[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 58 (Wednesday, May 1, 1996)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E688-E689]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                          CONCERNING ACID RAIN

                                 ______


                          HON. BRUCE F. VENTO

                              of minnesota

                    in the house of representatives

                         Wednesday, May 1, 1996

  Mr. VENTO. Mr. Speaker, important new long-term research shows that 
acid rain negatively impacts soil chemistry, which in turn has a 
deleterious effect on our Nation's forests. This ground-breaking study 
was conducted by Dr. Gene E. Likens, the director of the Institute of 
Ecosystem Studies in Millbrook, NY. Dr. Likens' findings were recently 
published in the respected professional journal, Science. Dr. Likens' 
work continues to provide and sustain the policymaking process. As an 
elected official, I am grateful for his positive efforts.
  Whereas earlier research has suggested a link between acid rain and 
harmful impacts on deciduous forests, the Likens study provides more 
conclusive evidence of the damage caused by acid rain.
  On Monday, April 22, we celebrated the 26th Earth Day. Let me remind 
my colleagues that every day is Earth Day for those of us who are 
entrusted by the American people to protect and conserve our Nation's 
natural resources. We must be responsible stewards of the environment 
and we have an obligation to use the best possible science and insights 
available to us when making critical decisions affecting America's 
natural treasures. Dr. Likens' study provides important new information 
concerning pollution and forests. I am including a New York Times 
article about the Likens study for the Record. I hope my colleagues 
will take a few minutes to read this important article on the topic of 
acid rain:

                [From the New York Times, Apr. 16, 1996]

     The Forest That Stopped Growing: Trail Is Traced to Acid Rain

                        (By William K. Stevens)

