ADVISORY COMMISSION ON ELECTRONIC COMMERCE

REPORT DRAFTING SUBCOMMITTEE

CONFERENCE CALL MEETING

Arlington, Virginia

Friday, December 3, 1999

P R O C E E D I N G S

(12:00 p.m.)

GOVERNOR GILMORE: Okay. I think we're fine, then, as to where we are, and you've recorded their attendance or designation of staff. Just a reminder to everybody: under the rules, only members of the Subcommittee are entitled to participate in the meeting. We suspect and gather that there will probably be other additional people and maybe even, I don't know, dozens or hundreds, and particularly since it's, I think, being more broadcast. But in order to keep the Subcommittee doing its work, only members of the Subcommittee may participate in the meeting.

When a member is unable to attend, a staff representative designated by the absent member may participate in his or her stead, and we've identified who they are. We've invited other interested Commissioners and their staff can listen in, and we respectfully remind them that they should not participate in the Committee's deliberations as we go along, although there will be ample opportunity to do that as we hold our further meetings.

This is, however, not a meeting of the Commission. The Commission has referred to this Subcommittee the task of developing an issues and options paper for the purposes of leading discussion at our upcoming San Francisco meeting. The Subcommittee was also tasked with reviewing the proposal submitted for consideration, recommending which proposals are to be presented at that meeting and to begin drafting the Commission's final report.

Now, as usual, we're having this conference call transcribed. A transcript of today's discussions will be posted on the Commission's Web site by the close of business on December 7, 1999. Please remember, if you would, as we go forward to state your name before making your comments, because this is going to assist the transcriber and anybody reading it in actually capturing the name and the information, which I think is the best thing and the right thing to do.

Now my phone sounds dead. Is everybody still with me? Okay. Great.

GOVERNOR LOCKE: Governor, it sounded dead because we're in such awe of your speaking ability, and we're just mesmerized.

GOVERNOR GILMORE: That must have been Governor Locke.

Okay. Item 1: issues and options paper. I assume everybody has been distributed a copy of the issues and options paper. It's a very handsome document, I must say. I think the staff people have worked very hard on this. Mr. Pittman's staff has taken the lead in coordinating the staff work and in drafting this issues and options paper.

In addition, the Subcommittee staff have culled these various tax submissions that have been received by the Commission pursuant to the Federal Register notice, and have put together a list of proposals selected for presentation at the San Francisco meeting. So we have both a document and also a list of potential presenters.

The first order of business today is a presentation of the issues and options paper, and I understand that George Vradenburg is -- George, you're on the line?

MR. VRADENBURG: I am.

GOVERNOR GILMORE: -- to present this paper on behalf of Mr. Pittman.

George, take it away.

MR. VRADENBURG: Thank you very much, Governor Gilmore.

Just as a reminder for those who may be on the call who are not on the Report Drafting Subcommittee, I would just like to mention the members of the Committee whose staff participated in the work of putting together this issues and options paper. They are Dick Parsons, Dave Pottruck, Governor Locke, Dean Andal, Stan Sokul, Andy Pincus, and Delna Jones, and of course Governor Gilmore and Bob Pittman, chair of the Subcommittee.

The staff has met by teleconference on a number of occasions since our New York meeting, pursuant to the work plan developed prior to the New York meeting and adopted at the New York meeting and pursuant to the instruction to develop an issues and options paper. And we have worked through the virtual Web site and the virtual conference mode in order to gain comments from everyone.

There has been a good deal of work put in, a good deal of back-and-forth among the staff of the members of the commission who are on the Report Drafting Subcommittee. And the effort here was to put together an issues and policy options paper which laid out the issues and the number of options underneath each of those issues that at least the staff thought was an objective way to look at what is before the Commission.

It is only one way to look at what is before the Commission, but at least is intended to be an objective way to look comprehensively at all the issues before the Commission. The process was intended to be inclusive. It was intended to reflect the comments of all of the staffs of the Commissioners on the Report Drafting Subcommittee. And we did spend a good deal of time on it.

