[Congressional Record Volume 152, Number 133 (Wednesday, December 6, 2006)]
[House]
[Pages H8758-H8761]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
CONGRESSIONAL TRIBUTE TO DR. NORMAN E. BORLAUG ACT OF 2006
Mrs. BIGGERT. Madam Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the
Senate bill (S. 2250) to award a congressional gold medal to Dr. Norman
E. Borlaug.
The Clerk read as follows:
S. 2250
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of
the United States of America in Congress assembled,
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.
This Act may be cited as the ``Congressional Tribute to Dr.
Norman E. Borlaug Act of 2006''.
SEC. 2. FINDINGS.
Congress finds as follows:
(1) Dr. Norman E. Borlaug, was born in Iowa where he grew
up on a family farm, and received his primary and secondary
education.
(2) Dr. Borlaug attended the University of Minnesota where
he received his B.A. and Ph.D. degrees and was also a star
NCAA wrestler.
(3) For the past 20 years, Dr. Borlaug has lived in Texas
where he is a member of the faculty of Texas A&M University.
(4) Dr. Borlaug also serves as President of the Sasakawa
Africa Association.
(5) Dr. Borlaug's accomplishments in terms of bringing
radical change to world agriculture and uplifting humanity
are without parallel.
(6) In the immediate aftermath of World War II, Dr. Borlaug
spent 20 years working in the poorest areas of rural Mexico.
It was there that Dr. Borlaug made his breakthrough
achievement in developing a strand of wheat that could
exponentially increase yields while actively resisting
disease.
(7) With the active support of the governments involved,
Dr. Borlaug's ``green revolution'' uplifted hundreds of
thousands of the rural poor in Mexico and saved hundreds of
millions from famine and outright starvation in India and
Pakistan.
(8) Dr. Borlaug's approach to wheat production next spread
throughout the Middle East. Soon thereafter his approach was
adapted to rice growing, increasing the number of lives Dr.
Borlaug has saved to more than a billion people.
(9) In 1970, Dr. Borlaug received the Nobel Prize, the only
person working in agriculture to ever be so honored. Since
then he has received numerous honors and awards including the
Presidential Medal of Freedom, the Public Service Medal, the
National Academy of Sciences' highest honor, and the Rotary
International Award for World Understanding and Peace.
(10) At age 91, Dr. Borlaug continues to work to alleviate
poverty and malnutrition. He currently serves as president of
Sasakawa Global 2000 Africa Project, which seeks to extend
the benefits of agricultural development to the 800,000,000
people still mired in poverty and malnutrition in sub-Saharan
Africa.
(11) Dr. Borlaug continues to serve as Chairman of the
Council of Advisors of the World Food Prize, an organization
he created in 1986 to be the ``Nobel Prize for Food and
Agriculture'' and which presents a $250,000 prize each
October at a Ceremony in Des Moines, Iowa, to the Laureate
who has made an exceptional achievement similar to Dr.
Borlaug's breakthrough 40 years ago. In the almost 20 years
of its existence, the World Food Prize has honored Laureates
from Bangladesh, India, China, Mexico, Denmark, Sierra Leone,
Switzerland, the United Kingdom, and the United States.
(12) Dr. Borlaug has saved more lives than any other person
who has ever lived, and likely has saved more lives in the
Islamic world than any other human being in history.
(13) Due to a lifetime of work that has led to the saving
and preservation of an untold amount of lives, Dr. Norman E.
Borlaug is deserving of America's highest civilian award: the
congressional gold medal.
SEC. 3. CONGRESSIONAL GOLD MEDAL.
(a) Presentation Authorized.--The President Pro Tempore of
the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives
are authorized to make appropriate arrangements for the
presentation, on behalf of Congress, of a gold medal of
appropriate design, to Dr. Norman E. Borlaug, in recognition
of his enduring contributions to the United States and the
world.
(b) Design and Striking.--For the purpose of the
presentation referred to in subsection (a), the Secretary of
the Treasury (in this Act referred to as the ``Secretary'')
shall strike a gold medal with suitable emblems, devices, and
inscriptions, to be determined by the Secretary.
SEC. 4. DUPLICATE MEDALS.
Under such regulations as the Secretary may prescribe, the
Secretary may strike and sell duplicates in bronze of the
gold medal struck under section 3 at a price sufficient to
cover the cost thereof, including labor, materials, dies, use
of machinery, and overhead expenses, and the cost of the gold
medal.
