[Congressional Record Volume 153, Number 65 (Monday, April 23, 2007)]
[House]
[Pages H3733-H3735]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                   RACHEL CARSON POST OFFICE BUILDING

  Mr. DAVIS of Illinois. Madam Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and 
pass the bill (H.R. 1434) to designate the facility of the United 
States Postal Service located at 896 Pittsburgh Street in Springdale, 
Pennsylvania, as the ``Rachel Carson Post Office Building''.
  The Clerk read the title of the bill.
  The text of the bill is as follows:

                               H.R. 1434

       Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of 
     the United States of America in Congress assembled,

     SECTION 1. RACHEL CARSON POST OFFICE BUILDING.

       (a) Designation.--The facility of the United States Postal 
     Service located at 896 Pittsburgh Street in Springdale, 
     Pennsylvania, shall be known and designated as the ``Rachel 
     Carson Post Office Building''.
       (b) References.--Any reference in a law, map, regulation, 
     document, paper, or other record of the United States to the 
     facility referred to in subsection (a) shall be deemed to be 
     a reference to the ``Rachel Carson Post Office Building''.

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to the rule, the gentleman from 
Illinois (Mr. Davis) and the gentleman from California (Mr. Issa) each 
will control 20 minutes.
  The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Illinois.


                             General Leave

  Mr. DAVIS of Illinois. Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that 
all Members may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend 
their remarks.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the 
gentleman from Illinois?
  There was no objection.
  Mr. DAVIS of Illinois. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I 
might consume.
  As a member of the House Committee on Oversight and Government 
Reform, I am pleased to join with my colleagues in the consideration of 
H.R. 1434, which names the postal facility in Springdale, Pennsylvania 
after Rachel Carson.
  H.R. 1434, which was introduced by Representative Jason Altmire of 
Pennsylvania on March 9, 2007, was reported from the Oversight 
Committee on March 29, 2007, by voice vote. This measure, which has 
been cosponsored by 40 Members, has the support of the entire 
Pennsylvania, congressional delegation.
  Starting in the mid-1940s, Ms. Carson became concerned about the use 
of newly invented pesticides, especially dichloro diphenyl 
trichloroethane, better known as DDT. This turned into an amazing 
thesis she entitled ``Silent Spring.'' ``Silent Spring'' focused on the 
environment and the effect of pesticides on humans. This was known as 
Carson's greatest work. She worked to defend the claims in ``Silent 
Spring'' until her death. It is believed that Carson's ``Silent 
Spring'' was the catalyst for the United States taking a more in-depth 
look at the use of pesticides, as well as the founding of government 
agencies such as the Environmental Protection Agency.
  Madam Speaker, I commend my colleague for seeking to honor the 
memory, legacy, and contributions of Rachel Carson and urge swift 
passage of this legislation.
  Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. ISSA. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume to 
speak in total support of the naming of this post office.
  As a member of the committee, I thoroughly support the fact that we 
have not yet done enough to recognize some of the brave people from the 
past who created the government, the good parts of government that we 
take credit for every day. Certainly, I believe this is a good example. 
Not only was she, in fact, the person most responsible for recognizing 
the dangers of DDT and leading to the banning of it, but, quite 
frankly, Rachel Carson, in her novel ``Silent Spring,'' brought to the 
forefront the very concept of writing works which are widely read, and, 
in fact, can make a real difference in America's point of view.