We're presenting it to the Report Drafting Subcommittee today with the view that it can be, as Governor Gilmore indicated, a means of leading the discussion and provoking some thought in connection with the San Francisco meeting. We do not have a view that there should necessarily be votes on this paper, but that is obviously something that this Report Drafting Subcommittee may want to consider. But we do not present it as a document which necessarily itself ought to be voted on, but rather something that can lead the discussion and can provoke thinking about how to approach the San Francisco meeting.

Finally, there are indicated in the issues and policy options paper some possible areas of potential agreement, with a view that we would put forward this as potential areas of potential agreement in an effort to try and narrow the issues that were going to be the object of a greater diversity of views, so that there could be greater focus on what may divide us than what may bring us together.

But again, that is simply a straw man for, first, the consideration of this Report Drafting Subcommittee, and if the drafting Subcommittee thinks that that's a useful focusing device for forwarding onto the Commission, again, to provoke their thinking in San Francisco.

And, as the Governors indicated, we also did some work in connection with the straw man agenda for Chairman Governor Gilmore's consideration, both in terms of the proposals that we thought would be useful to have presented there, as well as a straw man in terms of time budget. But of course, the agenda is a matter for the Chair to take up, and so we presented that as a straw man for his consideration.

That ends my report for the moment, Governor Gilmore, unless you have some questions.

GOVERNOR GILMORE: Very good.

First of all, are there questions, members of the Commission, for George Vradenburg? We have national if not international silence on the phone right now.

Are there questions or comments on George Vradenburg? And we are, of course, going to submit this and let people to look at it and talk about it. But does anybody else have anything they want to add at this point?

GOVERNOR LOCKE: This is Gary Locke speaking.

I looked over the policy options paper, and recognizing it's only a draft, I liked the simplicity and the succinctness of the way it's written, because how it frames the issue and then lists all the different variations of options that the different people on the Commission and stakeholders across the United States may have. So I think it's really a well-done document that's easy to read, easy to digest, and lays out the divergence of views and options that people have.

So I just want to thank everybody for working pretty hard on that, and it's a good primer for anybody on the difficult issues that we face.

MR. PARSONS: Governor, this is Dick Parsons.

And obviously, we share Governor Locke's view of the usefulness, the utility of the options paper. Just so I can orient myself to this call, however, can you give me a framework of where you want to go and what you want to accomplish in this call, specifically vis-a-vis the setting of the agenda for our San Francisco meeting? I just want to have in the back of my mind where we're going, so that as we go there, I don't get lost.

GOVERNOR GILMORE: Dick, the issues and options paper is intended, as I think the work plan has indicated, to be a document that gives us something to discuss with more clarity and crystallization in San Francisco. It's no secret to anyone, either on the call or in America, that there are differences of opinion within the Commission.

Of course, I represent a point of view, and Governor Leavitt represents a point of view, and I think that there are other points of view that are represented within the Commission. That became apparent as early as Williamsburg. There was an opportunity, of course, in Williamsburg to hear some presentations.

At the time, I think it was a little frustrating for Commissioners, because it took up a tremendous amount of time. But on the other hand, it was all fully documented and submitted, so people had some substantive material to work with. And then the same in New York, as there was additional time for presentations. But on the other hand, in New York there was also a lot of time for give-and-take for some on the Commission to offer some directions that they wanted to go in as well.

Now we've arrived, through David's very excellent work plan, at the point where we're trying to crystallize some of these issues. It's, I think, no surprise to anybody that the issues and policy options is, as Governor Locke says, a simple one, but that there are areas for discussion that are not fully in agreement. There may be some positions, of course, that are in agreement, and that will also be determined when we get to San Francisco.

But I would certainly foresee this issues and policy options paper being used as a major vehicle for the members of the Commission to begin to discuss and argue out these matters.

George Vradenburg said that the Drafting Committee so far has thought that there necessarily needs to be votes on some of these things. That's probably the case. Maybe there should be. But we'll follow their lead on that for the time being.

Does that help you, Dick?