       In the first long-term study of its kind, researchers have 
     found that a New England forest whose soil chemistry has been 
     altered by acid rain essentially stopped growing nearly a 
     decade ago and will probably be a long time in recovering.
       The impact of acid rain on American forests has been a 
     contentious subject. A 10-year Federal assessment of the 
     problem concluded in 1990 that with some exceptions, there 
     was no clear evidence linking acid precipitation to any 
     important harmful effect on forests. Many scientists 
     objected, arguing that the impact of changes in soil 
     chemistry was not yet clear but that those changes would 
     probably be damaging in the long term.
       Now investigators have examined more than three decades of 
     data from the Hubbard Brook Experimental Forest in the White 
     Mountains of New Hampshire and discovered that increased 
     acidity has deprived the soil of alkaline chemicals, mainly 
     calcium, that are essential for plant growth. At the same 
     time, they found that the annual rate of accumulation of 
     forest biomass--its total plant material--dropped to nearly 
     zero in 1987 and has remained there. Finally, they discovered 
     that the soil was recovering its calcium and other alkaline 
     chemicals very slowly because precipitation contains about 80 
     percent less of them than it is estimated to have contained 
     in 1950.
       The alkaline chemicals, or cations (pronounced CAT-ions), 
     are leached from the soil by acid precipitation and carried 
     away by streams. The precipitation contains sulfuric acid and 
     nitric acid, produced by the burning of coal, oil and 
     gasoline. A major source of these chemicals raining down on 
     the Northeast has been the sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides 
     emitted by Midwestern power plants and borne eastward by 
     prevailing winds; they form sulfuric acid and nitric acid 
     when they mix with water.
       Congress amended the Clean Air Act in 1990 in an effort to 
     cut the emission of sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides in 
     half by 2000. But the findings from the Hubbard Brook forest 
     suggest that this will not be enough if forests are to 
     recover any time soon, said Dr. Gene E. Likens, the leader of 
     the study.
       Dr. Likens, an ecologist, is the director of the Institute 
     of Ecosystem studies at Millbrook, N.Y., a nonprofit research 
     and educational institution formerly associated with the New 
     York Botanical Garden. The institute has been collecting a 
     wide range of data since 1963 on the functioning of the 
     Hubbard Brook forest, a 7,500-acre tract owned by the United 
     States Forest Service. It is one of only a few ecological 
     research projects looking at ecosystem behavior over the long 
     term, and it is probably the only one to come up with 
     decades-long detailed measurements on the effects of acid 
     rain on American forests.
       The report of the new findings appears in the current issue 
     of the journal Science. It was prepared by Dr. Likens, Dr. 
     Charles T. Driscoll of Syracuse University and Donald C. Buso 
     of the Millbrook institution.
       ``It's just a landmark paper,'' said Dr. David Schindler, a 
     prominent acid-rain researcher at the University of Alberta 
     in Edmonton, Canada. ``Hubbard Brook has the only data set 
     that's thorough enough and long enough to show this 
     happening.''
       Until now, Dr. Schindler said, the idea that acid rain is 
     harming deciduous forests has amounted to a ``robust'' 
     hypothesis. The Hubbard Brook results are ``the clincher,'' 
     he said, adding: ``I think there's concern for the whole 
     northeastern United States and eastern Canada that this is 
     occurring.''
       Some other researchers were more cautious. ``The large 
     majority of forests in the eastern U.S. seem to be growing 
     quite well,'' said Dr. Jay S. Jacobson, a plant physiologist 
     at the Boyce Thompson Institute at Cornell University. While 
     the Hubbard Brook results are suggestive, he said, other 
     factors should be considered before reaching a firm 
     conclusion on the effects of acid rain. These include the 
     effects on forests of climatic changes and possible changes 
     in the deposition of nitrogen, a critical forest nutrient.
       Assuming that forests are recovering slowly, Dr. Jacobson 
     said, ``are we as a nation willing to accept slower growth of 
     forests in order to avoid placing additional controls on 
     emissions of pollutants?''
       In their paper, the Millbrook researchers stopped short of 
     asserting a firm cause-and-effect relationship between the 
     depletion of cations in the soil and the slowing of forest 
     growth. Pinpointing the cause of the slow growth, they wrote, 
     ``should become a major area of research.'' Dr. Likens said, 
     ``If indeed the forests has become limited in its growth by 
     the disappearance of these base cations--and I emphasize the 
     `if'--then that's a very serious implication of these 
     results.''
       Dr. Likens compared the action of acid rain in depleting 
     the soil of cations with that of stomach acid eroding an 
     antacid tablet. In the case of the Hubbard Brook forest's 
     soils, he said, ``it's like half the antacid has been eroded 
     away, and you've only got half of it left.'' The continuing 
     deposition of acid is making the system even less able to 
     neutralize it. ``The system is now very sensitive,'' he said.
       The observed effects on soil chemistry were unexpected, Dr. 
     Likens said, and neither those effects nor other data based 
     on long-term observations were reflected in the 10-year 
     Federal study, the National Acid Precipitation Assessment 
     Program. The study found that acid rain generally causes 
     significant ecological damage, but not so much as originally 
     feared.
       Among other things, the study concluded that acid rain was 
     harming aquatic life in about 10 percent of Eastern lakes and 
     streams, that it was reducing the ability of red spruce trees 
     at high altitudes to withstand the stress caused by cold and 
     that it was contributing to the decline of sugar maples in 
     some areas of eastern Canada. While forests otherwise 
     appeared healthy, the study said, they could decline in 
     future decades because of nutrient deficiencies brought on by 
     acid rain.

[[Page E689]]



                 BEN GILMAN: A REAL FRIEND OF THE IRISH

                                 ______


                             HON. TOM DeLAY

                                of texas

                    in the house of representatives

                         Wednesday, May 1, 1996

  Mr. DeLAY. Mr. Speaker, I commend to our colleagues an article 
written by Father Sean McManus, the president of the Irish National 
Caucus, that appeared in the Irish Echo on April 3, 1996, about our 
colleague, Chairman Ben Gilman of New York.
  This article describes the efforts of the Republican Congress to 
fight for fairness and peace in Ireland, and the great leadership of 
Ben Gilman on these issues.
  Ben Gilman is proving that Republicans in the Congress do fight for 
justice around the world, especially in Ireland. I applaud him for his 
leadership, and I urge my colleagues to read the following article:

                 My Irish Hero Is a Jewish Congressman

                         (By Fr. Sean McManus)

