[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 13 (Thursday, February 10, 1994)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: February 10, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

 
                   POPULATION TOPS U.S. GLOBAL AGENDA

                                 ______


                         HON. OLYMPIA J. SNOWE

                                of maine

                    in the house of representatives

                      Thursday, February 10, 1994

  Ms. SNOWE. Mr. Speaker, in September of this year, representatives of 
the nations of the world meeting in Cairo, Egypt, will convene the 
People Summit--the International Conference on Population and 
Development. This will be the third decennial global conference on the 
progress achieved and the problems ahead in the effort to stabilize the 
world's population.
  Demographers tell us that the actions taken, or opportunities missed, 
in the remaining years of this century will determine whether the 
world's population stabilizes at between 8 and 9 billion, or whether it 
will soar to 11, 15, or even 20 billion before it levels off. The 
greater the numbers, the more severe the impact will be on food and 
water supplies, forest lands, and virtually all elements of the human 
condition--from child and maternal health and mortality to literacy to 
the overall quality of life.
  As we enter the second session of the 103d Congress and undertake a 
massive rewrite of the Foreign Assistance Act, I urge all of my 
colleagues--and especially those with whom I have the privilege to 
serve on the House Foreign Affairs Committee--to ensure that population 
concerns will have a high priority.
  I call your attention to a recent editorial in the Portland Press 
Herald that, I believe, intelligently and concisely summarizes the 
consequences of rapid population growth in the world today.

            [From the Portland Press Herald, Nov. 17, 1993]

              Population at the Top of U.S. Global Agenda

       With population outstripping food supply, time is short. In 
     the time it takes to read this sentence, 15 more human beings 
     have entered the world. Second by second, they keep coming, 
     adding 100 million people a year to a planet that already, in 
     many areas, can't feed its own. Earth's population of 5.5 
     billion could double in less than 40 years, despite famine, 
     war, disease and natural disaster.
       It should be no surprise, then, that an administration 
     recommited to America's former role in international 
     population assistance planning should make that its No. 1 
     priority for global action. Tim Wirth, the Clinton 
     administration's counselor on global affairs, has been put in 
     charge of organizing a new State Department bureau on global 
     issues. These will include democracy and human rights, 
     environment, population, narcotics and terrorism.
       Chief among these ``whole Earth'' concerns, however, will 
     be population.
       ``Stabilizing the global population dwarfs all other 
     priorities in terms of its importance. Population must be at 
     the top of our agenda for global cooperation,'' says Wirth, 
     the dynamic former U.S. senator from Colorado.
       Part of the new emphasis will be a major effort to make 
     ``voluntary family planning services'' available throughout 
     the world by 2000.
       The administration's actions follow a sobering report this 
     summer that population growth is outstripping food supply. 
     Worldwatch Institute revealed that in three major food 
     production sectors--farms, livestock ranches and oceanic 
     fisheries--population pressures were reducing the amount of 
     food consumed by each person worldwide.
       The food needs of those 100 million people who are being 
     added every year are being met through those already here 
     having to eat less.
       Increasingly, next fall's meeting in Cairo of the U.N. 
     International Conference on Population and Development is 
     promising to be a defining factor in what kind of world we 
     take into the 21st century. The Population Institute rightly 
     calls it ``our last real chance before the end of this 
     century, to bring together in a consensus the voices of our 
     planet's leaders. This time there will be no choice but to 
     discuss the population crisis and the hard decisions that 
     must be made globally.''
       By now it's clear: Population growth equals more poor 
     people equals less food equals a worse world for everybody in 
     it. It's a fate we shouldn't wish on our most hated enemies, 
     let alone our loving children.

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