: The government sponsors fundamental research, which industry does not do, and then the private sector takes the results and moves ahead to implement them.

Becker: In the steel mills, we pledged full cooperation all the way from the shop floor to management, we participate in the design of the equipment before it is put in and in its operation.

Grimshaw: Private agencies can respond more rapidly to test new concepts.

Audience Question: Give a specific example of an environmental technology that has promoted both environment and the economy.

Grimshaw: Many industries have gone beyond recycling to reuse of materials.

Gibbons: Three quick examples: 1. Cranberry juice packagers are using cardboard containers of concentrate that are cheaper and more environmentally sound. 2. Motorola redesigned their method of cleaning circuit boards to use a citrus-based product instead of one containing CFCs that attacked the ozone layer. 3. We could save $100 billion a year by implementing energy saving practices. China is including energy efficiency as they grow, so they use less than half the energy per unit of production.

Audience Question: Any advice on networking?

Becker: Form a union and an environmental committee.

Barth: If you have a good idea, start a business and start doing it.

Gibbons: EPA provides assistance on the Internet, and states and universities can help.

Grimshaw: We find it best to keep in touch through personal contact, because it is hard to get through to the right place in the government.

Audience Question: Subsidies skew the free market, how can we get Congress to cut subsidies for building roads into the forest?

Gibbons: President Clinton wants to make government more efficient, we have cut many programs, and consolidated others to make government work better.

Grimshaw: The Transportation Act (ICT) provides for citizen input into where the roads go, so people can say what transportation investments they want.

Becker: There is a social cost our society is willing to pay to protect our air, water, etc. We don't want a repeat of 1948, when 6,000 people died from pollution in an atmospheric inversion. We found when a plant was shut down in Idaho for 6 months, the admission for respiratory diseases in the local hospital was cut in half.

Potter: The list of potential environmental award winners is a good place for networking about the latest techniques.

Audience Question: What can you say to dislocated defense workers?

Gibbon: We are working to have the conversion pace slow enough to allow for transfers to other jobs. Many defense workers have the skills to do environmental technology.

Barth: For example, Northrop-Grumman is making a bus of space-age composites. These composites are also useful for wind power blades.

Grimshaw: We need to reduce reliance on foreign oil through new transportation technology.

Becker: The government role in R&D can be crucial for new technology. The nuclear industry has been hit hard, but the cleanup is going to take a lot of man-hours. However, the government is cutting back the cleanup, e.g. Rocky Flats is laying off 2,400 people who were involved in cleanup.

Gibbons: The new Congress may wipe out the defense conversion program, which would be unfortunate.

Potter: What is the effect of unfunded mandates bill?

Barth: It is important that the Superfund has the resources to ensure the clean up of hazardous sites.

Grimshaw: The requirement to use crown rubber asphalt can extend the life of a road. It may cost a little more at the beginning, but it cleans up an environmental hazard and extends the life of a road, which makes economic sense.

Potter: What about cost benefit analysis?

Gibbon: Risk and cost benefit analyses are important, but in the public sector, risk analysis is only one of many tools. The bill before Congress is asking us to do the analysis even if we don't have the knowledge to do this.

Barth: Environmental accounting is important so that environmental costs are built into our cost structure in our industry. At present we do not include downstream costs to the users of the products and the final recycling costs of our products.

Potter: What are examples of savings from environmental technology?

Barth: Using reverse osmosis to filter waste water recovers the chemicals and reduces the water used from 400,000 gallons per day to only 10,000 per day, so we saved money both taking less fresh water and releasing less waste water into the sewers.

Potter: We need to end at this time. Thank you everyone.

Panel at California Polytechnic University in Pomona

Presented by the South Coast Air Quality Management District (SCAQMD) in partnership with the Center for the New West, the Southern California Environmental Alliance (SCEA) and the Southern California Council on Environment and Development (SCCED)

Moderator Leroy Graymer, Director of Public Policy Program at UCLA Extension: We want to create a better public dialogue on issues that confront Southern California. The panel members are:

Steve Albright, Executive Director of the Joint Powers Authority planning for the reuse of March Air Force Base, also a member of the Board of SCAQMD.

Barry Sedlik, Manager of Business Retention at Southern California Edison Company.

Freeman Allen, Professor of Chemistry at Claremont McKenna University, also a member of the Mt. Vernon group to help make the new source review rules work effectively, and a member of the Sierra Club.