                              {time}  1445

  Rachel Carson was born in 1907 in a rural area of Springdale, 
Pennsylvania, where she first acquired her interest in nature. Majoring 
in marine biology, with a strong background in creative writing, she 
graduated from Chatham College in 1929 magna cum laude. Despite 
financial difficulties, Ms. Carson continued her studies at Johns 
Hopkins University, graduating in 1932 with a graduate degree in 
zoology. While expanding her great passion about zoology and other 
living things, Carson taught at Johns Hopkins and at the University of 
Maryland while pursuing her doctorate degree.
  Due to financial circumstances, Carson found a part-time position as 
a writer for radio scripts at the United States Bureau of Fisheries. 
She was faced with sexist resistance, not uncommon at that time, not 
uncommon at this time, as she took the civil service exam, but after 
obtaining a high score, she was given a full-time position as a junior 
aquatic biologist at the Bureau of Fisheries. At the U.S. Bureau of 
Fisheries, Ms. Carson submitted one of her radio scripts, named 
``Undersea,'' to the Atlantic Monthly, which was published in 1937. 
Publishers, impressed with her writing, encouraged her to expand the 
article into book entitled Under the Sea-Wind.
  Carson continued to write. Her second book, The Sea Around Us, was on 
the New York Times best seller list for 86 weeks and won the 1952 
National Book Award and earned her two honorary doctorates. The book 
was then made into an Oscar-winning documentary. Her writing 
achievements did not end here, as she went on to publish a third and 
fourth book and write numerous magazine articles.
  Ms. Carson's fourth and legendary book, Silent Spring, greatly 
influenced the way Americans thought about the environment and was 
discussed by President John F. Kennedy. One of the main themes of her 
novel was how all aspects of the environment were connected. She 
explained that when one uses a pesticide to exterminate a particular 
organism, the poison travels up the entire food chain, ultimately 
affecting large animals and humans. With the publication of Silent 
Spring, Carson was able to draw in reputable scientists in support of 
her cause of responsible DDT usage and help spread awareness of its 
impact on the environment.
  Rachel Carson was elected to the American Academy of Arts and 
Sciences and received many honors, including the Audubon Medal and the 
Cullen Medal of the American Geographical Society, for her 
achievements. Unfortunately, poor health kept Ms. Carson from 
witnessing the ban on DDT in the United States, as she passed away in 
1964. She was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom posthumously in 
1980.
  Carson's legacy lives on as the quiet and consistent voice urging 
people to

[[Page H3734]]