SEC. 5. STATUS AS NATIONAL MEDALS.
(a) National Medal.--The medal struck under this Act is a
national medal for purposes of chapter 51 of title 31, United
States Code.
(b) Numismatic Items.--For purposes of section 5134 of
title 31, United States Code, all duplicate medals struck
under this Act shall be considered to be numismatic items.
SEC. 6. AUTHORITY TO USE FUND AMOUNTS; PROCEEDS OF SALE.
(a) Authority To Use Fund Amounts.--There are authorized to
be charged against the United States Mint Public Enterprise
Fund, such sums as may be necessary to pay for the cost of
the medals struck under this Act.
(b) Proceeds of Sale.--Amounts received from the sale of
duplicate bronze medals under section 4 shall be deposited in
the United States Mint Public Enterprise Fund.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to the rule, the gentlewoman from
Illinois (Mrs. Biggert) and the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr.
Frank) each will control 20 minutes.
The Chair recognizes the gentlewoman from Illinois.
[[Page H8759]]
General Leave
Mrs. BIGGERT. Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members
may have 5 legislative days within which to revise and extend their
remarks on this legislation and to insert extraneous material thereon.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the
gentlewoman from Illinois?
There was no objection.
Mrs. BIGGERT. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may
consume.
Madam Speaker, I rise today to urge Members to join in saluting an
American hero who deserves to be recognized for his lifetime service to
the world by passing S. 2250, the Congressional Tribute to Dr. Norman
E. Borlaug Act of 2006.
Senate 2250 directs the Speaker of the House and the President of the
Senate to make appropriate arrangements to award a gold medal on behalf
of Congress to Dr. Norman Borlaug in recognition of his enduring
contributions in fighting hunger around the world. This legislation is
identical to H.R. 4924, introduced by the gentleman from Iowa (Mr.
Latham).
Madam Speaker, Dr. Borlaug is a Nobel Peace Prize recipient of whom
few have heard, a humanitarian responsible for mounting a global
campaign against hunger that saved so many of the world's neediest
people through agricultural science.
In 1944, he took on the task of researching high-yield and disease-
resistant cereal grains. Through trial and error, Dr. Borlaug's efforts
led to the development of varieties of wheat that completely altered
production agriculture as it was then known in places like Pakistan,
India and Mexico. The dwarf wheat variety allowed farmers to produce
far more grain per acre than anyone could have predicted. This newfound
bounty gave the world's poorest people access to food, ensuring
children who otherwise would have been victims of malnutrition could
thrive.
Dr. Borlaug's landmark discoveries in agriculture led to what is
called the ``Green Revolution.'' However, this modest man, born and
raised in Cresco, Iowa, and educated in Minnesota, once said his
accomplishments were only ``a temporary success in man's war against
hunger and deprivation.''
Madam Speaker, I recognize that many in Congress and throughout the
country do not know about the progress we have made in production
agriculture and are unaware of the countless contributions made by
agricultural scientists such as Dr. Borlaug. However, his leadership
has inspired so many others of our best and brightest students to
pursue careers in agriculture sciences, and his work will live on in
the lives of those who have been spared the misery of starvation.
Madam Speaker, this is an honor long overdue, and I would urge
immediate passage of this important legislation.
Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time
as I may consume.
I congratulate the delegation from Iowa on bringing forward this very
important symbol honoring a very great man, a man who has performed
enormous service for humanity. It was first called to my attention by
the gentleman from Iowa who is I believe now the dean of the majority
of the Iowa delegation, and I am delighted to be the first to recognize
him in that context, my very good friend and a very good leader.
Madam Speaker, I yield as much time and as much corn as he may
consume to the gentleman from Iowa (Mr. Boswell).
(Mr. BOSWELL asked and was given permission to revise and extend his
remarks.)
Mr. BOSWELL. Madam Speaker, thank you very much. I thank the
gentlewoman from Illinois (Mrs. Biggert) and the gentleman from
Massachusetts (Mr. Frank) for yielding me this time.
I would also like to thank my colleague and friend Congressman Latham
for working on this and leading out on this very, very worthwhile
tribute to Dr. Borlaug. He is from Iowa. We have known him for some
time. As you might reflect, some of you, some years ago he was awarded
the Nobel Peace Prize. It was for his work in agriculture. He started
the Green Revolution. It was he that led out with the education, the
expertise, the research to feed the world. He is credited with a
billion people, saved their lives, fed the world--it has been quite a
thing.
