Brief Summary of Minutes of Annual Meeting

Executive Meeting Minutes W-1133: Benefits and Costs of Natural Resources Policies Affecting Public and Private Lands 2005 Annual Meetings Little America Hotel (Arizona Room) Salt Lake City, Utah February 14 and 15, 2005 The 2005 executive meeting was called to order by President Klaus Moeltner at 4:41 PM (Mountain Standard Time), Monday, February 14, 2005. President Moeltner announced that the meetings for next year are tentatively scheduled to be held in San Antonio, Texas, Thursday and Friday February 23 and 24, 2006. Steve Shultz, Vice President, opened discussion concerning member versus non-member participation in the project. Currently, non-member friends are added to the internet list serve to receive information, but are not active participants in the executive duties of the project. Don Snyder, Director, took the floor to address new CSREES regulations regarding membership. Dr. Snyder reported that friends (or participants from non-land grant institutions) can submit an equivalent to Appendix E to become a member of the project. This change in the regulations opens membership in W-1133 to all interested individuals. However, individuals not part of the land grant system must have their application approved by an administrative supervisor or unit leader. A question was asked from the floor regarding the process for voting members into the project. Director Snyder reported that membership by ballet was no longer approved of by CSREES. All that is required for membership is Director Snyders signature on the applicants form. However, it was generally agreed that Dr. Snyder would seek the advice of the president and (or) executive board before granting approvals for membership. Next the floor was turned over to Director Snyder and CSREES representative Fen Hunt. Director Snyder led off his discussion by noting that Land Grant institutions can be represented by multiple individuals including individuals who are not in Colleges of Agriculture. Individuals wanting to part of the project, but who are not faculty in the College of Agriculture, only need to seek approval of the Experiment Station Director and their unit leader. Director Snyder reported that the 3 year review of the project was generally positive. The review was conducted by the National Program Leaders of CSREES. Major criticism keyed on the perception that project members are not abiding by the objectives of the project. The perception is that the annual meeting of the project is a mini-economics paper session where there is no effort to engage in multi-state research. Essentially members of the project are viewed as engaging in independent research that has a dependency in terms of different people doing the same thing. As such, the current project does not meet the intent of multi-state research and we are not clear as to how it is that the project is addressing the stated objectives. In Director Snyders opinion the project stands no chance of being rechartered as things now stand. To be rechartered members of the project must: 1) engage in multi-institutional, multi-state, and/or multi-disciplinary research; 2) publish papers with multi-institutional, multi-state, and/or multi-disciplinary authorship; and 3) submit grants with multi-institutional, multi-state, and/or multi-disciplinary co-principal investigators. Director Snyders comments elicited comment from John Loomis that project members are doing multi-institutional, multi-state work, but project participants are doing a poor job of making this apparent to CSREES. Dr. Loomis suggested that the program of future annual meetings be designed to accentuate the objectives of the project. In response, Jeff England suggested that the current program be redesigned to address the issues raised by Director Snyder. In closing, Director Snyder noted that addressing the problems raised will require the involvement of other disciplines. Next, Director Snyder reported that President Bushs proposed budget would cut Hatch funds 50% in 2006, and 100% in 2007. However, there is political pressure to maintain the status quo for Hatch funding. The point is that Hatch funds are in political jeopardy and may not be available in the future for travel and other regional project related expenses. Fen Hunt, CSREES representative, took up the discussion concerning Hatch funding. Under the proposed budget Hatch funds will be redirected to competitive funds. With respect to the NRI, 20% of current year grant money is being directed toward integrated, research and extension projects (much like IFAFS). During the 2006 fiscal year, the amount of grant money directed toward integrated, research and extension projects will be increased to 30%. Like Hatch, Section 406 funds are also being redirected to the NRI. Other information related to NRI included the following: 1) Indirect costs are to be fully negotiated; 2) Social science fields are to be included as part of the genomics program area; and 3) That the NRI now includes the Coordinated