schools. The plan passed despite opposition from Lieutenant Governor Harry Lee Waterfield. The 1966 legislative session was much more successful for Breathitt. His economic development program, which led to construction or expansion of 749 industries, 57,000 new jobs, and more than $1 billion in new plant investment, was recognized as the nation's best by the Society of Industrial Investors in 1964 and generated an additional $100 million in state revenue. The pro-administration majority in the legislature was expanded in the 1965 elections, and Waterfield, Breathitt's sometimes hostile lieutenant governor, was stripped of much of his authority. Former governor Lawrence Wetherby was selected president pro tempore of the senate, providing effective leadership in that house of the General Assembly. Wetherby introduced a budget which was 27 percent larger than the previous one and contained appropriations for most of the state's political districts. Wetherby's leadership was so effective that the budget passed both houses of the Assembly, virtually unchanged, by votes of 99–0 and 31–5 only ten days later. Kentucky Civil Rights Act Passage of the national Civil Rights Act of 1964 had paved the way for an even stronger civil rights bill in the 1966 legislative session. The Assembly easily passed the Kentucky Civil Rights Act opening all public accommodations to people of every race and prohibiting racial discrimination in employment by firms that employed eight or more people. The act applied to many kinds of businesses not covered by the federal statute, and approximately ninety percent of the businesses in Kentucky were affected, compared to only sixty percent that were covered by the federal statute. The act was the first of its kind passed in a southern state. In 1966, Breathitt was presented with the Lincoln Key Award for his leadership in the bill's passage. In 1966 and 1967, he was chair of the Southern Governors' Conference's Committee on Regional and Interstate Cooperation. He was also the only state governor named to the President's Council on Human Rights. Breathitt was a member of National Governors Conference Executive Committee in 1964 and 1965 and chaired its Natural Resources Committee. In the 1966 legislature, he won approval for several conservation measures, including the creation of an authority to regulate water, soil, and forest resources. The session also tightened strip mining laws to prohibit mining on mountainsides that were too steep to be restored. In 1967, he was recognized with the U.S. Department