[Congressional Record Volume 149, Number 177 (Monday, December 15, 2003)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E2556-E2557]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




 THE PHILADELPHIA CONFERENCE ENTITLED ``PARTNERSHIP FOR PROSPERITY AND 
                               SECURITY''

                                 ______
                                 

                            HON. CURT WELDON

                            of pennsylvania

                    in the house of representatives

                       Monday, December 15, 2003

  Mr. WELDON of Pennsylvania. Mr. Speaker, converting Cold War military 
technology to serve peaceful purposes was the subject of a conference 
which took place last month in my State of Pennsylvania. Taking place 
in Philadelphia, the conference was entitled ``Partnership for 
Prosperity & Security'' and was hosted by U.S. Secretary of Energy 
Spencer Abraham and his Russian counterpart, Minister Alexander 
Rumyantsev. As the op-ed below by Kempton Jenkins describes, it was a 
showcase of new technology products in fields ranging from energy, 
nanotechnology and healthcare to detection technologies for counter-
terrorism. It was an important demonstration of the power of 
cooperation between our two countries and I recommend the article to my 
colleagues.

           [From American/Russian Business Today, Dec. 2003]

``Guns to Plowshares'' and Nuclear Non-proliferation: The U.S.-Russian 
                              Partnership

                          (By Kempton Jenkins)

       While developments in Iraq dominate headlines and 
     newscasts, the threat to civilization itself of nuclear 
     proliferation is both real and urgent. Diplomatic 
     collaboration between Moscow and Washington in dealing with 
     North Korea and Iran is central to containing this threat. In 
     the long-run, cooperation between the United States and 
     Russia in harnessing our huge Cold War stockpiles (and the 
     brain power which produced them) is the only way to remove 
     this threat to both of us and the rest of the world.
       Last month in Philadelphia U.S. Secretary of Energy Spencer 
     Abraham and his Russian counterpart, Minister Alexander 
     Rumyantsev, chaired a conference entitled ``Partnership for 
     Prosperity & Security.'' It was dedicated to accelerating 
     cooperation between Russia and the U.S. on proliferation 
     policy and promoting the continued conversion of military-
     industrial capacity to serve peaceful purposes. Dramatic 
     progress, largely unnoticed publicly, has already been 
     accomplished. At the conference, Secretary Abraham and 
     Minister Rumyantsev announced important new initiatives.
       The Philadelphia conference drew attention to a number of 
     health-related products that are byproducts of the bilateral 
     effort to convert military technologies to civilian uses. The 
     event was a showcase of new technologies from Russia, 
     Ukraine, and Kazakhstan to potential U.S. industry 
     partners and financiers. The conference's exhibition hall 
     displayed 100 high-technology products ready for 
     commercialization in fields ranging from energy (coal, 
     oil, gas, nuclear and fuel cell) and radio pharmaceuticals 
     to aerospace, nanotechnology and detection technologies 
     for counter-terrorism.
       The U.S. Department of Energy, in collaboration with U.S. 
     Industry Coalition, has already helped form more than 100 
     commercial partnerships between U.S. companies and Russian, 
     Ukrainian, and Kazakhstan institutes and private companies to 
     bring new (and heretofore inaccessible technologies) to the 
     global market. In 1991, a small New Mexico engineering 
     company recognized the commercial potential in a Russian 
     radar technology and embarked on a successful partnership to 
     develop applications in energy and land mine detection. With 
     a team of more than 100 weapons scientists and engineers in 
     the Russian city of Nizhny Novgorod, Stolar Horizon has 
     developed ``Horizon Sensor'' radar mapping, a technique 
     allowing cleaner, more efficient access to coal, methane gas 
     and oil. The same technology is being developed for 
     humanitarian purposes by Stolar Horizon and SPEKTR Conversia 
     in the closed nuclear city of Snezhinsk. The ``EDIT'' 
     detector is able to locate both metal and plastic land 
     mines--an urgently needed tool in the global effort to find 
     and disable tens of thousands of land mines.
       Persons confined to wheelchairs due to disease or accidents 
     are susceptible to pressure ulcers--painful, sometimes-deadly 
     infections caused by lack of circulation and motion. Health 
     care costs associated with treatment are estimated at $8 
     billion in the U.S. alone. Numotech, a small California 
     medical devices firm with an FDA-approved automated 
     wheelchair seat cushion proven to prevent these sores, was 
     facing significant engineering production problems when the 
     company was introduced to the Russian SPEKTR Conversia in 
     1999. Today the resulting U.S.-Russian partnership is 
     planning the launch

[[Page E2557]]

     next year of the ``Generic Total Contact Seat,'' with 
     components engineered and manufactured in Russia.
       Needle-free injections are performed for mass inoculations 
     and immunizations, but they also pose the risk of spreading 
     disease. With decades of experience in needle-less 
     technology, scientists at the medical research group of the 
     Voronezh missile plant in Russia developed a disposable cap 
     with an impermeable membrane. Their paper about this 
     development caught the attention of Felton International, an 
     animal injection company in Lenexa, Kansas, which is now in 
     partnership with CADB MedEquipment to manufacture the ``Pulse 
     2000'' injector for animal use and human clinical trials in 
     the U.S.
       Just as the expanding U.S.-Russian partnership is replacing 
     military-industrial confrontation with peaceful product 
     development, there is reason for optimism that Russo-American 
     collaboration can also prevail over the threat of nuclear 
     conflagration in the future.

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