Paper presented to the Regulatory and Public Policy Perspectives Workshop

processing, and for numerous new agriculturally based products. This year’s conference — Agricultural Biotechnology and Environmental Quality: Gene Escape and Pest Resistance — is on a topic of great importance to all. This workshops deals with public policy and regulations. Collectively you represent diverse interests, ranging from state and federal regulators, agribusiness providers, public scientists, educators, and farmers and other users. Interests as diverse as these typically generate healthy debate. We can expect that a discussion about regulating environmental impacts of gene escape and pest resistance will be no exception. Discussion during the first workshop session has to do with pest-derived resistance to transgenic plants; the second session will consider gene escape. I have been asked to set the stage for both.