Bush there for business, tech execs told

Bush there for business, tech execs told

Evans assures local leaders that they'll have say in agenda

Saturday, May 12, 2001

By DAN RICHMAN
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER

Commerce Secretary Donald Evans yesterday told Seattle-area high-tech leaders that the Bush administration has shaped an ambitious business agenda during its first four months.

But he sought their help to improve it.

"We've got to get the framework in place so industry and commerce can prosper," said Evans, who spent the day here to observe Small Business Week. "We can either be helpful or be a barrier."

Evans spent 20 minutes of yesterday's one-hour breakfast meeting listening to concerns of the dozen executives who gathered around a rectangular table at Microsoft's Redmond headquarters.

"It wasn't just a political speech," said Peter Nickerson, the chief executive of Seattle-based Internet filtering company N2H2, after the meeting. "It's early in the administration, but it sounds like they want to hear what business has to say, and I think they will look for market solutions before diving in with regulations."

Evans, a former oil-and-gas magnate who is Bush's good friend and was his first Cabinet appointment, spent time with executives at N2H2, online drugstore drugstore.com, Internet billing service CheckSpace, and nine other companies, as well as venture capitalist Tom Alberg of Madrona Investments.

During the discussions, Evans said the new administration will work to ensure that tax credits for research-and-development spending, now scheduled to expire in 2004, are made permanent.

"(President Bush) will accomplish that, I'm confident," he said.

Evans said he is optimistic that Congress will grant Bush trade promotion authority -- the right to negotiate trade agreements without congressional amendments, previously known as fast-track authority -- by year-end.

Concepts of intellectual property, which involve protecting software and digitized music, artwork and other content from unauthorized use and copying, "are something I talk about every time I talk to a foreign minister," Evans said.

Increasing the spread of broadband Internet connectivity "is certainly very high on our priority list," he said. The National Telecommunications and Information Administration -- for which he said he will soon announce an assistant secretary -- "will be very focused on that," he said.

Outgoing Microsoft Chief Operating Officer Bob Herbold, who chaired the meeting along with U.S. Rep. Jennifer Dunn, R- Bellevue, said broadband is so critical that its lack may have led to the softness in today's high-tech sector.

Evans also said he will name an undersecretary of technology within the next month and a privacy adviser within the next two months.

He refused to comment on the Microsoft antitrust case.

Peter Neupert, the chairman of drugstore.com, challenged Evans to help the health care industry to make better use of technology, an "incredibly complex" undertaking that he said could reduce costs and medical errors.

Evans promptly invited Neupert to join in the effort, jokingly telling him to "report for work in the morning."

Afterward, Neupert said he'd consider doing just that.

"I have a lot of passion about health care, and as chairman I have some flexibility. If they asked me to help, I'd do it."

P-I reporter Dan Richman can be reached at 206-448-8032 or danrichman@seattlepi.com

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