MR. PARSONS: Well, it helps me in terms of how we might use the issues and options paper, which accords with how we've been participating in the drafting of that. But what I'm trying to grapple with, because I don't -- I'm not sure I know what our agenda is today, whether what we're trying to do is to fashion an agenda for San Francisco that incorporates this piece and other pieces that we've been working on, or what you hope to achieve today on this call.

GOVERNOR GILMORE: What we hope to achieve today on this call is the work of the Drafting Subcommittee that has produced the issues and policy options paper, to create a document which we have all seen and we think can be a good vehicle for the discussion in San Francisco. It's pursuant to the work plan that David Pottruck put together, approved by the Commission. It proposes, I think, that we walk through the policy options number by number in San Francisco, and give the Commissioners an opportunity to express their agreement or disagreement with each option in San Francisco.

And that's what this Subcommittee has created and what it is designed to do. And that's what this document does, and that will provide a vehicle for us to go through all of the arguments and options in San Francisco. And I would propose, when we get there in the agenda, to do it line by line, or at least section by section.

MR. PINCUS: Governor, this is Andy Pincus. I guess I'd like to follow up on several of the comments.

For me, deciding on the document depends on what its purpose is going to be. I agree it's a very good statement background paper, both on the substance on the issues and on some of the options, and I think it's very useful to forward to every Commissioner to read before San Francisco, because I think it's going to give them a very good grounding in the issues that are going to come up there.

But it seems to me that really, we've asked a lot of people, and a lot of people have gone to a lot of effort to prepare proposals pursuant to our call. So I guess my suggestion would be -- and again, it sort of helps me to know what it's going to be used for before we decide on whether to give it our imprimatur or not, that this be a background paper for the Commission.

It's clearly a living document, but that, in terms of the meeting in San Francisco, the focus be on two things: first of all, on the proposals and really using them as a vehicle for the Commissioners to explore the possible solutions, which as you said, there already are some differences. And in the context of talking about the proposals, I think we can flesh that out.

And then, with respect to the paper, it seems to me we need to set aside some time to talk about the process. Where does the paper go from here? Because clearly we've got to begin to look to drafting a report.

But it seems to me -- and so that discussion, I think, needs to take place. But it seems to me that it really would be counterproductive to discuss the substance of what's in the paper, because it's clearly going to change a lot, because we're going to hear a lot about these proposals and talk about them. So the paper, although it's good background before San Francisco, it's going to need probably a lot of changing as a result of the discussion of the proposals and what comes out in terms of Commissioners' views and the give and take.

GOVERNOR GILMORE: I think that's absolutely correct.

MR. PINCUS: So my suggestion would be that we look at the paper as a good background document to forward to Commissioners, and that the agenda in San Francisco, which I guess there was some discussion of -- everybody probably has the straw agenda that George referred to -- that the discussion -- which seems like a good selection of proposals to me, having spent some time looking through them, and that we discuss the proposals that lays out, and then at the end, not go through the substance of the paper, but really talk about how we're going to move forward between San Francisco and March, so that our Subcommittee can get some direction on how we produce something, which in March really has to frame a series of votes and decisions, I think.

So that would be my suggestion.

MR. PARSONS: I don't see how we accomplish the guidance that you're looking for, which I think the Subcommittee needs. I don't see how we accomplish that guidance unless we go through the draft paper and say, "Okay, this is a draft and this is a first cut at identifying and giving background on the issues. How does the Commission feel? Give us some guidance."

GOVERNOR GILMORE: Well, of course. As a matter of fact, the work plan contemplates that this be a first cut, that this be the work of a Drafting Subcommittee to not just simply produce one more additional paper that's come into the Commission, just like all the others are, but a document where things -- frankly, everything is in.

As George said, it was intended to be inclusive, I gather, and that some things are going to be seen as agreeable and some things are not going to be agreeable. And I believe that the discussion so far has been that much of this will be decided ultimately in Dallas as to what is included in the ultimate final draft. I'm not sure that we can't take some votes in San Francisco. Maybe we can.

