Boise confab to address U.S.-Canada issues

The Pacific Northwest Economic Region, a consortium of state and provincial officials from the U.S. and Canada along with government and business leaders from both nations, will hold its 19th annual “summit” meeting in Boise this year, July 12-16, the first time the organization has held its annual conference here. Gov. Butch Otter announced the conference today, saying it’s a chance to work on economic issues and “also to trade a lot of ideas.” The conference will focus on clean energy technologies, it’ll include an animal health summit and an energy institute for state and provincial lawmakers, a roundtable of university presidents from throughout the region, and an array of cross-border discussions.

A 30-member host committee has raised $100,000 in the past six months to fund the conference from more than a dozen business sponsors, including Avista, Idaho Power, Monsanto, Qwest and Batelle Energy. Attorney and lobbyist Roy Eiguren, who co-chairs the host committee with former Idaho House Speaker Bruce Newcomb, when asked how they managed to raise the money in such tough times, said, “People were generous, and we worked at it pretty hard. There’s a lot of interest in these bilateral issues.”