In June 1996, Dallas, Texas sweltered in temperatures that remained over 100 degrees F for 20 straight days, according to Jerry Clifford, acting regional administrator for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's Region 6. Opening a public conference on global warming with a dramatic hypothetical question, Clifford raised the possibility of new record highs under a changing climate and droughts that last for years. The EPA conference on global climate change, held in Dallas on October 30, 1997, was cosponsored by 14 organizations and attended by more than 200 people from the five states--Arkansas, Louisiana, New Mexico, Oklahoma, and Texas--that comprise EPA's Region 6.