Arts & Humanities

U.S. Commerce Department Report and Roundtable at Yale Analyze Strength of Environmental Industry

The U. S. Department of Commerce’s Office of Technology Policy and the Yale 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. Panelists include Kelly Carnes, deputy assistant secretary, Technology Policy, U.S. Commerce Department. The event is free and open to the public.
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The U. S. Department of Commerce’s Office of Technology Policy and the Yale 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. Panelists include Kelly Carnes, deputy assistant secretary, Technology Policy, U.S. Commerce Department. The event is free and open to the public.

The roundtable immediately follows a news briefing 9:15-9:45 a.m. regarding the Commerce Department’s new report entitled “Meeting the Challenge: The U.S. Environmental Industry Faces the 21st Century.” The report analyzes the environmental industry and highlights the declining demand for environmental improvement.

The report also describes the need to create market drivers for continuous environmental improvement; merge environmental and economic policies in the quest for sustainability; and coordinate and strengthen public/private partnerships to foster environmental exports and enhance the global competitiveness of the U.S. environmental industry.

The roundtable 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. In addition to Carnes, 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. Grise, senior vice president and general counsel of Northeast Utilities; and John DeVillars, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Region 1 Administrator.

Moderator is Marian Chertow, director, Industrial Environmental Management Program, Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies.

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 US. economic growth and competitiveness, and 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 to the rapid development of technology, develop federal policies that promote innovation, and ensure that industry’s views are reflected in federal technology policy.

Before joining the Commerce Department, Carnes was with Shaw, Pittman, Potts and Trowbridge, a Washington, DC., law firm, where she specialized in representing technology companies. She is a graduate of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Georgetown Law Center, where she served as Topics Editor for the Georgetown Law Journal.

Questions from the audience will be encouraged in this open forum. For more information, please contact Tammie Grice at (202) 482-1581 or e-mail grice@ta.doc.gov; or Janet Testa, 203-432-6953 or e-mail janet.testa@yale.edu.

Copies of the report will be available at the roundtable or through the Publication Line, (202) 482-3037, or online at www.ta.doc.gov/reports. For technical assistance, you may 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.