come to terms with nature. The major conference room at the 
headquarters of the Environmental Protection Agency is named the Rachel 
Carson Room. The Rachel Carson State Office Building is located in 
Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, and is home to the Department of 
Environmental Protection and the Department of Conservation and Natural 
Resources. There are also numerous bridges, parks, and schools which 
bear her name as well.
  To further recognize and honor her contributions in the centennial 
celebration of her birth and to honor her life as a teacher, scientist, 
environmentalist, activist, and, most of all, writer, please join me in 
supporting and passing H.R. 1434.
  Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. DAVIS of Illinois. Madam Speaker, it is now my pleasure to yield 
such time as he may consume to the sponsor of this bill, one of the 
outstanding new Members of the House, Representative Jason Altmire, 
from Pennsylvania.
  Mr. ALTMIRE. Madam Speaker, I want to thank the gentleman from 
Illinois and the gentleman from California for their very eloquent 
remarks.
  This is a very special day for me. I grew up in southwestern 
Pennsylvania, right across the river from Springdale, Pennsylvania, 
where Rachel Carson was born and raised and where she is truly a 
legendary figure. She is an icon in western Pennsylvania, and this is a 
very special year for Rachel Carson's memory because May 27, 2007, 
would have been Rachel Carson's 100th birthday.
  And she has received tremendous honors throughout her life. We do 
have, as the gentleman said, bridges named after her and schools and 
other things. But I can think of no greater representation for the 
beginning of Rachel Carson and the beginning of the modern 
environmental movement than to have the post office in her hometown of 
Springdale named after her. And, ironically, Springdale itself last 
year celebrated its centennial, so she was born in the very early days 
of Springdale. And this bill has widespread support throughout the 
district that I represent, the Fourth Congressional District where 
Springdale is located, but also throughout all of western Pennsylvania 
and all of Pennsylvania. And I do thank the gentleman for his kind 
remarks. But I wanted to talk a little bit about Rachel Carson.
  As I said, she was born in 1907 in Springdale. She graduated from the 
Pennsylvania College for Women, which currently is known as Chatham 
College. And Rachel Carson got her degree in English, which would serve 
her well in her writing career over the years. She earned her master's 
degree in zoology from Johns Hopkins University, so she has very strong 
ties to Maryland, and I am going to talk a little bit more about that 
because she taught zoology at the University of Maryland, right down 
the road from where we are right now. And while she continued her 
studies at the Marine Biological Laboratories in Woodshole, 
Massachusetts, she continued her teaching career. So in the very early 
days, she was getting to know the environment and getting a greater 
understanding of the world around her and what was to come in her life.
  Now, according to Time Magazine, ``It was there in her early twenties 
that she first saw and became enchanted with the enormous mysteries of 
the sea.'' And as I talked about, this was a lifelong passion for 
Rachel Carson. Her early writings at the time focused on the waters and 
the seas, and I believe a lot of that has to do with her upbringing in 
Springdale, Pennsylvania, because the Allegheny River flows right 
through the town there, right along the river, and she spent a lot of 
time studying the river in her youth growing up. And the Rachel Carson 
homestead, which is her childhood home, has been restored. And there is 
an active and ongoing presence there in the town, and the stories are 
legendary about her spending hours and hours of time sitting there on 
the riverbank, studying the waters and thinking about it. And those who 
knew her at the time knew that that was her passion and that was going 
to be the direction of her career and her life.
  In 1936 she went to work as a junior aquatic biologist at the U.S. 
Bureau of Fisheries, again very suitable to someone with that level of 
interest and that educational background. She was the second woman in 
the history of the agency to hold a full-time professional position. So 
she was a trailblazer right from the start. And her early writings, as 
the gentleman from California mentioned, Under the Sea-Wind, The Sea 
Around Us, and The Edge of the Sea, celebrated the wonders of nature 
and continued her ongoing expertise and interest in aquatics and the 
sea. The Sea Around Us won the John Burroughs Medal, which was then the 
equivalent of what is today the National Book Award. So here we see the 
beginnings of a writing career. And this is where her English degree 
comes back, and she now has expertise in not only zoology and water and 
the Bureau of Fisheries as her profession, but she begins a long and 
fruitful career as an author, so she wins what is then the equivalent 
of the National Book Award. And within the first year, this was in the 
1930s, that book sold over 200,000 copies.
  Rachel Carson is most famous, of course, for her book, Silent Spring, 
which was published in 1962, and it criticizes the use of pesticides, 
particularly DDT, but not exclusively. It is widely created with 
launching the modern environmental movement, including Earth Day, which 
just over this past weekend we celebrated Earth Day all across the 
country while Rachel Carson is credited with the founding of that 
movement as well. So, again, this is a very timely measure today, and I 
do encourage my colleagues to support it.
  I did want to mention that, unfortunately, it was not long after the 
publishing of Silent Spring that Rachel Carson took ill and breast 
cancer took her life at the early age of 56, in 1964. But that did not 
end the legacy of Rachel Carson. In 1980 she was posthumously awarded 
the Presidential Medal of Freedom, which all of our Members here know 
that is an incredible honor to be bestowed upon someone. And in 1999 
Time Magazine recognized Rachel Carson as one of the 20th century's 100 
most influential Americans, again a fantastic and well-deserved honor.
  So, again, throughout western Pennsylvania this year, her 100th 
birthday we are celebrating Rachel Carson. And it is important, having 
just had Earth Day over the weekend and the increasing awareness of the 
environment around us, that we do allow Springdale Township, where this 
is a very popular measure and something that we have been waiting to 
see this day come. I would ask my colleagues to show their support and 
recognize the tremendous contributions that Rachel Carson has had not 
only for western Pennsylvania, not only for the United States of 
America, but around the world. She truly is an icon, and she truly did 
change the world.
  So at this time I would like to thank the gentleman from Illinois for 
allowing me to bring this bill forward. I thank the committee, and I 
thank the gentleman from California.
  Mr. ISSA. Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. DAVIS of Illinois. Madam Speaker, it is my pleasure now to yield 
such time as he may consume to the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Moran).
  Mr. MORAN of Virginia. Madam Speaker, I thank my good friend from 
Illinois (Mr. Davis) for yielding me the time.
  Just a few points about Rachel Carson and Silent Spring and the 
profound transformational effect that that book had on our society.
  She was a Federal employee. She worked for the predecessor of the 
Fish and Wildlife Service. She was recognized, even as a child, as an 
outstanding writer. But she saw something that she knew was wrong, and 
she dedicated her life to changing the future for subsequent 
generations of Americans and really changed the world in terms of its 
view of pesticides.
  At that time it wasn't just that pesticides were being poured all 
over farms but in our own residential neighborhoods. I can remember, I 
am old enough to remember, the big clouds of pesticides, and we would 
run in and out of them, and we would follow the pesticide truck on 
bicycles, and we had no idea this was poisonous stuff that was being 
put into our lungs, our atmosphere. And yet at that time the pesticide 
industry came up with a doctor, he was on television, everybody watched 
him as he said that she was absolutely wrong. There was no substance to 
her allegations; that if people

