[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 158 (Thursday, October 12, 1995)]
[Senate]
[Pages S15095-S15096]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                          NOBEL PRIZE WINNERS

  Mr. BUMPERS. Mr. President, this is really a very gratifying time for 
me to speak on this subject because it goes back to the time of my 
first year in the Senate, 1975.
  I was put on the space committee by the Democratic steering 
committee. I did not request to be put on that committee and I did not 
want to be on it. We did not have much of anything to do.
  And so after I had been here for a few months, I went to the chairman 
of the committee, Ted Moss, who was the senior Senator from Utah at the 
time, and I said, ``Ted, I don't mind telling you I'm bored around 
here. I have been Governor, and there is a lot of action in the 
Governor's office. There is none here for a freshman with no clout.''
  I said I had been reading a theory that has been publicized by two 
chemists at the University of California-Irvine, named Rowland and 
Molina. ``They have this theory they say they have worked out in a lab 
that shows''--and at that time this was how simple the idea was to me--
``that the hair sprays we use on our hair in the bathroom in the 
morning over a period of about 15 years waft their way into the 
stratosphere and they destroy a three-celled molecule called ozone, and 
that the ozone layer is what protects us from the ultraviolet rays of 
the Sun. It seems like an intriguing theory to me, very possibly true, 
and I would like to be able to chair just some ad hoc hearings and have 
people come in from around the country to testify for or against the 
Rowland and Molina theory.''
  Senator Moss said that was fine, I could do that, but I needed to get 
a Republican colleague to help me. So I recruited my good friend from 
New Mexico, Senator Domenici, who had not been here much longer than I 
had. I asked him: ``Will you join me and we will hold hearings. We will 
get some atmospheric scientists from around the country to come in and 
testify.'' He said he would be glad to.
  So we did. We held nine hearings. We had Dr. Elroy from Harvard, who 
was considered the premier atmospheric scientist in America. We had Dr. 
Robert Otten, who was the author of the greenhouse theory. And then 
finally we had Dr. Sherwood Rowland, who, along with Dr. Mario Molina, 
developed the theory of ozone depletion.
  You can imagine how much publicity it got. Senators do not go to a 
hearing unless there are a lot of television cameras with their red 
lights on, and there were no television cameras interested in ozone 
depletion. So we were pretty lonely holding these hearings. And when it 
was over, I suggested that we offer a bill or an amendment in this 
Chamber at the earliest possible time to ban or to phase-out the 
production of what we call CFC's, chlorofluorocarbons, at the earliest 
possible time.
  Senator Domenici did not think the hearings were conclusive enough to 
do that, and I could understand that because there were a lot of people 
in the country who were very reticent about accepting this theory.
  Well, I heard that my colleague, Senator Packwood, who was on the 
Environment and Public Works Committee at the time, had an interest in 
it, so I went to see Senator Packwood. I told him about the hearings. I 
said I thought he and I ought to team up and see if we could not stop 
the manufacture of these so-called chlorofluorocarbons and he said he 
thought that it was a great idea. So we spent several hours talking 
about it. And then we offered the amendment.

  And when it came time to vote, Mr. President, that hallway directly 
in front of me was so full of chemical industry lobbyists you could not 
get in here to vote. At that time this was a $2 billion-a-year 
industry. When I saw that, I did not think we had much chance anyway; 
but when I saw that crowd out in the hallway, I knew we did not have a 
chance.
  I think we got 32, possibly 35 votes. And believe you me, that was 
the most 