But as of right now, I think that the general consensus is that much of this will be deferred over to Dallas. Now, I think that we're not really arguing with each other, unless I'm missing the point here somewhere. I think Andrew is right that there will be additions on this document as we go through it line by line, and we'll probably put some things in and we'll probably take some things out. But I think that the work plan commanded that there be a document which is a jump-off point for further discussion in San Francisco, and I think that's what this is.

Now, let me hasten to add that I have some more items to discuss today, including additional proposals for presentation that have been picked out, and we can talk about that. It's perfectly obvious, isn't it, that if we're going to have more presentations or proposals, there has to be an opportunity for that to either make its way into the policy papers or to knock something out of the policy paper.

GOVERNOR LOCKE: This is Gary Locke.

As I looked at our agenda for today, which is to try and, number one, review the draft policy options paper and also look at the agenda for the San Francisco meeting, I see that the staff have worked together and proposed an agenda for the San Francisco meeting. And what I like about it is that we've got these proposals that have been solicited and have been received by the Commission, and we have a whole bunch of different numbers of these proposals, and they fit fairly nicely under the various main themes and basically chapters of the draft policy options.

It's my understanding that we might hear from some of these proposals, or there will be presentations given to the entire Commission that kind of -- that depict some of the whole extreme and the range of options that are discussed in the draft policy options paper. And clearly, I think that we need to hear from the sampling of these presentations in the San Francisco meeting, because otherwise, just looking at the draft piece of paper, that doesn't have much significance or meaning.

MR. VRADENBURG: This is George Vradenburg for Bob Pittman.

But I do sense that we are in somewhat violent agreement here that the straw man agenda that we have presented of your and ultimately the Chairman's consideration is sort of proposal-centric, in the sense that a majority of the time is intended to have presentation of proposals and an extended opportunity for Commissioners to react to those proposals, to ask questions of the proposal proponents, and again, as you suggest, Governor Locke, generally under the same themes as the policy and options paper, and then some time reserved on the afternoon of the second day really to sort of absorb what the Commissioners have been through for a day or so in terms of receiving and understanding the proposals, assessing that with the issues and policy options paper in some form, and then giving some direction to us as to how to proceed between San Francisco and Dallas.

But we do have a straw man agenda here which is proposal-centric, generally trying to be thematic in character, so we grouped like proposals under like subject matter headings. But we do give ourselves, or give the Commissioners -- excuse me, I don't mean to be presumptuous -- give the Commissioners a good deal of opportunity at the end of the second day to give some thought on how they would like to instruct us to narrow the issues and develop an approach from San Francisco to Dallas.

So it is intended both to be inclusive, informative, but then at the end of the day, to begin to narrow the issues to those in which there seems to be some emerging agreement from those where there may not be, but perhaps a narrowing of options that ought to be considered for final vote in Dallas.

GOVERNOR LOCKE: Governor Gilmore, that would then, I take it, provide for that discussion, whether line by line or thematically, on the second day for what you saw as going through the policy options paper, I take it?

GOVERNOR GILMORE: Well, first of all, let me say, Governor, that I want to talk for a moment about some of the other proposals, and I think this might help the Subcommittee members as well.

There's a large number of additional proposals that have been received pursuant to our request. We asked every Commissioner to share with us their preferences, and from the exercise, the staff has identified the following proposals. So let me just go over those, because these are going to be presented and will take up some of our time in San Francisco as discussion of some of the proposals. They've been given designations.

Heather, I don't think these are necessarily chronological, but you may inform me differently. But let me just go through them.