[[Page H3735]]

listened seriously to her, it would cause widespread disease and 
poverty all over the world.

                              {time}  1500

  And he said that the scientific evidence shows that there is no harm 
to these pesticides, these toxic chemicals. One might refer to that 
when we look at some of the other trailblazers who had the courage to 
speak up, despite those who too readily condemn them because they are 
making a profit from current conditions. Climate change, endocrine 
disruptions and the like. She had the kind of courage and intellect and 
goodness of spirit to change the world. I am very pleased that she is 
getting a little recognition from the Congress today.
  Mr. ISSA. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  In closing, I think this is so appropriate that we consider today, at 
a time when we are looking at ever more vexing issues of the use of 
pesticides, the need for pesticides, the international conventions. I 
will be part of a group, House and Senate, that will be in Belgium this 
weekend where one of the major topics will be meeting with the 
Europeans on the next step in finding ways to limit or eliminate 
various pesticides, in addition to the constant effort to deal with 
ozone-depleting chemicals.
  We are, today, as a result of her work, we are in fact smarter in the 
way we look at the chemicals that bring good things to life, as I think 
that we once said. We don't assume they are bad. We do test to make 
sure that what they do good for us is well measured against the side 
effects. That was a standard created as a result of Rachel Carson. We 
are honored to have had somebody who worked for the Federal Government, 
who published and who cared and who persevered throughout her entire 
life.
  I join with the majority in urging the swift passage of this bill.
  Madam Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
  Mr. DAVIS of Illinois. Madam Speaker, to close, let me just thank the 
gentleman from Pennsylvania for introducing this legislation, and the 
gentleman from California for his eloquent statements in support of it.
  And I sort of reflected, as I listened to Representative Moran, that 
it is good to have all of the eloquence and all of the youth, but to 
have been there and be old enough to remember, I join with him because 
I remember DDT as I was growing up in rural America, and the 
utilization of it as people would spray their crops and use it to fight 
pesticides, but were endangering themselves. And there was a great deal 
of fear and consternation.
  So again, I thank the gentleman from Pennsylvania for introducing 
this legislation. I urge its support.
  Madam Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The question is on the motion offered by the 
gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Davis) that the House suspend the rules 
and pass the bill, H.R. 1434.
  The question was taken.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. In the opinion of the Chair, two-thirds 
being in the affirmative, the ayes have it.
  Mr. ISSA. Madam Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.
  The yeas and nays were ordered.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to clause 8 of rule XX and the 
Chair's prior announcement, further proceedings on this question will 
be postponed.

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