Agriculture Projects (CAP) program. CAP grants are joint grants designed to foster multi-state and multi-disciplinary research in areas including animal waste management, bio-security, and invasive species. Representative Hunt expressed her thoughts that W-1133 researchers should be able to find funding within the CAP program. The official request for proposals for the NRI will be out in July and researchers interested in applying to the NRI can do so using the centralized Federal system at www.grants.gov. Next Representative Hunt passed out grant information from granting agencies outside of USDA/CSREES. CSREES has joined with NASA to fund projects on land use and land cover. Currently this funding is technology focused, but it is hoped that economics will be part of the funding next year. There is also funding related to invasive species. Finally, Representative Hunt discussed an upcoming OMB review of the Natural Resource Economics program area of CSREES. During the review Representative Hunt hopes to accomplish the following goals: 1) With the help of stakeholders, identify priority program areas; 2) Consider the changing nature of agriculture and identify immerging issues; 3) Explore program changes that will foster work by inter-disciplinary teams; 4) Explore program changes that will make economics an explicit focus in requests for applications; and 5) Explore program changes that will guarantee inclusion of the social scientist on peer-review panels. Next, the floor was opened to new business. Vice President Shultz opened discussion related to the proceedings of the W-1133. Central issues of discussion related to how the proceedings were to be posted, low submission rates by program presenters, and free-riders. It was decided that the proceedings were hence forth to be referred to as an interim report. Jeff England suggested, and it was generally agreed, that the interim report only contain presentation papers that specifically relate to the objectives of the project. It was also generally agreed that the interim report would be made available on the NIMS website, that the interim report would no longer be distributed in printed form, and that the interim report, instead, be issued for general distribution on CD. Following tradition, it is the Vice Presidents responsibility to create and distribute the CDs. Next Vice President Shultz discussed the procedures for selecting papers for presentation at the annual meetings. After much discussion the following order was generally agreed upon. Highest priority will go to those papers that best fit the objectives of the project. Hence forth, authors submitting presentation proposals will have to identify the objective that best fits the content of the presentation. Next priority will be given to presentations with multi-state authorship, followed by presentations by project members. Lastly, the floor was opened to nominations for service on the executive committee. Traditionally, the serving Vice President becomes the President, the serving Secretary/Treasurer becomes the Vice President, and nominations are made for the office of Secretary/Treasurer. However, it was noted that next years Vice President (Ron Fleming, University of Kentucky) will be responsible for drafting the rechartering documents for the project. This led to discussion related to the need for the Vice President to be from one of the western schools (because this is a western regional project). After much discussion it was generally agreed that Dr. Shultz would move to the office of President as usual, Dr. Fleming would serve a second term as Secretary/Treasurer, and that Dr. Randy Rosenburger, Oregon State University, would assume the office of Vice President. However, Dr. Rosenburgers appointment is conditional upon his being able to receive an Experiment station appointment from OSU and him becoming a member of W-1133. A motion was made to approve the agreed upon slate of officers, seconded, and carried. A motion was made to adjourn the meeting. This motion was seconded and carried. The meeting was adjourned 6:44 PM Mountain Standard Time. Respectfully submitted, Ronald A. Fleming Secretary/Treasurer, W-1133

One of the major areas of accomplishment has been that of valuing changes in recreation access. Examples of work in this area include: rock climbers, recreation quality, revealed preferences recreation demand models, and stated preference models. Progress has been made in evaluating policies such as the Coservation Reserve Program on farm prices, levels of agricultural chemical use on water quality, incorporation of GIS systems with water pollution, value of open space, regulatory takings, etc. Progress has been substantial in the area of "valuing ecosystem management of forest and watersheds." Work has included the effects of wildfires, effects of prescribed fires on hikers and mountain bikers, etc. Biological sciences have progressed to the point that additional economic research is being undertaken.

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