*EPF404 01/27/00
Text: Senator Richard Lugar on Biotechnology
(Chairman of Agriculture Committee advocates new techniques) (2460)

Senator Richard Lugar, chairman of the Senate Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry Committee said January 24 that "biotechnology can increase agricultural efficiency, reduce use of chemical pesticides and improve food's nutritional value."

Lugar drew on the testimony presented to his committee by experts over the last several months in maintaining that biotechnology can "improve the human condition." He noted research currently underway which uses bioengineering techniques to increase the vitamin content of certain grains. The Republican lawmaker from Indiana also suggested the potential for significant societal benefits through a decreased use of pesticides with cultivation of bioengineered crops that carry a genetically coded pesticide.

At the same time he lauded the potential benefits of biotechnology, Lugar acknowledged the controversy that's grown around it. "My fear is not that agricultural biotechnology has inspired controversy but rather that the debate has become polarized and reactionary so as to preclude reasoned public debate over merits of the new technology versus possible risks."

Lugar said officials must remain mindful of the potential risks of introducing a new technology, but he said, "The U.S. regulatory scheme appears to be working well."

Following is the text of Sen. Lugar's Statement as prepared for delivery:
(begin text)

Senate Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry Committee
Chairman Dick Lugar, U.S. Senator for Indiana
Date: 1/24/00

WASHINGTON - U.S. Sen. Dick Lugar, Chairman of the Senate Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry Committee, today delivered the following remarks at a briefing on agricultural biotechnology:

Good afternoon. Distinguished panelists, ladies and gentleman, congressional staff. Thank you for attending today's briefing on agricultural biotechnology organized by Sea Change and the Environmental and Energy Study Institute.

Motivated in no small part by today's frigid weather, I preface my remarks with a tale of technology, theology and ice. The revolutionary idea that ice from colder climes could be collected, transported to lower latitudes, stored and eventually used for refrigeration was the brainchild of Frederick Tudor. In 1833 Boston's "Ice King" demonstrated the feasibility of summer refrigeration in dramatic fashion, loading 200 tons packed with sawdust aboard a ship bound for India. After 180 days at sea, through mostly warm waters, the ship arrived and successfully delivered half its original cargo.

Aggressively promoting the ice trade, Tudor drew considerable criticism from prominent theologians who argued that keeping ice underground in summer, similar to the practice of raising flowers under glass in winter, reversed the natural order of the universe and was therefore sinful. Nonetheless, benefits of a technology allowing for extended storage of meat, fruit and vegetables were soon apparent and by the late 1870's over 700,000 tons of ice per year were being shipped throughout the United States. By 1920, however, mechanical refrigeration replaced ice and Frederick Tudor disappeared from the annals of American business.

The rise and fall of the ice delivery and storage industry serves to illustrate three points that I believe are worth remembering today as we consider the debate surrounding agricultural biotechnology. First, opposition frequently accompanies technological innovation. Opposition arises from fact, myth or cherished belief. The obvious difficulty is to determine an elusive truth.

Secondly, technologies that eventually win acceptance do so after demonstrating a clear benefit to society with few risks. A ready supply of ice fundamentally improved the safety and dynamics of food distribution, reducing disease and infection especially for those living in America's expanding cities. Whether the natural order of the universe had changed remained the subject of debate but living standards were undeniably higher.

Lastly, technology, spawned by the limitless bounds of human intellect, continues to evolve as knowledge and understanding of our world increases. The advent of mechanical refrigeration quickly supplanted the ice that often failed when most needed. Innovation often provides fixes for earlier deficiencies but in the process may lead to a different set of concerns. As an example, it is hard to imagine a Washington summer without refrigeration or air conditioning but at the same time, electrical power production for cooling systems contributes to a net increase in greenhouse gas emissions.

Agricultural biotechnology is not unlike Frederick Tudor's ship leaving Boston harbor with its cargo of ice. On the docks, a crowd quickly gathers, split between voices offering encouragement and voices of disapproval. My fear is not that agricultural biotechnology has inspired controversy but rather that the debate has become polarized and reactionary so as to preclude reasoned public debate over merits of the new technology versus possible risks.

