[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 15 (Wednesday, February 25, 1998)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E219-E220]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                            ACCESS TO ENERGY

                                 ______
                                 

                             HON. RON PAUL

                                of texas

                    in the house of representatives

                      Wednesday, February 25, 1998

  Mr. PAUL. Mr. Speaker, recently, a national newsletter focusing on 
science, technology and energy policy highlighted the small town of 
Seadrift, Texas located in my District.
  While focusing on Seadrift this newsletter article (Access to Energy) 
went on to make important points regarding the contributions which 
science and technology have made to freedom and industry and to the 
quality of life of people everywhere.
  Moreover, the article outlines how certain radicals would shut off 
technological benefits in the name of protecting earth at the expense 
of the humans who live on this planet. I commend this article to every 
Member and insert it in the record as an extension hereof.

                 [From Access to Energy, February 1998]

                                Seadrift

       Near the Gulf of Mexico, on the road between Houston and 
     Corpus Christi, is the town of Victoria, Texas--one of the 
     oldest settlements in the western United States. Thirty-five 
     miles southeast of Victoria, rising out of the mists that 
     roll in from the Gulf near the town of Seadrift, is one of 
     America's great petrochemical plants, built by Union Carbide 
     in 1954 and later expanded several times.
       I feel that I know this plant well, since I have a large 
     framed aerial photograph of it on the wall beside me along 
     with a matching framed artist's drawing of the plant before 
     it was built. Under the artist's drawing is the aluminum hard 
     hat of the man who was in charge of the design and 
     construction of this plant and partially responsible for its 
     operation during the first four years--my father, Edward H. 
     ``Ted'' Robinson. His most trusted and valued co-worker at 
     that time, Arnold Graham, still lives in Victoria, 
     remembering their efforts.
       Ted Robinson went on to lead teams of engineers who 
     designed and built similar Union Carbide plants in Puerto 
     Rico, Scotland, Belgium, Brazil, Japan, and India. He is 
     buried in an alpine glacier near the top of Mont Blanc on the 
     border between France and Italy, which contains the remains 
     of the Air India Boeing 707 that crashed there on January 24, 
     1966. The cause of this crash is not known for certain. It is 
     believed to have been the work of assassins that killed the 
     Indian physicist Bhaba, who was then head of the nuclear 
     energy program of India and was also on the airplane.
       The original plant at Seadrift produced primarily 
     polyethylene. It now produces additional products. This plant 
     is a part of the vast infrastructure of chemical plants, 
     built by the generation of Americans now in their 80s and the 
     generations before them, that supplies the chemicals upon 
     which our technological civilization depends. Along with the 
     dams, bridges, foundries, mines, wells, mills, factories, 
     railroads, research laboratories, computers, and other 
     technological installations that have been built by the past 
     several generations of Americans, these plants form the 
     technological superstructure upon which our science, 
     technology, and economic freedom depend.
       The capital required to build these things was supplied by 
     the savings of tens of millions of people, who set aside part 
     of the money they had earned and invested it in the free 
     market in hopes of making a profit. It was also built by the 
     profits retained by the corporations themselves. Capital 
     alone did not, however, build the industries--people did. 
     These people were led by unusual individuals whose love of 
     science and technology dominated their personal lives and 
     drove them and those around them to ever greater 
     accomplishments.
       Archibald MacLeish told me many years ago that the thing 
     that impressed him most about human beings was their amazing 
     ability to love--and he was not thinking of the shallow 
     phenomenon that dominates the lyrics in the cacophony of 
     ``pusic'' (word invented by a musician friend) which pollutes 
     most of America's radio stations.
       Each person has an enormous capacity to love--in many 
     different ways. In some individuals, a part of this love is 
     intensely directed toward science and technology. My father, 
     for example, was simply head-over-heels in love with chemical 
     plants (and with my mother, but that is another story). He 
     lived and breathed their design and construction. When not in 
     use for food, our kitchen table was covered with blueprints. 
     He had no hobbies or avocations--the building of chemical 
     plants was his vocation and all of his avocations combined. 
     And, as a result of this all-consuming love, he built superb 
     plants.
       I have seen this sort of love in a few other individuals. 
     Mrs. Merrifield, the wife of R. Bruce Merrifield, who was the 
     first man to synthesize an enzyme, described her husband's 
     love affair with each of the 20 naturally occurring amino 
     acids--a love that enabled him to link them together in ways 
     never before accomplished.
       Linus Pauling, regardless of the low state of his personal 
     and professional ethics, was completely in love with the 
     structures of molecules. The incredible joy Linus felt as

[[Page E220]]

     he pursued three-dimensional, semi-quantitative explanations 
     for the structures of molecules and, later, for the 
     structures of atomic nuclei was the greatest of all the 
     scientists I have known. He was supremely happy when 
     calculating or describing the properties of chemical bonds.
       Scientists work largely alone or with a few other people. 
     Those who build industries work with large numbers of people. 
     These prime builders, driven by their love for their work, 
     are usually not the most well-liked, but they are often the 
     most respected. It is their job to make our industrial world 
     work--regardless of the personal foibles of those whom they 
     must direct in doing this work. Their personal love for their 
     work is the driving force that motivates them.
       All of us are beneficiaries of science and technology. We 
     live lives that are much longer and are filled with seemingly 
     endless pleasures, experiences, and freedoms that would not 
     be available without technology. Even the ``warmers'' who 
     gathered in Kyoto to bemoan and attack the world's 
     hydrocarbon technology dropped in by way of airplanes 
     belching demon carbon dioxide.
       Now, virtually all of our technology is under serious 
     attack. From our lumber mills, farms, and ranches to our 
     dams, power plants, and factories, all are under assault. Our 
     enemies belong to a peculiar form of pagan religion. Petr 
     Beckmann called it the ``green religion.'' This is not a new 
     religion. The animal, plant, and earth worship ascendant 
     today (partially at the expense of animals, plants, and the 
     earth, which are, on balance, actually harmed by this mania) 
     is fundamentally the same as that which arose periodically 
     among the ancients, as chronicled, for example, in the Old 
     Testament.
       This religion is now preached in our schools, our press, 
     and our political institutions. It is, primarily, a religion 
     of death. Technology, in the view of these zealots, has 
     committed a terrible sin. It has made possible the lives of 
     billions of human beings--human beings whom they believe to 
     be alive at the expense of worshiped plants and animals. (The 
     fact that technology enhances the lives of plants and animals 
     is suppressed by the professional enviro religious 
     agitators.)
       It is the moral obligation of every American--each living 
     and benefiting from freedom and technology; each obligated to 
     pass these blessings on to future generations; and each 
     entrusted with a vote in the fate of the great American 
     experiment--to stop this mania.
       Seadrift and the tens of thousands of like accomplishments 
     must not be destroyed--at least not without a terrible fight.

     

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