I happened to be serving in the Iowa legislature at the time. I was
appropriations chair, and it looked like the World Food Prize was going
to disappear. We saw the opportunity to bring it to Iowa. A great
benefactor, which Mr. Latham knows, too, Mr. John Ruan II, saw the need
to keep this alive, and so put forth the effort in a hard time in our
country, and we called it the agricultural crisis of those days, and
was willing to put forth. We started out with a little public-private
partnership working together with the understanding that the Ruan
family, which they have done, would take it over and run with it. Well,
they have.
Dr. Borlaug was the first awardee of the World Food Prize 20 years
ago in Iowa, and wow, what an appropriate person to receive this honor.
It has been ongoing. Ambassador Quinn, a former ambassador at the State
Department for years, serves with distinction as the administrator and
CEO of the World Food Prize. It is something we are very proud of in
the United States of America. We are very proud of it in our State of
Iowa. It is a worthy thing.
We think of our State of Iowa and the surrounding States as the food
basket of our country, and so we have a World Food Prize. This is
something that we ought to do to identify Dr. Borlaug. He is in his
nineties. He is still very vital and vibrant and eloquent in his
presentations, and the things he has done to reach out around the world
with young people is most impressive. We have a great program and he is
right in the middle of it and still providing a wonderful service, a
wonderful example of what we would like to see coming from our country.
Of course, we are very proud, Tom and I and all of us in the
delegation, of our State. I might add that our new Members, Mr. Braley
and Mr. Lobsack, very much if they were able to would be signed on to
this resolution as well, and I wanted to make note of that.
So I rise in support of Senate 2250, a tribute to Dr. Norman Borlaug.
I would hope that every one of us would make this a unanimous thing, a
great American, a great cause, and this is the highest recognition we
can give, and we ought to do it.
I am very proud of my fellow Iowan Dr. Borlaug. He is a great
humanitarian who has been credited with saving one billion lives. His
research and work changed production agriculture, as we know it today.
Dr. Borlaug's life has been marked with many accomplishments; one such
accomplishment was founding the World Food Prize, which is located in
Des Moines, Iowa. The World Food Prize recognizes contributions by
individuals who have worked to improve the quality, quantity and
availability of the world food supply. I am proud to say the Prize
celebrated its 20th anniversary this year.
I would also like to recognize the Ruan family. When the World Food
Prize was in trouble the Ruan family created a trust that would support
the World Food Prize, patterned after the Nobel Peace Prize. This
happened and I am pleased to report that the Ruan family, now under the
leadership of John III, has fulfilled their pledge and the World Food
Prize is a vital entity that we are very proud of.
Mrs. BIGGERT. Madam Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to
the gentleman from Iowa (Mr. Latham), the sponsor of the identical
legislation, H.R. 4924.
Mr. LATHAM. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman for recognizing me
and Mr. Frank for his kind words about the great State of Iowa and I
thank Mr. Boswell very much for the kind words, a great friend.
I really would like to, first of all, thank the Speaker and the
majority leader for allowing this bill to come to the floor today. It
is extraordinarily important that we do recognize this great
humanitarian.
I would also like to thank my staff who has worked for weeks and
weeks on this to get the support that is needed to bring a provision
like this to the floor. It is very much appreciated.
Dr. Norman Borlaug truly is an American superhero and really not that
many people have heard of him because he has worked very quietly behind
the scenes. He has done great things but he is someone who does not
seek recognition.
[[Page H8760]]
His campaign to save the lives of the world's neediest people through
agricultural science deserves this very, very special recognition. How
many lives has he saved? Dr. Borlaug's innovative leadership in plant
breeding and agricultural production is credited with saving the lives
of nearly one billion people. That is right, one billion people.
It was back in 1944 when he was given the task, like Mrs. Biggert
mentioned, of researching high-yield, disease-resistant cereal grains
to help feed the neediest people, and through all of his efforts he was
successful in developing varieties of wheat that completely altered
agriculture as we know it in places like Pakistan, India, Mexico,
Central America.
The wheat variety he developed has allowed those farmers to produce
far more grain than they ever thought possible in those regions. This
bounty gave the poorest people of the world an opportunity to be fed
and, most importantly, to ensure that their children were not suffering
from malnutrition and starvation.
