The Border Governors Conference: (Still) Only Part of the Solution

Ideally, the North American Leaders Summit, recently concluded in Guadalajara, and the upcoming Border Governors Conference in Monterrey this week are but complementary halves (or, more accurately, quarters) of a “whole of government” solution to North American issues: the Summit envisions and sets a top-level priority list and Conference implements specific, local and customized solutions to a number of challenges.

Local Solutions are Often Better Solutions
If there is one thing that we have learned after over a decade of transborder work, it’s that local solutions to local problems are usually better than one size fits all, top-down prescriptions.  Whether the problem is security, trade, environmental, water, energy, emergency response, or other binational issues, the more place-specific the solution, policy, design, or meeting, the better the outcome. To paraphrase and expand upon Tip O’Neill’s famous dictum – all politics and all effective resolutions are local.  While the federal governments and international commissions are critical for many challenges, binational actors at the regional level that have long traditions of working together can find effective ways to address many, many issues.  The Arizona-Mexico Commission, which just this year celebrated its 50th anniversary, is an example of partners moving together …many times after having looked in vain for a useful federal blessing or resolution. So as hundreds of us prepare to participate in the annual Border Governors Conference, let us all remember this lesson which we have repeatedly learned on both the southern border and the US-Canadian border.

The Challenge of Implementation
But what the Border Governors Conference has also lacked is a coherent plan to implement its often excellent ideas. With so many important issues to deal with in the border region, as is often the case with their federal counterparts, the issue du jour (to use a French Canadian term) dominates the agenda.  Today the issue is protectionism; yesterday it was the narcoinsurgency and guns; tomorrow it will be wave two of the flu, the safety of border dams, or climate security.  Some consistency and an action plan (beyond the customary joint declarations of the border governors) are needed to augment the goals.

Each year the Border Governors do outline their priority projects, a process which is helped by numerous dedicated staff in the various state agencies. This year’s draft declarations range across the same themes as those of prior years and also break down into similar categories of implementation:
•    Lobbying the feds. Most (35%) speak of lobbying together to influence or at least liaise with the federal governments or binational commissions to make better the condition of the borderlands. Most of these declarations are about issues that our federal governments tend to dominate, such as borders and ports of entry, public health, energy, and disaster response and recovery.
•    State-to-state exchange. The next largest category (30%) recommends state-to-state pairs establish Memorandums of Understanding, committees, or more formal information exchange on a particular topic i.e. education, emergency preparation, energy, or health.
•    Data/research/outreach. A full fifth of the declarations (20%) identify a data, research, or outreach need best performed by partners in the private sector, academia, advocacy, or civil society (economic development, energy, and health).
•    Meetings. The BGC has an emerging role convening meetings and recommends more. A full 15% of the declaration topics are to establish forums, meetings, or other venues on such topics as agriculture, environment, tourism, water, or wildlife.
•    Funding. The smallest but arguably the most important category (10%) is made up of recommendations about finding or matching funds to deal with clean energy, science and technology advancement.

What is striking from this analysis is that the topic of energy transcends all of these categories. Since Canada and Mexico are the first- and third-ranked suppliers of energy to the United States, what does the Border Governors Conference propose to accomplish as an important subnational organization representing a key region in this overall energy relationship? This question in turn begs another key (organizational) question for the Border Governors Conference: With no permanent staff to implement its solutions, how would the Conference effectively follow up on its declarations and action plans in this or any other area?

The Other (Northern) “Quarters” of a More Comprehensive Solution
Perhaps one way forward out of this difficult position is for the Border Governors Conference to look more broadly at the strategic role that border regions and regional organizations play in North America. The fact that the U.S. has two sets of very long and complex borders and borderlands means that engagement with our neighbors across both borders is a critical point to include in successful management of any single border issue.  The United States is increasingly treating the northern border as a real border, as demonstrated by recent developments of the Department of Homeland Security at ports of entry and along the Canadian border.

Thus, the discussion this week at the Border Governors Conference is only half of half of the solution. In an era of resurgent federal power, those governors, premiers, legislators and assembly members, and municipalities along the U.S.-Mexico and Canada-U.S. borders are all being impacted by the same top-down dictates. If local usually works best, then it makes sense for all of these key elected officials from our continent’s strategic border regions to be at the same table at the same time.

That is precisely what NACTS proposes for next year: a joint meeting of the BGC preparatory meeting planners along with governors and premiers from the northern border; the inter-parliamentary commissions from the three federal legislatures; the Border Legislative Conference (which is already convening southern and northern state legislators); and other key transborder commission and actors. As NACTS has found from both of our North America Cross Talk conferences, each border can learn from the other, and together these officials can present twice the lobbying and liaison bloc.

-Rick Van Schoik and Erik Lee