Exactly why agricultural biotechnology has attracted intense levels of opposition, especially in Europe, deserves consideration. Testimony received by the Senate Agriculture Committee during hearings last October strongly suggests that biotechnology holds enormous potential to improve the human condition. A prime example was the testimony from Dr. Dean Della Penna of the University of Nevada-Reno who has been doing cutting-edge research on the use of biotechnology to increase the vitamin content of certain staple crops like rice and corn. In an article published in Science magazine, Dr. Della Penna notes that 250 million of the world's children, mostly in the developing world, suffer from Vitamin A deficiency. As a direct result, some 500,000 children are blinded each year. If staple foods that these poorest of the poor children eat each day could be fortified with additional Vitamin A through the application of biotechnology, a worldwide scourge of blindness from dietary deficiencies could be alleviated.

Biotech products on the market are already providing significant societal benefits. In 1999, cotton farmers were able to avoid using 84,000 gallons of insecticides by switching to Bt varieties. Dr. Roger Beachy, the President of the Danforth Plant Science Center in Missouri testified that Bt potatoes - genetically engineered to resist the Colorado potato beetle - could eliminate the use of 1.35 million kilos of chemical insecticides. Savings on Bt corn and Bt cotton are expected to be even larger. These are benefits for the farmers and their families who have had to handle these chemical products and for the environment in general.

Also worth considering are the environmental implications of NOT developing agricultural biotechnology. Demographers predict that the population of the United States will double over the next 100 years and world population is set to increase 50 percent by 2050. Development and the need for housing will place an inexorable pressure on land that now constitutes a significant percentage of America's treasured open spaces. Simultaneously, more food will be required to support population growth and improving standards of living. If agricultural efficiency remains static, then more land will be needed to grow more food. Faced with the choice of starvation or cutting down forests, mankind will have few options. But this is a fool's game. An alternative does exist, and if developed with the intent to improve the lives of people everywhere, biotechnology can increase agricultural efficiency, reduce use of chemical pesticides and improve food's nutritional value.

Yet, despite the wealth of scientific evidence regarding the current and potential benefits of agricultural biotechnology, opposition remains and appears to be growing. These developments are puzzling especially when agricultural biotechnology is compared to medical biotechnology, whose advances are readily found in nearly every aspect of health care. Barely a whisper of protest is heard against medical biotechnology except in those areas affecting human reproduction. Since 1985, nearly 100 different biotechnology drugs have been approved for use and enthusiasm continues to grow for the promise of gene therapy to combat diseases like AIDS, cancer and diabetes.

Acceptance of medical biotechnology is directly linked to a well-informed public. Every American will come into contact with the health care system and is likely to have a new procedure or drug explained. Vaccines, insulin and other drugs from biotechnology clearly work, effecting cures bordering on the miraculous. Importantly, medical advances often result from a significant public investment in government research through agencies like the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation. Public funding of fundamental research in medical biotechnology is complemented by a vibrant private sector containing a healthy mix of large multinational corporations and smaller start-up firms. By contrast, a significant majority of Americans know little of commercial agriculture, pesticide use, food processing or distribution. A weekly trip to the supermarket provides scant insight as to how food is grown, collected, stored and transported. The few agricultural biotechnology products that have been commercialized advertise benefits tangible primarily to farmers. Agricultural research is dominated by private sector investment and corporations have chosen to first introduce technologies having a production advantage rather than advertising improved food value or quality directly to consumers.

Largely as a result of these factors, agricultural biotechnology has struggled while medical biotechnology soars. But the answer is not to abandon agricultural biotech because of miscues made in its presentation. Yet in a nascent stage, this new science retains a huge potential for public good and should be nourished with adequate investments in publicly financed research and corresponding efforts to raise public understanding of the issues involved.

As with any new technology, we must remain alert to any potential risks it may present. Risk assessment should depend on sound, qualitative science with necessary regulations decided upon after a vigorous public debate. Sensible decision making requires a political environment in which the public is informed by thoughtful and accurate reporting of the issues, and in which the public debate can proceed in a rational manner.

In the United States, agricultural biotechnology is regulated by three federal agencies. The U.S. Food & Drug Administration has the authority to regulate any food product in our market to safeguard consumers against food-borne risks. The Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service of the U.S. Department of Agriculture assesses the potential impact of new plant varieties and approves or disapproves their release for planting. Finally, the Environmental Protection Agency has regulatory oversight where new plant varieties have pesticide or herbicide characteristics.