He was the person that is credited with developing the Green
Revolution, which changed agriculture, changed food production
worldwide. He truly is a legendary figure with the agricultural
community, and his name is well-known all across the world.
I am very proud of the fact that Dr. Borlaug was born and raised in
my district in Cresco, Iowa, and is known locally as a very modest man
who once talked about his accomplishments, and again, as a quote, ``a
temporary success in man's war against hunger and deprivation.''
It is almost 40 years since the Nobel Peace Prize was given to Dr.
Borlaug. Today, at age 92, he continues to work for improvement in
mankind, and for this reason, I introduced H.R. 4924, a companion bill
to the underlying measure, Senate 2250, which is a bill to award this
great humanitarian, Dr. Norman Borlaug, the Congressional Gold Medal
for his lifetime of service to the world.
I know there are many in Congress who do not think about the progress
we have made in production agriculture and are probably unaware of the
countless contributions made by agricultural scientists like Dr. Norman
Borlaug. Dr. Borlaug's leadership has inspired so many young people to
enter agricultural sciences today, and his legacy will go on forever,
with his forethought and his innovation.
It really is his work and the work of future innovators that will
live on in the lives who have been spared so much misery from
starvation, and I respectfully urge my colleagues to support the
underlying bill so that we can officially recognize this great
humanitarian, Dr. Norman Borlaug.
Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Madam Speaker, in this Congress I run out
of Iowans before the other side does. So I will reserve the balance of
my time.
Mrs. BIGGERT. Madam Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to
the gentleman also from Iowa (Mr. Leach), and he has been a great
leader and we will miss him in Congress.
{time} 1100
Mr. LEACH. I thank the gentlewoman for yielding, and I want to thank
very much the chairman to-be of the Financial Services Committee for
his cooperation in bringing this forth.
And I might say to the chairman to-be that I understand that you are
thinking of a theme of being pro-business with an emphasis on fairness.
I think that is a very appropriate theme, and I wish you every success.
This Congress has a vested interest in seeing that the next Congress
works well, so I wish you well.
Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?
Mr. LEACH. I yield to the gentleman from Massachusetts.
Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. I just want to express my appreciation.
Those words coming from someone I admire as much as I admire the
gentleman from Iowa, they mean a great deal. I guess I would say I have
never been less happy to see my side win.
Mr. LEACH. I appreciate that very much. Thank you.
I also want to thank Tom Latham. Tom is a wonderful friend, and he
has pursued this particular measure for an American citizen that fits
all of our definitions of a hero. That is particularly the perspective
of all Iowans and I am sure all Americans when we think about Dr.
Borlaug's career.
I would only like to make one philosophical contribution to this
debate, and that is that Dr. Borlaug has been awarded the Nobel Prize
for the green revolution, the notion of pure science being used to
expand the production of food crops of various kinds to make it
possible for people in the world to have nourishment. But it is the
same science that goes into expanding biological crops that allows
crops to be used for energy, and so the same science that has produced
the green revolution is also producing a black evolution, the idea that
food can also be used for petroleum substitutes.
We are today facing a challenge of judgment as well as a challenge of
new biology, which Dr. Borlaug is also continuing to work in, that
there may not be enough crops that go around for both food and fuel.
But, fortunately, it is not exactly an either/or; that is, the same
kernels of corn can be used for extracting ethanol as well as producing
a food additive for cattle. But we are going to have to continue to
develop new techniques to increase yields.
That is what is happening in many great institutions in this country,
such as Iowa State University, the University of Missouri, Purdue,
Minnesota, et cetera, and we are very proud of that effort.
Dr. Borlaug stands on the shoulders of prior scientists. One from
Iowa who we are also very proud of Henry Wallace, actually is the
father of the movement which Dr. Borlaug pursued. It was Henry
Wallace's idea to establish a research facility in Mexico in the early
1940s. That idea was brought by the then Vice-President to the
Rockefeller Brothers Foundation who then chose Dr. Borlaug to head this
research effort.
We in Iowa are naturally proud of the role that Iowa scientists have
played. That role has been played with the help, to some degree, of
government and, to a greater degree, of private charity. So this is a
very American initiative and a very American scientific product that
this body is honoring today. And it is honoring the leader of it, a
gentleman who began his young life as many noble gentlemen begin, as a
wrestler. As a wrestler from Cresco, a great Iowa wrestling town, Dr.
