The current EPA Administrator (former Utah Governor Mike Leavitt), environmental lawyer and activist Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., and a quartet of Hollywood environmental "celebrities" will be among big names addressing the 14th annual conference of the Society of Environmental Journalists (SEJ) in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania on October 20-24, 2004.

The conference, following a pattern familiar to those who have attended past years' meetings, opens with a reception and a Wednesday "celebrity, the media, and the environment" plenary session, featuring Ted Danson, Michael Keaton, and several other celebrities. The SEJ reporting awards presentations follow.

Half- and full-day tours, requiring advance registration, take place on Thursday, October 21, followed by a reception and keynote address by Kennedy, a senior attorney with the Natural Resources Defense Council, at the Carnegie Museum of Natural History.

The planned Friday morning activities include Leavitt's keynote address and also a plenary session addressing "politicization of science and environmental policy." That latter session, among other things, is to address the question: "Are journalists who cover the environment flunking science?"

Draft agenda, registration details, and other information can be obtained now from SEJ, or you can register now. Pre-August 16 conference registration fee is $150 for SEJ members and $700 for nonmembers. After that cutoff, full conference registration fees rise to $180 and $750 respectively. Single-day registration fees also are available. The hotel headquarters for the meeting, hosted and sponsored by Carnegie Mellon University, is the Holiday Inn Pittsburgh-University Center, where the single or double rate is $109 (800-864-8287 or 412-682-6200). The hotel is within one mile of the university, site of most of the scheduled meetings.