LEXINGTON — Gov. Paul Patton said Wednesday that environmental protection, far from being an impediment to industry, is essential to economic development.

        The old joke about business depending on “location, location, location” remains true but for a different reason, Mr. Patton said in a speech to the Governor's Conference on the Environment.

        It once meant that a company had to be near its raw materials and customers. Now, it means people can live and work almost anywhere, thanks to technology, Mr. Patton said.

        People behind the brain-power companies that Kentucky wants to attract are loathe to live in a spoiled area, Mr. Patton said.

        “One of the things we need to do to create the kinds of jobs we want is to have as a goal the best environment in the nation,” Mr. Patton said.

        Mr. Patton, who made his fortune as a coal operator in Pike County, also took a jab at those he said were leery of him before he became governor.

        “How's the old coal operator governor doing?” Mr. Patton said, drawing chuckles from an audience of industrial representatives and people from various environmental groups.

        Even as a coal operator, he championed “reasonable regulation of the environment,” Mr. Patton said.

        “Certainly as governor, I understand the importance of having a good environment,” he said.

        Tom FitzGerald, an environmental activist and attorney, said the administration's actions, including its funding for environmental protection, has not always matched the governor's rhetoric.

        “It's fair to say that, up till now, it is a very mixed legacy,” Mr. FitzGerald said in a telephone interview.

        “We are expecting the land, air and water resources to be protected with less than 1 percent of the state's budget, and it's a number that seems to decline,” he said.

        “Roadside dumps are important. But spending your resources on going out and cleaning them up is too narrowly focused” if it comes at the expense of air quality and inspection of hazardous-waste generators, Mr. FitzGerald said.

        Mr. Patton said illegal dumping, and the refusal of a fraction of Kentuckians to pay for garbage collection, is something the state has yet to fully come to grips with. He referred to illegal dumpers as “the three or five percent that just don't care and give all the rest of us a bad name.”

        On another topic, Mr. Patton said he probably will extend a moratorium on applications for new electric power plants, all of which need air-quality permits from the state. A six-month moratorium will expire in December.

        Applications for 24 plants proposed by unregulated energy companies got in before the moratorium and are pending.

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