Steve Pontell, Director of the Center for the New West, which wants to engage more citizens in regional issues and to provide SCAG with citizen input.

John Sigsen, Oil, Chemical and Atomic Workers union, also trains emergency response personnel.

Graymer: Can we talk about concrete examples where environmental cleanup and economic activity have synergism, so that environmental cleanup doesn't weigh down the economy? What are examples of economic activities that create jobs, exportable products, that are good for the economy and the environment, such as the electric car?

Pontell: The City of Palm Desert looked at how to make environmental improvements, and found using golf carts on city streets would be very helpful, but it is illegal, so they are working to change the law.

Allen: Environmental jobs can come from any service or activity that creates good for the community. For example, Robert Fry Associates, which does Urban Planning, has a department with 10 people in environmental services, writing EIRs, GIS, habitat maps, etc., plus many of the other engineers also work on environmental issues.

Albright: My job is working for the reuse of March AFB. We found the biggest challenge is environmental cleanup, which has created a huge industry, since there are 42 contaminated sites on the base. We hope a staff of 75 people will get it cleaned up by 1998.

The SCAQMD has approved many rules on stationary sources requiring environmental products (scrubbers, etc.) which should bring many jobs to Southern California, plus we can make these products for the world.

Sedlik: Southern California is a good model for a location that balances the environment and economy. There are 10,000 firms in California doing some environmental business, employing 120-180,000 people, with a total gross income of $7-20 billion. Edison helps our customers improve our environment. For example, the Fender Guitar Company operation in Corona was threatening to move to escape the clean air requirements, but we took them to see an alternative technology that could help the environment and reduce the drying time from 2 days (using the oil-based solvents they were using) to 2 minutes using water-based solvents, which were just as effective.

Sigsen: At the Hanford Atomic Plant in Washington, there are more people now working to clean up the mess than worked there to create it, so environmental requirements create jobs.

Graymer: California ranks #4 in average income per person, but has more people at the poverty level (rank 40th). Where will the money come from to do this alternative technology?

Sedlik: It is hard to find. The company that produced the old oil-based coatings were locked into the old technology and thought they didn't need to develop new technology just for the California market. But now that they have seen that the new technology works, they are now ready to move ahead on producing the new technology for everywhere.

Edison made an investment in an alternative technology lab and it has paid off.

Albright: California does not compete on a level playing field until the Clean Air Act is enforced everywhere, especially on the on-road sources. RECLAIM allows business and industry to make their own decisions on how to comply. Industry wants certainty, they want to know the rules are not going to change.

Graymer: I believe that a cooperative approach is key, which helped the RECLAIM program to come into operation. But how will we know that RECLAIM is actually cleaning up the air?

Audience Comments:

Barclay Hudson, Director of Ecosource: We did an analysis of the environment and job impact for NRDC. We saw three different approaches: 1. Help save some industry from moving out of California; 2. Develop exports; 3. Create local jobs.

We found there are different shades of green: 1. Some approaches will help create jobs, but the end products will not help the environment; 2. Some remediation jobs will help clean up hazards; 3. Some jobs will create a positive environment in an urban area, with green space, etc.

An audience member: We know the importance of research, but who will supply the money?

An audience member: The Coachella Valley has defined themselves as an environmental transportation center that will attract jobs from around the world,. They have attracted new technology and people are coming to view the new technology.

Pontell: We need to identify opportunities for new development, like Coachella, which has now launched a new mechanics training program where people come from around the world for training in the new technology.

Gary Knapp: Environmental controls costs money, but if L.A. had ignored smog control, there would be no tourist industry now. The Rotary Club in San Clemente agreed that we are going have to reduce our use of cars or there will be no jobs in Southern California because of violation of clean air standards.

Graymer: The Transportation Center is looking at automated highways systems, and found that you do not have to do it all at once, it can be implemented incrementally.

Sedlick: Project California is looking at automated highways. There are tremendous resources in California, but it is hard to transfer that ability to different projects. It is key to get people together to share ideas and then finance them and link to an education process.

Joe Haworth: The regulation limiting plating and coating processes has revised a whole industry which now recovers materials, etc.

Graymer: Most of the job generation is by small enterprises, but it is harder for small businesses to invest in environmental technology.

Sedlick: The small companies work with the big companies to implement the new technology. ECRI is supporting small companies to look at specific problems and solve them and get the financial rewards. A problem is the large companies reducing their expenditures in R&D.

Allen: Large manufacturing plants will not change technology until it has been proven by the small industry. When the large plants accept the new technology, then they drive the market to produce that type of technology.

