[Congressional Record Volume 149, Number 108 (Monday, July 21, 2003)]
[Senate]
[Pages S9631-S9632]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                         DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE

  Ms. SNOWE. Mr. President, I rise today to speak in support of the 
Department of Defense Breast Cancer Research Program. Last week, we 
passed a Defense appropriations bill that includes $150 million in 
funding for this program. In the more than 10 years since its 
inception, I have worked with many of my colleagues to ensure that this 
groundbreaking program continues to have the strong level of support 
necessary to give researchers the essential resources they need to 
discover the keys to curing and preventing breast cancer.
  Breast cancer is the most commonly diagnosed cancer in women. It 
accounts for 30 percent of all cancers in women. In the United States 
in 2002 alone, it is estimated that 203,500 women were diagnosed with 
invasive breast cancer while 40,000 women lost their lives to this 
disease. These women are our mothers, our sisters, our daughters, our 
friends. Research toward a cure cannot bring those loved ones back to 
us, but we hope it will spare thousands of future tragedies and provide 
hope for women currently struggling with this devastating disease.
  Earlier this year, as I have for the past several years, I 
coordinated a letter, along with Senators Leahy and others, requesting 
that the Defense appropriations for fiscal year 2004 contain $175 
million in funding for the Department of Defense Breast Cancer Research 
Program. This letter received the strong bipartisan support of 66 
senators. Although budgetary constraints did not permit funding at the 
requested level, the fiscal year 2004 Defense appropriations bill does 
contain $150 million for this program. Given the challenges of this 
year's budget, I am pleased that the appropriation bill contains such a 
strong level of support.
  The research made possible by the Breast Cancer Research Program may 
benefit not only the victims of breast cancer but of countless other 
diseases as well. This program fills a unique role in offering awards 
that fill gaps in ongoing research and complement initiatives sponsored 
by other agencies. The program supports research and training awards 
that promote the investigation of innovative ideas and a strong 
workforce of scientists in this critical field. In an analysis of this 
program the Institute of Medicine said:

       The Program fills a unique niche among public and private 
     funding sources for cancer research. It is not duplicative of 
     other programs and is a promising vehicle for forging new 
     ideas and scientific breakthroughs in the nation's fight 
     against breast cancer.

  In just over a decade since its inception, the DOD Breast Cancer 
Research Program already has shown great success. The flexibility of 
this program helps to maximize the limited resources available. I 
applaud the strong support of this program and want to stress that the 
intent of reviewing alternative funding sources is to strengthen breast 
cancer research efforts and not to affect funding for the current 
program. I am concerned about

[[Page S9632]]

any efforts to review or restructure the program that might reduce the 
effectiveness and vitality of the dynamic research efforts it supports. 
Much work remains to be done in our quest for the cure, and I will 
continue my strong support of the Breast Cancer Research Program in 
years to come.
  Mr. President, as this bill heads to conference, I urge the conferees 
to recognize the strong congressional support of this program by, at a 
minimum, maintaining the Senate funding level.


