ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Monday, February 3, 1997 TAG: 9702030085
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: C-4 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: WASHINGTON
SOURCE: Associated Press
The Democratic White House on Sunday proposed an open-door partnership with the predominantly Republican state governors for meeting top-priority competitive and educational challenges facing America.
Competing against Europe and Japan for lucrative high technology jobs in the growing global economy will demand utmost bipartisanship and local-federal cooperation to cut deficits while investing in training and research, said Erskine B. Bowles, President Clinton's chief of staff.
``If we learned nothing else during the last four years, it is that we can only achieve our goals by working together, by working across party lines and at every level of government,'' Bowles said in a speech to the National Governors' Association first meeting of Clinton's second administration.
``The president is absolutely committed to working with you governors in the states to meet our challenges ... ours will be a relationship based on mutual respect and openness,'' Bowles said.
``My office and my doors will always be open.'' he added, previewing Clinton's planned meetings with the governors Sunday night and Monday and the president's State of the Union address Tuesday.
In other developments Sunday:
* The governors agreed that Congress should restore welfare benefits to some immigrants, breaking a partisan stalemate over whether that would lead to other changes to last year's historic legislation. The final resolution replaced a draft statement that explicitly called on Congress to restore disability and food stamp benefits to legal immigrants who are too old or sick to ever become citizens or those who are waiting to become citizens.
Under pressure from congressional Republicans, Republican governors insisted on softening the call for immigrant benefits.
The new resolution urges Congress and the Clinton administration to ``ensure that the immigration system and its requirements are fair to both citizens and non-citizens'' and to ``meet the needs'' of those who cannot become citizens.
It also asserts that ``an equitable solution to this issue could be achieved without reopening the statute.''
* The chief executives remained divided over tougher clean air standards being considered by the Environmental Protection Agency, refusing to issue a strong rebuke of the proposal as sought by some of the chief executives.
Ohio Gov. George Voinovich, a Republican, had argued that it was ``critical'' that the governors formally express their opposition to the EPA proposal. Others, led by New Jersey Gov. Christine Whitman, also a Republican, argued that it was premature to criticize the proposal.
Finally, the governors Committee on Natural Resources issued a resolution that said little more than that the governors are ``concerned about striking a balance'' between protecting public health and overly burdensome regulations.
* Northeastern governors defended federal policies giving their states more highway money than their motorists contribute and urged Congress to preserve such a highway-funding formula ``based on need.''
Billions of dollars are at stake as Congress considers a multiyear transportation bill this year. Many states, particularly growing ones in the South and the West, want greater equity in funding.
At a news conference, seven Northeastern governors said commerce and traffic patterns in their states justify their additional funding from a federal highway trust fund financed through taxes at the gas pump.
``Northeastern states like to keep'' the formula, said Gov. George Allen of Virginia, chairman of the Southern Governors' Association. ``They are going to like the status quo. It's almost the nature of governing.''
But Allen said fairness dictates changing an allocation system rooted in the interstate highway system's inception a half-century ago. With construction of the system largely complete, the time has come to find new ways to distribute the money, he said.
The 50 elected state governors number 32 Republicans and 17 Democrats plus Maine independent Angus King.
AP North Carolina Gov. James Hunt (left) and Virginia Gov. George Allen confer Sunday morning at the National Governors' Association winter meeting in Washington, D.C.
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