Governor Kirk Fordice of Mississippi, chairman of the Southern States Energy Board, presented a special award from the regional organization to Clyde Frank, deputy assistant secretary of DOE's Office of Science and Technology. The ceremony took place at a session of SSEB's associate members at the Edison Electric Institute during the National Governors' Association meeting on February 4. According to an SSEB press release, Gov. Fordice said, "Today I have the pleasure of recognizing a man with the foresight and determination to advance national goals for environmental quality. Through his efforts and innovative strategies, states throughout the country are developing benchmarks for best practices in environmental remediation." Fordice discussed the text of the award, which was fashioned from policy positions passed by the Southern Legislative Conference (with more than 2,600 state legislators as members) and the Southern States Energy Board (governors and legislators from 18 Southern states). Among their provisions, the policies call on states to implement risk-based approaches to achieve performance-based cleanup levels, establish cleanup levels for brownfields and federal facilities, accept data from other states to expedite regulatory acceptance of new technologies, and set up innovative technology liaison programs to further regulatory acceptance of new technologies. All these goals are being pursued by the Office of Science and Technology, headed by Frank.