You've designated Proposal No. 66, which is the Progressive Policy Institute's "Internet Taxation," and a fellow named Robert Atkinson is going to come in; Proposal No. 104 by Dean Andal, "Prohibition on Discriminatory Ad Valorem Taxation on Interstate Telecommunications"; Proposal No. 113 of the Hoover Institution, "Radical Simplification of State Sales and Use Taxes, the Prerequisite for an Expanded Duty to Collect Use Taxes on Remote Sales," to be presented by someone by the name of Charles McClure; Proposal 119, the Carnegie-Mellon University proposal on "Taxation of Electronic Commerce," by John Peha, I believe; Proposal 120, Taxware International, Incorporated, "Adapting Tax Technology to the Internet; the eCommerce Transaction Tax Server," by Daniel Sullivan; Proposal 124 by Air Touch, Alltel, Bell Atlantic, Bell South, Comnet Cellular, Global Crossing, GTE, SBC, Sprint, US West, and Western Wireless, "A Conglomeration to Make a Proposal for State and Local Taxation of the Telecommunications Industry"; Proposal 134, the National Governor's Association, the National Conference of State Legislatures, the Council of State Government, the United States Conference on Counties, the US Conference of Mayors, the International City and County Management Association, and their presentation is "The Streamlined Sales Tax System for the 21st Century" by Mike Leavitt; Proposal 136, Committee on State Taxation, "Proposal from the Committee on State Taxation" by Diane Smith; Proposal 138, the E Freedom Coalition, "The E Freedom Coalition's Proposal"; Proposal 139, Ernst & Young, "Simplification of the State and Local Sales and Use Tax System," by the eCommerce Coalition; and Proposal 146, the California State Board of Equalization, "A Uniformed Jurisdiction Standard," by Dean Andal.

Also, ladies and gentlemen, in addition to that list, I've gotten a request from Chairman Congressman Bliley and his office to add the submission of a Mr. Morabito (phonetic) of Global Crossing to the list for presentation. Those of you who may have a prepared list of proposals, Global Crossing's proposal's 137. Again, the chairman of the Commerce Committee has requested that that go on. If there's not objection, I would add that also.

And as you can see, this is going to give a lot of information to us that's going to allow us, frankly, to react on the second day to a line-by-line discussion of the issues and policy options paper.

Does anybody object to those proposals being presented in San Francisco in that manner?

MR. PARSONS: We don't.

MR. PINCUS: I think it's a good list.

MR. ANDAL: I have no objection.

GOVERNOR GILMORE: I guess you don't, since you're on here about twice, but go ahead.

MR. ANDAL: Maybe I'll object to that.

GOVERNOR GILMORE: But again, it's designed to be a very extensive opportunity. Frankly, I'll be honest with you. I think that even though we got a little frustrated with the amount of people that want to come talk to us about this both in Williamsburg and in New York, I think that it has benefitted in terms of crystallizing thought which has resulted in our papers, and there's no harm, of course, in continuing to respond to our request for submissions and to give some time to hearing that. So without objection, we will proceed.

MR. ANDAL: Governor, I think it's been a useful process as well. It's probably apparent to everyone that I don't agree with the NGA proposal, but I think the NGA did a good job of putting their thoughts on paper, and this process allowed them an opportunity to do that.

And we really have -- even though there obviously is a lot of disagreement over what to do about nexus and a few other issues, we do have most of the options available to us on this list.

I would, however, suggest that since we have only two meetings left, including the one we're about to have, that after this meeting we start to narrow the agenda. In other words, we ought to start relying more on Commissioners and less on outside proposals. I will never object to any Commissioner pursuing an idea that he thinks is useful. On the other hand, I think we have to -- this process that we just went through, which was a narrowing process -- the drafting Committee looked at all these proposals and narrowed it down -- I think we ought to stick to that just so we have clarity and organization from this point forward.

GOVERNOR GILMORE: I think that's right, and I think the whole discussion is going to get much narrower in San Francisco, and I think it's going to be a great deal of fun between now and Dallas too, to be frank with you, in the discussions. If nobody objects to proceeding in that way without objection, we will proceed with those additional presentations, and I have some more things to discuss of course on this agenda today.

But who was calling for attention?

MR. PINCUS: This is Andy Pincus, Governor. But this is another item on the agenda which may be on your list, if you want to go forward with your list. It's just, I found that having the sort of group of experts that could be called upon but didn't take a lot of time making preset presentations was a very useful thing in New York. And I wonder if you're thinking of having some group of people that we can know are there to call on, if we want to use our time to ask them a question or something like that.