Borlaug competed in the scientific arena where he has achieved as great
merit as any scientist in this country in the 20th century.
We in Iowa are immensely proud, and I would like to thank Tom Latham,
the leadership for allowing this bill to come forth, and the bipartisan
spirit in which it is brought before us today.
Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, I just want to say that the
typically thoughtful intervention by the gentleman from Iowa who often
brought to our deliberations more than was there before he did, it is
just one reason why I will miss him. And as the gentleman knows, I have
previously been an advocate for the country making great use of his
services. I am torn now, Mr. Speaker, between expressing my hope that
the administration will find a way to use his services for the country,
and my fear that my saying so will make that less likely.
Given that dilemma, I guess that is as much as I will say.
Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
Mrs. BIGGERT. I would recognize the gentleman from Iowa (Mr. King)
for 2 minutes.
Mr. KING of Iowa. I thank the gentlewoman for recognizing me and
yielding time to me. And I particularly want to take an opportunity
here to thank Congressman Jim Leach for his years of service to this
country and this Congress, and to the thoughtful process that he has
brought. There is a legacy left with my friend Jim Leach here as well
as a legacy from Norman Borlaug, and all of us are justifiably proud to
be from a State that can produce these kind of people, both Jim Leach
and Norman Borlaug.
I wanted to point out that the work that Norman Borlaug has done to
alleviate starvation in the world has put to rest many of the
Malthusian arguments that we have heard over the 40 or so years that I
have paid attention in the debate and the deliberation in this country:
What is the limitation on what we can do to raise food and fiber and
energy now for people, not just in
[[Page H8761]]
America, but around the world. And I have had the privilege to travel
into most of the continents and meet with the people that raise the
food and the fiber, and, in our case, the energy in those places. And
the fingerprints of Dr. Norman Borlaug are all over this planet, all
over this globe, and on the dinner table of everyone with the 6-plus
billion people that now inhabit this Earth. We don't know what that
limitation might be for the population, but we know it is far greater
because of Dr. Norman Borlaug.
Mr. HOBSON. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to ask my colleagues to join me
in supporting S. 2250 to pay tribute to Dr. Norman E. Borlaug for his
life's work to feed the world's poor.
It is because of Dr. Borlaug's success in developing high-yield and
disease resistant cereal grains that billions of the world's poorest
people have been fed.
In 1944, Dr. Borlaug's work began when he and his research team were
tasked by the Rockefeller Foundation to increase wheat production in
Mexico. Through years of cross-breading thousands of wheat varieties,
they were able to develop high-yield dwarf wheat that was resistant to
diseases known to cause significant crop damage such as ``rust'' fungi.
As a result, Mexico became self-sufficient in wheat production.
Dr. Borlaug's findings came at a time when dire predictions were
being made about the world's population growth and the possibility of
mass starvation in poorer parts of the world. But, he continued to
build on his findings from his work in Mexico and later worked with
researchers in Pakistan and India to give farmers in those countries
and regions high-yield dwarf wheat to increase their wheat production.
The outreach was successful, and like Mexico, those countries also
became self-sufficient in producing wheat.
It is for this work that Dr. Borlaug received the Nobel Peace Prize
in 1970. When the board was presenting him with the honor, they made
the following statement on his humanitarian contributions: ``More than
any other single person of this age, [he] has helped to provide bread
for a hungry world. We have made this choice in the hope that providing
bread will also give the world peace.''
In today's world, it is easy to get caught up in our everyday lives
and to overlook some of the landmark achievements that have made
dramatic improvements in the lives of others. In this case, one
individual improved the lives of billions of people by giving them
access to life-sustaining nourishment.
Mr. Speaker, Dr. Borlaug's contributions to help relieve the world's
poorest of hunger have saved billions of lives, and have inspired a new
generation of researchers in agriculture to continue the fight against
hunger. It is for these reasons that I ask my colleagues to support
this bill to honor Dr. Borlaug with the Congressional Gold Medal..
Mrs. BIGGERT. Mr. Speaker, I have no further requests for time, and I
yield back the balance of my time.
The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Gutknecht). The question is on the
motion offered by the gentlewoman from Illinois (Mrs. Biggert) that the
House suspend the rules and pass the Senate bill, S. 2250.
The question was taken; and (two-thirds of those voting having
responded in the affirmative) the rules were suspended and the Senate
bill was passed.
A motion to reconsider was laid on the table.
____________________