Kansas policymakers and business leaders discussed topics ranging from bioscience to transportation as they pondered the future of the Kansas economy at a conference yesterday.

The Institute for Policy & Social Research held its annual Kansas Economic Policy Conference, “The Kansas Economy: 2015,” yesterday in the Big 12 Room of the Kansas Union. Participants discussed the future of the state’s economy following the recent economic decline. Last year, the conference focused on health care reform.

“We address issues that relate to policymakers, academic and the business community in Kansas,” Donna Ginther, director of the Center for Economic and Business Analysis, said.

Ginther, who is also a professor of economics, spoke about the changes in population, employment and education and, more specifically, how those changes have affected and will affect the job market in Kansas.

Caryn Woods, Lake Winnebago, Mo., is a second-year graduate student in urban planning who attended the conference with a particular interest.

“I study two different things in urban planning — sustainable development and housing development — so this kind of centers on both my interests,” Woods said. “One is the housing crisis we’ve been having, particularly in interest to the economy of Kansas and what that’s going to do to housing and low-income families.”

Woods also said she was very interested in housing that used sustainable energy.

“I think it would be really neat to work with department of housing and urban development but also try to implement some green infrastructure within,” Woods said.

Rex Buchanan, deputy director for the Kansas Geological Survey, also said he saw green initiatives as being influential on the future of the Kansas economy.

He focused his speech, “Mapping the Kansas Economy — The Natural Environment,” on the natural resources Kansas used and ways to create jobs through reforming the use of those natural resources.

In his presentation, Buchanan showed that Kansas ranked highly in the total amount of greenhouse gases it emitted — 26th in the nation. Buchanan advocated creating jobs in the business of carbon dioxide sequestration, where carbon dioxide is taken from the atmosphere and buried more than 3,000 feet below the ground.

If Kansas did get into the business of sequestration, he said, it could be the poster child for the practice because Kansas has so much unused land.

However, Buchanan said he didn’t see renewable energy making a drastic effect on the Kansas economy just yet.

“Energy is a hugely complex issue,” Buchanan said. “As important as it is, it’s not one of those things that we’re going to sort of solve and change the way we do business overnight.”

Administrators of the institute said the presentations would be online at www.ipsr.ku.edu/conferen/kepc09 in about a week to anyone who was interested in ideas for the future of the Kansas economy.

— Edited by Abbey Strusz