GOVERNOR GILMORE: Andy, I think that's perfectly okay. I guess I felt like we didn't really call on them very much in New York. We were too busy fighting amongst ourselves. There's absolutely no harm in having experts available if anybody wants to ask a question, and I would encourage that you submit a list of any individuals that you would like to have the staff inform to be present in New York, and that would be perfectly fine with me.

Does anybody else have any objections to that? There's no harm in it that I can see. No objections.

Let me talk to you for just a minute about resolutions in San Francisco. I want to bring to all of the members' attention and all the Commissioners' attention that the rules allow for the presentation of resolutions, and I want to remind everybody that five resolutions were filed in a timely meeting by Commissioner Norquist, by Commissioner Grover Norquist. He is going to be provided, under the rules, an opportunity to present his resolutions, and if he wants to move them for a vote, that's his pleasure. He can do that.

The Commission, of course, has the ability to examine those issues, whether they want to vote on them or not or how they want to handle them. But I thought that fair warning ought to be given that under the rules, Mr. Norquist is presenting five resolutions, and he's entitled to an opportunity to present them for a vote. Everybody with me on that?

Okay. It still sounds like a dead phone, but we're okay. Now, on the agenda --

MR. ANDAL: Excuse me, Governor. Just so we don't have a lot of confusion, can you explain the process by which we find out what Grover's five resolutions are and when we'll be voting on those, or when he would be bringing them up?

GOVERNOR GILMORE: Certainly. First of all, it ought to be included in the agenda, and I'm just making sure everybody's aware that we will include it on the agenda. The resolutions themselves absolutely ought to be submitted to every Commissioner so that they see them.

Heather, you're still on the phone, are you not?

MS. ROSENKER: Yes, I am, Governor. The resolutions are actually on the virtual work office. They were posted over -- boy, it's got to be two weeks ago.

GOVERNOR LOCKE: We in Washington, I think, have received copies of the resolutions from Heather.

MR. ANDAL: It's probably in my packet. What I was more interested in was when. Obviously, the Commissioners are busy people. Their staffs are going to want to prepare them to vote if Grover wants a vote. So where is that on our agenda?

MR. VRADENBURG: On the straw man agenda, it, at the moment, is identified as a half-hour period on Tuesday afternoon, December 14, from 5:00 to 5:30.

MR. ANDAL: I see it now. Thank you.

GOVERNOR GILMORE: The other thing is this. I've gotten several suggestions or recommendations on this straw agenda that's been referred to, and it's a draft agenda, and it contains all the proposals that we've talked about. As you were pointing out, it contains Grover, and it contains these other presentations and an opportunity to go through the issues and policy papers, and I think that's just fine.

But this Subcommittee is not entitled to totally set up the agenda. I think that everybody ought to have an opportunity to make their submissions and ideas so that the chairman can fulfill his obligation to make sure everybody has an opportunity to get some time on this agenda. Now, we've got to remember that we've got limited time, and the straw man agenda is an efficient approach to that time, and I think that's reasonable, and I think it goes through all of that.

If there are any other suggestions, though, for inclusion on the agenda, you can either raise them now or any other Commissioner that is not a part of this Subcommittee is entitled to bring those forward. And I would ask that they bring them forward to Heather today and would propose at the beginning of the week on Monday that we go ahead, and I'll put together a final agenda.

MR. SOKUL: Governor Gilmore, taking you up on that offer, I know that the straw man agenda to me anyways looks really good. And it's a tight agenda, but I'll just put out for your consideration an additional panel or additional thought, and that is that, in the time between now and the meeting, if we could try to get a panel of people who would be affected by these proposals to give us a flavor of the reaction out there, either local retail, E-merchants, big businesses that are everywhere, kind of a cross-section of firms that exist and have to collect these taxes, what they think of these proposals.

These proposals are by state and local government groups. They're by think tanks. They're by academics. And I just thought it might be useful for us to get some reaction from businesspeople that had time to review the proposals and could tell us what they think of them.

GOVERNOR GILMORE: I think that's certainly worthy of consideration. Anything you want to submit to Heather today, I would invite you to do that. We'll take that under consideration. If there are other Commissioners that wish to offer that or some other proposal, they can speak up now just as Stan just did, or if you want to, communicate with Heather today.

