Acknowledgements

This conference proceedings would not have been possible without the financial assistance of sponsors and the substantive contributions of the participants.

This conference was supported by two grants from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA) through the Border 2012 Program.  One grant supported research on management of scrap tires along the Mexico-U.S. border.  A second grant supported research on cross-border management of used oil along the Mexico-U.S. Border.  Other donors contributed financial support including the Rubber Manufacturers Association, the U.S EPA (both Region VI and Washington, D.C. offices), the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, the North American Development Bank, the Graduate School of The University of Texas at Austin (UT/Austin), the Teresa Lozano Long Institute for Latin American Studies at UT/Austin, the Institute for Innovation, Creativity and Capital (IC2) at UT/Austin, the Kozmetsky Global Collaboratory (KGC) at UT/Austin, the Cross-Border Institute for Research and Development at UT/Austin, and the Bess Harris Jones Centennial Professorship of Natural Resource Policy Studies at UT/Austin. 

The conference was co-sponsored by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality.  Robby Snowbarger and Gina Weber of EPA’s Region 6 in Dallas, Texas were particularly helpful with their guidance and advice. Rick Picardi in the Office of Solid Waste at EPA Washington helped the conference with useful ideas, as did his colleagues Tab Tesnau and Elisia Kanipe.  A number of academic units within UT/Austin co-sponsored this conference.  These units included the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs, the Teresa Lozano Long Institute for Latin American Studies, the Graduate School, the School of Law, the John A. and Katherine G. Jackson School of Geosciences, the Institute for Innovation, Creativity and Capital, and the Cockrell School of Engineering.  The Law School of The University of Texas at Austin contributed the impressive meeting space, which consistently drew plaudits from attendees. The Law School also helped in many ways with related logistics. For example, the Dean of the Law School, Lawrence Sager, was the keynote speaker at the beginning of one of the conference sessions.

This project owes a ten-year debt of gratitude to the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) and its Office of Border Affairs (OBA), with whom the LBJ School has had an excellent long-term cooperative arrangement.  Diana Borja, Manager, and Steven Niemeyer, Senior Policy Analyst of that office provided helpful advice during the planning stages of the conference. They also encouraged two UT/A employees who are assigned to the OBA under an inter-agency agreement, Ross Pumfrey and Ed Moderow, to provide staff assistance before, during, and after the conference.  The Office of Border Affairs of the TCEQ contracted for translation services prior to and during the conference and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency contributed funds to the translation services.  Mr. José Gibler of Monterrey, Nuevo León, Mexico provided accurate interpretation throughout the conference. We also thank him for translating versions of some of the PowerPoint presentations to permit the projection of English and Spanish on screens at the conference.  Other translations of presentations were provided by Ed Moderow, Ross Pumfrey and Alicia Williams, a student at the LBJ School of Public Affairs.

The conference was a project of the Cross-Border Environmental Management Policy Research Project of the 2006-2007 academic year.  All of the class members participated in the conference preparations and in the conference, including Hilary Aten, Jason Fialkoff, Cynthia Green, Aridai Herrera, Leslie McCulloch, Nishesh Mehta, Mary Miner, Celeste Rogers, Emily Sentilles, Zachery Simpson, Luke Steinmann and Alicia Williams.  Paul Hobart and Amanda Van Epps co-organized the conference.  Liat Avivi, Marco Campos, Elizabeth Ojeh, Leigh Otey and Alex Wong assisted in the logistics of the conference. David Eaton directed and supervised the process to develop the conference and proceedings.  The class is thankful to Lori O’Neal, Debbie Warden, and LBJ School staff who supported the development of this project.  Alex Wong created the electronic files through which the presentations are offered to the public via streaming video.  Alex Wong also compiled the proceedings for publication.  Lori O’Neal of the LBJ School provided administrative assistance in countless ways as the conference took shape.

During the conference the speakers from the public and private sectors contributed insights and information on scrap tires and used oil.  None of the sponsors endorse the views or findings of individual speakers or participants in the conference.  Any omissions or errors are the sole responsibility of the organizers and editors of the current version of the proceedings.