[[Page S 15096]]
liberal Senate I have ever seen. I shudder to think how many votes we 
would get under a similar situation today.
  But the arguments abounded on this floor that this is not conclusive; 
there is not enough evidence to disrupt this industry. And we were only 
trying to phase it out; we were not trying to kill it all at one time. 
And all those industry arguments made about how this was even a 
conspiracy of the Soviet Union KGB, a disinformation attack by the 
Soviet KGB to sow seeds of discord in the United States.
  My argument was simply this: If it takes 15 years for these 
chlorofluorocarbons to work their way into the stratosphere, even if we 
banned all CFC's at that moment, it would be 15 years before we would 
begin to reverse the damage that had already been done.
  And I said, ``This is the time, if there ever was a time, to err on 
the side of caution.'' These comments are not self-serving. I actually 
said those things on the floor of the Senate. I said them to everybody 
I could find to say them to, that I thought our committee hearings had 
produced enough evidence that the ozone depletion theory was real, that 
we ought to err on the side of caution and no great damage would be 
done if we were wrong.
  Mr. President, we were not wrong. We were dead right. And the 
National Academy of Sciences started their studies. And in 1985, thanks 
to a slightly separate theory by Paul Crutzen, who was also honored 
yesterday, of the Max Planck Institute for Chemistry, Mainz, Germany we 
discovered the hole in the ozone layer developing over Antarctica. And 
it created such a stir in this Nation that we had the big 1987 Montreal 
Protocol. We agreed to phase out the manufacture of all 
chlorofluorocarbons--and, incidentally, the principal one being Freon 
gas in your refrigerators and automobile air conditioners--that we 
would phase out the manufacture of all of those by this year, 1995, and 
hopefully we are going to.
  So, Mr. President, I really came to the floor to say, No. 1, I told 
you so--and that will get you about a half of one vote to say, ``I told 
you so''--but more importantly than anything else, to extend my 
profound and sincere thanks and congratulations to Mario Molina, who 
was just a postdoctoral fellow working under ``Sherry'' Sherwood 
Rowland. Everyone calls him Sherry. Yesterday they were awarded the 
Nobel prize for chemistry, along with Dr. Crutzen, the three of them.
  I cannot tell you how gratifying it is to me that the Nobel committee 
has chosen two people I feel that I have known all of my public life. 
As I say, I just came here this afternoon to publicly say on the Senate 
floor this Nation owes those two men a deep debt of gratitude. I am 
most grateful that we have people like that in this country.
  I yield the floor.
  Mr. DOMENICI addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Mexico.
  Mr. DOMENICI. I might first make a parliamentary inquiry, Mr. 
President. Is there a consent order about voting today?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. There is a consent order under which a vote on 
cloture will take place at 8:30 p.m.
  Mr. DOMENICI. On the pending matter?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator is correct.
  Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that I be 
permitted to speak for 5 minutes as in morning business.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. DOMENICI. Could I precede that with a remark to my good friend, 
Senator Bumpers, after which I will go on in morning business?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. DOMENICI. I say to Senator Bumpers, I did not get here in time to 
listen to all of his remarks, but I vividly recall that we served on a 
little subcommittee. I was on that subcommittee, I might share with my 
friend and the Chair, because freshmen Senators then did not get very 
good assignments. And so one of my assignments was to the Public Works 
Committee, now Environment and Public Works. And that was a top 
assignment then because the senior Senator from New Mexico, who was a 
Democrat, was also on that committee, and he was second from the top.
  I was not only on the Republican side, but I was the last and 
brandnew person. And then they gave me a seat on Space, which was being 
phased out. And it is in one of those subcommittees under the rubric of 
space that the Senator and I held hearings on this very strange 
phenomenon from whence came the Nobel awardees because of their 
research. I think that little subcommittee was the first to hold a 
hearing.
  Mr. BUMPERS. Absolutely.
  Mr. DOMENICI. I am not sure I understood the breadth at that point, 
but clearly while there are not answers on all of it, there are some 
very significant answers, and we have done a great deal in the United 
States against tough odds in reference to the combinations that are 
occurring out there, some of which we were causing with what we used.
  I compliment the Senator on the remarks and compliment the awardees. 
I do not know them as well as the Senator does. I think it is rather a 
sensational award, and people ought to continue to do work like that if 
there are going to be Nobel awards for them for that kind of exciting 
work.

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