[Congressional Record Volume 151, Number 131 (Monday, October 17, 2005)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E2085]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




  U.S. CIVILIAN RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT FOUNDATION (CRDF) MARKS ITS 
             FIRST DECADE OF CONTRIBUTING TO A SAFER WORLD

                                 ______
                                 

                            HON. TOM LANTOS

                             of california

                    in the house of representatives

                        Monday, October 17, 2005

  Mr. LANTOS. Mr. Speaker, I invite my colleagues to join me in marking 
the 10th anniversary of the U.S. Civilian Research and Development 
Foundation (CRDF). Established in 1995, the Foundation was created to 
employ in peaceful scientific pursuits scientists from the former 
Soviet Union.
  The Congress adopted legislation in 1992 to create the CRDF to 
provide grants for joint scientific research between scientists from 
the countries of the former Soviet Union and the United States. The 
effort is to fund non-military research and development projects, to 
provide employment and advancement of science with scientists that 
otherwise might be forced to seek employment with rogue nations using 
their knowledge and experience with weapons of mass destruction and 
other military research in order to support their families. In 1995 the 
CRDF was formally established by the Director of the National Science 
Foundation. Since that time the organization has put former Soviet 
scientists to work on a myriad of peaceful projects that have 
contributed to a better life for people around the globe.
  Mr. Speaker, the current Chair of the Board of CRDF is Gloria Duffy 
from the San Francisco Bay Area. In the Clinton Administration, Gloria 
was U.S. Special Coordinator for Cooperative Threat Reduction and 
Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense, and there she focused on 
preventing the spread of nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons from 
the countries of the former Soviet Union.
  After serving in the Department of Defense, Gloria became the 
President and CEO of the Commonwealth Club of San Francisco, the 
nation's largest, oldest and most distinguished civic forum. Under 
Gloria's able direction, the Commonwealth Club organizes some 400 
forums each year on public policy issues which are held in person, on 
radio and television, and on the Internet.
  One of the best examples of exactly what CRDF does and of the 
creative talent that goes into its work is an article by Gloria Duffy 
that appeared in The Commonwealth (September 15, 2005), the publication 
of the Commonwealth Club. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that the 
article, ``Teeth Whitening and Terrorism,'' by Gloria Duffy be placed 
in the Record, and I urge all of my colleagues to read it.

                [From the Commonwealth, Sept. 15, 2005]

                     Teeth Whitening and Terrorism

                          (By Gloria C. Duffy)

       Peter the Great began the long and distinguished history of 
     Russian science in 1724, creating the Russian Academy of 
     Sciences in St. Petersburg to ensure that Russia kept pace 
     with the rest of Europe in contributing to the scientific 
     discoveries of the age. During the Cold War, the Soviet Union 
     continued to pour funds into science. But under the Soviets, 
     much of Russia's superb scientific training and research was 
     turned to military purposes, to create nuclear, chemical and 
     biological weapons. The majority of scientists worked for the 
     government.
       When the Soviet Union disintegrated in 1991, the cash-
     strapped governments of the former Soviet states had little 
     money to continue supporting the work of their chemists, 
     physicists, geologists, mathematicians and biologists. So 
     they abruptly cut the scientists' funding. This personal 
     disaster for the scientists was also tragic for their 
     societies, which could benefit so greatly from their 
     contributions to medicine, industry and the quality of life.
       Of particular concern to the international community: 
     because of their work during the Cold War, hundreds of 
     thousands of these scientists had critical knowledge of how 
     to build weapons of mass destruction. In an era when 
     terrorists and rogue countries are seeking nuclear, chemical 
     and biological weapons, these legions of unemployed or 
     underemployed scientists present a very real threat. One 
     story from the early 1990s, perhaps apocryphal, tells of a 
     planeload of Russian scientists stopped by authorities on the 
     runway at Moscow's Sheremetyevo Airport, bound for Iran, or 
     North Korea or Iraq.
       Enter a Riverside, California, Congressman, George Brown, 
     with a bright idea. An industrial physicist and chairman of 
     the House Science Committee, in 1992 Brown wrote legislation 
     creating the U.S. Civilian Research and Development 
     Foundation (CRDF). Set up as a nonprofit, non-governmental 
     organization by the U.S. National Science Foundation, CRDF 
     would fund collaboration between the U.S. and former Soviet 
     scientific communities, the two greatest scientific groups in 
     the world, which had been cut off from one another during the 
     Cold War. CRDF would help scientists in the FSU to continue 
     their contributions to world scientific knowledge, and to 
     create more prosperous economies in their region. The 
     Foundation would employ former Soviet weapons scientists on 
     civilian research projects, giving them an alternative to 
     selling their knowledge to other countries or terrorist 
     groups.
       Congressman Brown died in 1999, but CRDF was born in 1995 
     and will celebrate its 10th anniversary in Washington, D.C. 
     in October. In the past decade, the Foundation has raised and 
     channeled $249 million, in taxpayer dollars, private 
     foundation and corporate funding, for joint scientific 
     research. CRDF has run research competitions and given 
     hundreds of grants for American-FSU research. It has provided 
     travel grants for scientists from the 12 former Soviet states 
     to attend conferences or visit colleagues in the United 
     States, in many cases for the first time in their lives. CRDF 
     has provided major scientific research equipment--
     spectrometers, lasers, electron microscopes--to consortia of 
     researchers across Eurasia, who share use of the equipment.
       CRDF has funded fellowships for young scientists at Russian 
     universities and built a geodynamic research facility in 
     Kyrgyzstan. It has refitted an oceanographic vessel, the 
     Professor Kaganovskiy, so teams of U.S. and Russian 
     researchers can measure the health of the Arctic Ocean's 
     Pollock fish population. CRDF has launched a collaborative 
     research project on treatment of HIV/AIDS. It has funded 
     joint research by an Ohio start-up company and a Russian 
     institute on advanced cancer detection technology, and funded 
     training of Russian hospital staffs in infection control to 
     prevent the spread of tuberculosis. After 9/11, CRDF 
     established a joint U.S.-Russian research project on defense 
     against bioterrorism, tapping the considerable Russian 
     knowledge growing from their longtime biological weapons 
     program.
       CRDF has done all of this with low overhead, and with 
     matching funds from the governments in the former Soviet 
     countries. And the Foundation has paired scientists with 
     companies and investors to explore the commercial potential 
     of the joint research, so that it will eventually help the 
     economies of that region and beyond. Some CRDF research 
     projects have produced commercially viable products, 
     including an energy-saving cryogenic process for 
     refrigerating produce during transport that is already in use 
     in the United States. My personal favorite among these 
     success stories is teeth whitening strips. Every time you see 
     a TV ad for these, think about how the method for making 
     these strips adhere to the teeth came from one of CRDF's 
     U.S.-Russian research projects.
       And with terrorists on the hunt for nuclear weapons, CRDF 
     has recently broadened its geographical range to provide 
     former weapons scientists in Iraq and Libya with productive 
     civilian alternatives for their skills.
       On October 18, Marta Brown, widow of the late congressman, 
     will be in Washington to help CRDF mark its 10th birthday. 
     Kudos to Congressman Brown for a great idea, and to the U.S. 
     and foreign officials, CRDF's dedicated staff, the 
     participating scientists, funders and investors, and the 
     volunteers who serve on its board for building this unique 
     institution.

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