The sense I have is that the members of the Commission would like to see the agenda the first of the week, and I think that's very reasonable. So if people could submit us something by E-mail or by fax today or Monday, then I think that we ought to put this thing together and put it to bed by Monday afternoon.

MR. PINCUS: Governor, I guess just a quick response to Stan's suggestion. My notion was that perhaps we could use the expert approach to get those people in the room so that Commissioners who were interested in what an E-business thought about a particular proposal could call on them and ask them to speak, but there wouldn't be sort of a lot of -- a panel that might take up a lot of time saying things that no one was particularly interested in. I'm not wedded to either approach, but I think there are two possible ways to go on that.

GOVERNOR GILMORE: Not being wedded to either approach, I guess they're not necessarily mutually exclusive, either.

MR. PINCUS: I'm not wedded to either approach either. I just wanted to put forth that notion as you put together the final agenda.

GOVERNOR GILMORE: Very good.

Any other business to come before the Subcommittee?

GOVERNOR LOCKE: Gary Locke here.

Just looking at the proposed agenda, it looks pretty good. I like the idea of grouping some these presentations by some of the general topic areas so that we understand the divergence of views, and we're focusing on those specific issues all at one time instead of having them all scattered throughout the two days. So I really like that approach.

It's going to be a tight agenda, and I certainly wouldn't object to even having some of the presentations over lunch to make it a working lunch, because I know that we're always going to be pressed for time, and the more we're able to squeeze things in, the more time will be available for just general discussion near the end as we try to go through the actual draft policy option paper.

GOVERNOR GILMORE: That's fine. And again, I would also remind everybody that much of this discussion that we're planning to do in San Francisco is also contained deliberately in the issues and policy options paper, which gives you an opportunity to gather much of the discussion into one place, so that we don't have to spread it out over a couple of days any more than we have to. That was designed to be, as I understand it, a way of gathering together some of the principal arguments.

Okay. With all that being said, would we agree that we would confirm that this Subcommittee has agreed to submit the paper that has been drafted by the Committee to the full commission? Is there a motion to do that?

MR. ANDAL: I'll make such a motion. I think it's a bang-up job. Whoever's responsible, I congratulate you.

GOVERNOR GILMORE: Second of the motion?

GOVERNOR LOCKE: I second it.

GOVERNOR GILMORE: Gary Locke seconds it. Is there any objection to submitting this now to the full Commission for their review in San Francisco?

Without objection, we will do that. Let's see. By the way, I want to commend -- hey, George, you're still on, are you not?

MR. VRADENBURG: Yes, I am, Governor.

GOVERNOR GILMORE: I want to commend you and Ellen Fishbein and the other members of the Commission who put the document together. I think it's a really good job, and you can hear the other members of the Commission have agreed too. Considering the fact that there are disagreements among the policy considerations within the Commission, I think you've done a nice job of getting it all up on the table and crystallizing it for further discussion in San Francisco, and I think we can utilize our time, and that's what the Commission was designed to do. So thank you very much.

Any other business to come before the Commission?

MR. VRADENBURG: I'd just note, Governor, that Heather Rosenker played a very lead role and a central role in making sure that we're all involved and also that every single member of this Report Drafting Subcommittee, their staffs were deeply involved. And quite frankly, it emerged as a result of a team effort. It was not one where I think -- Ellen, while she played a lead role, was part of a larger team that put it together. So it was a team effort.

GOVERNOR GILMORE: There was a lot of administration involved with communicating with so many people in so many parts of the country and so many different of views, and Heather, we appreciate your administrative efforts to keep this train running.

Okay. Then I look forward to seeing each of you in San Francisco, and Heather will facilitate the distribution of the issues and options paper, and on Monday by that time, we'll have heard from everybody and take everybody into consideration and put together the agenda so everybody's heads up on where we're going.

Remember that the meeting in San Francisco begins at 1 o'clock p.m. on Tuesday, December the 14th. So thank you all very much. See you in San Francisco.

(Whereupon, at 12:44 p.m., the PROCEEDINGS were adjourned.)

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