1 that it is now, what's the political stance on the part of our various 



2 New England governors going to be then? 



3 MR. VILD: That's a good question. Right now I know Rhode Island 



4 is looking into a lot of power-plant proposals that have really nothing 



5 to do with being powered by oil or gas. Canadian hydropower, for 



6 example, coal -fired things, which of course, have their own 



7 environmental problems. 



8 You ask a very interesting question. I think I covered that by 



9 saying that with the particular energy glut we have now, there doesn't 



10 seem to be any great desire to go out and even ask the oil companies to 



11 come and take another look at our region. 



12 DR. COOPER: The issue now is an easy one. 



13 MR. VILD: The issue now, yes, you're right, it is a very easy 



14 one. I would just like to throw out one suggestion. This is a very 



15 nice kind of give and take, but it looks like it's the same people who 



16 have been talking for a number of years on the same issue. 



17 I don't know, Jim, what do you think of this. What do you think 



18 the prospects are of direct industry-to-industry talks on such things, 



19 not only drilling in the canyons, but drilling other places where there 



20 may be spatial exclusion, for example, of the fisherman or maybe gear 



21 conflicts. 



22 I know Governor Garrahy about 8 years ago, tried to get an 



23 industry-to-industry task force going. It went for a couple of years 



24 and ultimately it broke down and each side blamed the other. 



25 It had to do with compensating for fishing-gear loss, because one 



26 of the big concerns that the North Atlantic fisherman had was, okay, 



27 there is a fisherman's compensation program, but the red tape involved 



28 in putting in a claim and everything else, just led to incredible delays 



29 and, of course, that cost them money, that cost them their livelihood. 



30 Do you think the aspects of industry-to-industry cooperation, 



31 directly talking with the people who really are on two ends of the 



32 political spectrum here as far as being pro- of anti -drill ing, getting 



33 the two industries together and maybe come to the consensus that we're 



34 trying to seek in this particular workshop? 



144 



