V. The Aspen Institute: Program on Energy, The Environment and the Economy

The mission of The Aspen Institute is to enhance the quality of leadership through informed dialogue about the timeless ideas and values of the world's great cultures and traditions as they relate to the foremost challenges facing societies, organizations, and individuals. The Seminar Programs enable leaders to draw on these values to enrich their understanding of contemporary issues. The Policy Programs frame the choices that democratic societies face in terms of the enduring ideas and values derived from those traditions.

The Program on Energy, the Environment, and the Economy, one of the Institute's policy programs, provides neutral ground for dialogue among diverse participants from the energy industry, government, environmental and other public interest groups, research institutions, the media, and elsewhere. Meetings in a non-adversarial setting encourage positive, candid interaction and seek areas of consensus or improved mutual understanding.

The annual Energy Policy Forum is the flagship of the Program. Now in its 21st year, its high level participation, lively discussion, and congenial setting cause some of the most influential leaders in the energy sector to return again and again to grapple with timely topics facing energy policy makers. Session chairs and speakers serve only as discussion starters; participants with different perspectives contribute to and enrich the dialogue, with the goal of enhanced understanding and, where possible, consensus on policy recommendations.

The Pacific Rim Series consists of annual workshops for experts from industry, government, and other institutions to discuss Asian energy issues. The meeting in Brunei was the 15th since the inception of the series.

The Central and Eastern European Series begun in Prague in 1995 and continued with the Krakow meeting in 1997, convenes diverse participants from the newly democratic states of the region and a few Western experts for workshops on energy problems and opportunities.

The Series on the Environment in the 21st Century is a continuing dialogue among business, environmental, and government leaders about developing a new, less prescriptive, and more effective environmental protection system for the United States. The Series recently issued a report, The Alternative Path: A Cleaner, Cheaper Way to Protect and Enhance the Environment, outlining a proposal to give companies or other regulated entities the flexibility to tailor a potentially less costly environmental management plan if the plan is developed in an open, consensus-based stakeholder process and will ensure the attainment of better environmental performance. The current phase of the Series is examining material resources and natural systems, and the economics drivers that affect their use and disposition.

Representatives of corporations and financial institutions, along with a small number of government, NGO, and academic representatives, are meeting periodically in New York in the Financial Series: Valuing the Environment. They are discussing ways for corporations to communicate the strategic value of their environmental behavior ad for financial markets to recognize, measure, and reward improved environmental management.

John A. Riggs is Director of The Aspen Institute's Program on Energy, the Environment, and the Economy. Prior to joining the Institute he was Deputy Assistant Secretary and Acting Assistant Secretary for Policy in the U.S. Department of Energy and staff director of the Energy and Power Subcommittee of the U.S. House of Representatives. He has also taught energy and environmental policy at the University of Pennsylvania.

Susan OMalley Wade is Senior Associate at the Program on Energy, the Environment, and the Economy. With specialties in natural resources management and planning and environmental dispute resolution, she has worked as an environmental consultant in the private sector, with the California Environmental Protection Agency, and on the staff of a U.S. House of Representatives Committee.