       I don't think that Irish Americans are sufficiently aware 
     of the extraordinary revolution that has taken place in the 
     U.S. Congress regarding Irish affairs.
       For over 20 years the Irish National Caucus had campaigned 
     for Congressional Hearings on Northern Ireland. But famous 
     Irish-Catholic speakers of the house--with names like O'Neill 
     and Foley--steadfastly blocked all hearings. They didn't want 
     to offend Her majesty's government:
       ``An ad hoc Irish committee of 119 members has been formed 
     in Congress. But the committee's attempts to publicize the 
     outrages being committed in Northern Ireland, along with the 
     efforts of the Irish National Caucus, have been blocked by 
     House Speaker Tip O'Neill and other congressional leaders 
     (Jack Anderson, ``Carter Pressured on Northern Ireland,'' 
     Detroit Free Press, Oct. 29, 1978.
       When the MacBride Principles were launched in 1984 we had 
     an even more legitimate reason for hearings because U.S. 
     dollars were subsidizing anti-Catholic discrimination in 
     Northern Ireland, where Catholics are twice likely to be 
     unemployed as Protestants. But again--and now under speaker 
     Tom Foley--hearings or legislative action were blocked. 
     Furthermore, the then-chairman of House Foreign Affairs (now 
     called International Relations Committee, Rep. Lee Hamilton, 
     the Indiana Democrat, kept telling me there was no interest 
     in the MacBride Principles among members of the Committee.
       This was a deeply distressing experience. We knew we had a 
     perfectly valid case for a hearing, yet it was being unfairly 
     and undemocratically blocked in the interest of the English 
     government (with the connivance of the then Dublin 
     Government).
       Yet oddly enough, some Irish Americans thought that when 
     the Republicans seized control of both House and Senate in 
     1995, the Irish cause would suffer. But not this Fermanagh 
     man. The first thing the Republican takeover meant to me 
     was that our very best ally, Rep. Ben Gilman of New York 
     would become chairman of the House International Relations 
     Committee.
       Ireland has never had a more dedicated, consistent, or 
     genuine friend than Ben Gilman.
       As far back as July 1979, Rep. Gilman, then a member of 
     both the Committee of Foreign Relations and the Subcommittee 
     on International Economic Policy and Trade, commissioned Rita 
     Mullan, executive director of the Irish National Caucus, to 
     conduct an investigation of the hiring practices of U.S. 
     companies doing business in Northern Ireland. This was the 
     first-ever American study of those companies and it marked 
     the genesis of the MacBride Principles.
       Rep. Gilman has been a champion of every Irish issue: the 
     Birmingham Six, the Guilford Four, the right of political 
     prisoners etc. He has been absolutely fearless on the Irish 
     issue, never allowing the State Department or any foreign 
     government to silence him.
       One of the first things Chairman Gilman did early on in the 
     104th Congress was to hold hearings, the first on Northern 
     Ireland since 1972. Then, despite heavy lobbying and 
     pressure, he attached the MacBride Principles to the 
     International Fund for Ireland. The House International 
     Relations Committee, after spirited debate, voted on the 
     issue on May 15, 1995. There are 41 Members of the Committee. 
     Thirty-two voted for MacBride Principles, only 8 voted 
     against. And yet for all those years I had to listen to Lee 
     Hamilton tell me there was no interest in the Committee on 
     MacBride.
       The MacBride legislation is part of the American Overseas 
     Interest-Act, H.R. 1561. The legislation has now been passed 
     twice by the House of Representatives. It has also been 
     endorsed by the House and Senate Conference. And the entire 
     Republican Leadership--from Sen. Jesse Helms--are all on 
     record of supporting the MacBride Principles, while the State 
     Department opposes these efforts.
       What an extraordinary political realignment. None of which 
     could have happened without Ben Gilman's leadership.
       For years I have been preaching the message: ``Human Rights 
     for Ireland is an American issue--not just an Irish-American 
     issue.'' And I deeply believe that. Nonetheless, I am still 
     deeply touched when someone who is not Irish stands up for 
     Ireland. And there are many in the Congress who do: African-
     Americans, Italians, Polish, Jewish, etc.
       Rep. Gilman is Jewish American. Isn't it extraordinary that 
     it took a Jewish American to move the Irish agenda to the 
     very top of the U.S. Congress? Isn't it truly amazing that 
     while some powerful Irish Americans in Congress were too 
     scared to take a stand, this quiet, unassuming man has 
     emerged as Ireland's best friend in the U.S. Congress.
       Every Irish-American worth his or her salt must stand up 
     and cheer Ben Gilman. He is my Irish Hero.
       I should end by explaining that the Irish National Caucus 
     is nonpartisan: neither Democrat nor Republican. So I do not 
     want readers to think this is a pro-Republican article. It is 
     not. In fact, I've personally never voted Republican in my 
     life. But then, I've never lived in Ben Gilman's district.

                          ____________________