                          honoring john hardt

  Mr. BENNETT. Mr. President, I want to take this opportunity today to 
pay tribute to a very distinguished servant of the legislative branch 
of Congress. In May 2003, Dr. John Hardt ends his official service with 
the Congressional Research Service after 32 years as a valuable 
resource to Congress in the field of international economics and 
foreign affairs. In many ways, Dr. Hardt's retirement symbolizes the 
ending of an era for the Congress; he is the only remaining CRS senior 
specialist now providing Congress with research and analysis in the 
field of foreign affairs. He has been a great asset to the Congress and 
to CRS throughout his long career in public service.
  Dr. Hardt received both his PhD in economics and a certificate from 
the Russian Institute from Columbia University. Prior to joining the 
Congressional Research Service, he had already had the kind of 
illustrious career that serves as a lifetime achievement for many 
others. He served his country with distinction during World War II, 
receiving ribbons and battle stars for both the European and Asiatic 
Theaters of operations as well as the Philippines Liberation Ribbon. He 
has been an educator--specializing in economics, Soviet studies, and 
Sino-Soviet studies--at the University of Washington, the University of 
Maryland, Johns Hopkins University, the George Washington University, 
the Foreign Service Institute, and American military service schools. 
He has served in the American private sector specializing in Soviet 
electric power and nuclear energy economics for the CEIR Corporation in 
Washington, DC, and as Director of the Strategic Studies Department at 
the Research Analysis Corporation in McLean, VA, where he specialized 
in Soviet comparative Communist and Japanese studies. He is a widely 
published author, with hundreds of research papers, journal articles, 
technical memoranda, and book chapters to his credit.
  Dr. Hardt joined the Congressional Research Service as the senior 
specialist in Soviet economics in November of 1971. It is work for 
CRS--and for us,the Members of this body--that I want to honor today. 
For the past three decades, Dr. Hardt has served Members of Congress, 
their staff and committees with his considerable expertise in soviet 
and post-soviet and Eastern Europe economics, the economy of the 
People's Republic of China, East-West commercial relations, and 
comparative international economic analysis. He has advised, among 
others, both the Senate and House Commerce Committees on East-West 
trade; the Senate and House Banking Committees on the Export-Import 
Bank and other U.S. Government financing programs; and the Senate 
Finance and House Ways and Means Committees on U.S. trade policy. He 
frequently has traveled with congressional committee delegations, 
serving as a technical adviser on visits to the former Soviet Union, 
Poland, Hungary, the former Yugoslavia, the United Kingdom, the Federal 
Republic of Germany, Italy, and Sweden, and then preparing committee 
reports for these trips. On many occasions, Dr. Hardt has been called 
on to advise directly Members of Congress and congressional staff on 
Russian Federation debt reduction and its relationship to 
nonproliferation concerns, and has provided support to the Russian 
Leadership Program, especially those events and activities that 
involved Members of Congress. The extent of his national and 
international contacts is breathtaking, and includes senior members of 
foreign governments and leading multinational businesses.
  His most lasting legacy for Congress may well be his service as both 
editor and coordinator of a long series of Joint Economic Committee 
compendia on the economies of the PRC, Soviet Union, and Eastern 
Europe. The Congress can take pride in these important, well known, and 
highly respected JEC studies, to which Dr. Hardt devoted so much of his 
talent and energies. The more than 70 volumes of this work include; 
China Under the Four Modernizations, 1982; China's Economy Looks Toward 
the Year 2000, 1986; The Former Soviet Union in Transition, 1993; East-
Central European Economies in transition, 1994; and Russia's Uncertain 
Economic Future, 2001. The series includes hundreds of analytical 
papers on various aspects of issues pertinent to Congress and to U.S. 
policy, all written by internationally recognized government, academic, 
and private sector experts, and all coordinated and edited by Dr. 
Hardt. This work was not only a valuable source of analysis to the 
Congress but also to the policy making and academic communities at 
large. For many years, these volumes were the most comprehensive 
sources of economic data and analyses on the economies of the Soviet 
Union, China and Eastern Europe.
  Let me make one final point to illustrate the loss that we, as 
Members of Congress, sustain with Dr.. Hardt's retirement. That point 
concerns one of the great strengths that CRS offers to Congress, and 
which Dr. Hardt's tenure and contributions at CRS epitomize perfectly: 
institutional member. Of the 535 Members of the 108th Congress, only 11 
were Members of the 92nd Congress when Dr. Hardt first assumed his 
official congressional duties. Most of the countries that he has 
specialized in have undergone astounding transformation during his 
working life--some, indeed, no longer exist. The membership of this 
deliberative body in which we serve has turned over many times. 
Committees have come and gone. But through it all, John Hardt has been 
a constant fixture, a strand of continuity in an environment of 
continual change--part of the collective institutional memory of CRS 
which is of such value to our work in Congress. We wish Dr. Hardt well 
in the new ventures on which he will be embarking. He will be greatly 
missed by us all.

                          ____________________