An audience member: We need R&D on meeting environmental requirements for corporations.

An audience member: We want breakthroughs, which are made by individuals with a vision.

Graymer: What would be an inducement for business?

An audience member: Money, plus confidence in the future for the development you have in mind. Bell Telephone Labs turned people loose to do research, but that is not available now.

Ron Ketcham, SCAQMD: We need to fund cutting edge technology.

Albright: If the region is dependent on an outside subsidy, that could lead you down unhelpful paths, but small businesses will help create the new technology.

An audience member: SCAQMD opening up the process to involve the community to create the rules for business is helpful. The community has been the driving force for change.

Graymer: Small business is innovative, but how does it discover the markets to expand into?

Sedlick: Money can be raised with an ambitious business plan and people who are motivated because they see they have a good idea. But venture capital has soured on environmental companies, because of changing regulation and changing enforcement. For example, if they financed a company on the basis of a rule being enforced, and if it were not enforced, the environmental company could go out of business.

An audience member: Harvey Universal has started a new environmental products industry in Southern California.

La Ronda Bowen, SCAQMD: Companies with less than 20 employees have created most of the jobs here, we need more capital.

Graymer: If we were to make a pitch to a venture capitalist, what examples would we give?

La Ronda Bowen, SCAQMD: The dry cleaning industry, Calstart, etc.

Pontell: We need to show the regulations are not going away. One of the largest problems we have is small business not attending our hearings to give input, but stopping implementation.

Graymer: At the SCCED June conference on permitting, we found the San Gabriel Valley Consortium was helping people trying to meet environmental regulations.

Ron Ketcham, SCAQMD: There is a lack of information on regulations. We have delegations here from foreign countries interested in environmental controls, but we don't hook them up to the business people that could meet their needs by exporting products.

Juan Guerrero: I worked for an environmental remediation firm that created a vacuum extraction technology for cleanup of sites. The company did work in other countries, but put a patent on this technology to limit use of the technology by other people, unless they pay him a high fee, which has limited use of the technology.

Albright: That is the way it is, but patents run out and there is innovation anyway. There is tension between the different aspects of the environmental issue, e.g. a paper recycling operation here was about to be forced out by air quality standards.

Graymer: The first panel didn't talk specifically about the economic benefits of regulation, e.g. health benefits. There are also the export opportunities, e.g. just as the Germans could set the standards for environment for Europe, California could for the U.S.

Haworth: County Sanitation Districts has had 10,000 visitors from Pacific Rim countries to look at our environmental technology.

An audience member: When tourists see environmental pollution, they do not go back there, so ecotourism is driving enforcement of environmental regulations.

Gary Knapp: There is danger of self-destructing from the environmental regulations. We shouldn't be pushing for too much recycling or we will be shipping plastics overseas.

Haworth: We can't put too much money into the environment or there will be no money for making products.

An audience member: Sierra magazine says that American companies are coming up with the ideas and foreign companies are buying the patents and making the money from the products.

Graymer: Those investing in R&D are on the cutting edge of innovation, but we (California) are not taking advantage of it. Are we translating our environmental research into products?

Sedlik: We have not given ourselves credit for what we have done. We are the seedbed of innovation and need to continue to move ahead on the basis of that.

Graymer: How significant is this type of environmental economic activity?

Sigsen: Southern California is not on a level playing field. Mercedes is building a plant in Georgia. We need to put money into the education of our work force to compete.

Sedlik: This region has all the needed talent in one place -- we need quality education to keep our competitive edge.

Pontell: Southern California is in a cycle of evolution, our economy will grow. We need to have the regulations and create an opportunity out of the regulations. We are not a product economy, more of a service economy, but we need to take advantage of these opportunities by making the environmental products for the world.

Freeman: Peterson's Job Opportunities book lists half of the jobs as related to environmental issues.. Environmental jobs and the economy are strong and healthy in the US.

Albright: There are many unnecessary regulations (like the one prohibiting golf carts on streets), that we need to get rid of. Let's rely on evolution, rather than revolution, promote consistency in the regulatory environment, and improve the network within this region that could help us.

Graymer: To summarize, we found considering the impact of environmental tourism locally and internationally is important. As people's standards of living rise, the congestion and air pollution rises, so there will be a growing demand for environmental technologies.

Other issues we talked about were:

* Access to capital

* Knowledge of markets

* Access to new technology

* Going for the highes