The U.S. regulatory scheme appears to be working well. Dozens of biotech products have been approved over the last decade under our regulatory system and even critics of the system acknowledge that there is no evidence that these products are unsafe. Unfortunately, news reports regarding the potential risks presented by agricultural biotechnology are often confusing and factually incorrect, giving the public an inaccurate picture of both risk evaluation and the manner in which a potential risk is addressed. An example of such inaccurate reporting occurred only last week over regulatory actions involving the planting of Bt corn.

Bt corn was developed to combat a very serious crop threat known as the European corn borer, which can devastate crops such as cotton and corn. Containing a gene, which enables the plant to express a natural pesticide that fends off the corn borer, Bt corn is popular with farmers because it minimizes the need for chemical spraying.

Two concerns have been raised about Bt corn. The first concern is that widespread use of Bt technology may prompt the European corn borer and similar pests to develop resistance to Bt, rendering a natural pesticide ineffective. Secondly, pollen from Bt corn might drift beyond the cornfields onto milkweed growing in nearby meadows. The lovely Monarch butterfly feeds from milkweed plants.

Last week, the Washington Post reported that the Environmental Protection Agency had "placed new restrictions on the cultivation of Bt corn [in response to] concerns that gene-altered crops may be causing ecological disruptions." The Post article went on to suggest that the EPA decision was somehow linked to the Monarch butterfly issue, referring to a Cornell University laboratory study showing that "pollen from Bt corn could blow onto milkweed plants and kill Monarch butterfly caterpillars." Both of these assertions are inaccurate.

EPA's announcement only formalizes agricultural practices that have been in place since the introduction of Bt crops. Indeed, the announced restrictions - which principally require farmers to plant a 20% refuge of non-Bt corn to surround their Bt corn plantings - were recommendations made to the EPA by the National Corn Growers Association which has been working with the various seed companies in a consortium known as the Agricultural Biotechnology Stewardship Working Group. Contrary to the Washington Post's assertion that the EPA announcement placed "unprecedented demands on [seed companies] and farmers," National Corn Growers Association President Lynn Jensen told the Associated Press that the EPA announcement was nothing major. "It's right in line with what (farmers) are already doing."

The Post article also did not mention that the Cornell study has been roundly criticized by the scientific community. During Senate Agriculture Committee hearings last October, two scientists associated with Cornell University, and intimately familiar with methodology employed by scientists who published the controversial paper, testified that the study had "little or no relevance to the environmental conditions in agriculture." Data shows that Bt pollen, which is relatively heavy in weight, ordinarily does not drift more than a few feet outside farm fields. According to Dr. Charles Arntzen of Cornell and the Boyce Thompson Institute, leading entomologists report that we are losing more Monarch butterflies on car windshields than as a result of Bt corn. A critique of the Cornell study in the highly respected scientific journal Nature, detailing myriad scientific errors, went unreported in the popular press.

The Environmental Protection Agency has reached similar conclusions. Dr. Janet Anderson, director of EPA's Biopesticide and Pollution Prevention Division, testified that EPA scientists had fully considered the risk to Monarch butterflies and moths before it registered Bt corn for use in the United States. EPA scientists concluded that "it is highly unlikely that endangered, threatened or even highly revered species such as the Monarch are being significantly exposed to Bt corn." EPA is currently conducting field studies and farmers are being asked to plant the borders of their fields with non-Bt corn until these studies are completed. However, EPA's view has not altered: Bt corn is highly unlikely to present any significant risk to the Monarch butterfly.

It has been written that the greatest enemy of truth is not the intentional falsehood, but rather the pervasive and enduring myth. The Washington Post's article appears to confirm this observation.

Agricultural biotechnology is a difficult public policy challenge, and difficult issues require that we act in a conscientious and responsible manner. I am heartened by the way in which EPA is thoughtfully and carefully addressing issues of potential risk. I applaud the efforts of the Agriculture Biotechnology Stewardship Working Group, which makes useful and constructive recommendations to government regulators, permitting new technologies to be employed in safe and ecologically sensitive ways. I hope that public reporting of agricultural biotechnology will, in the near future, reflect similar levels of responsibility and scientific accuracy.

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(Distributed by the Office of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State)
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