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“THE PHILADELPHIA CONFERENCE ENTITLED ``PARTNERSHIP FOR PROSPERITY AND SECURITY''” mentioning the U.S. Dept. of Energy was published in the Extensions of Remarks section on pages E2556-E2557 on Dec. 15, 2003.
The publication is reproduced in full below:
THE PHILADELPHIA CONFERENCE ENTITLED ``PARTNERSHIP FOR PROSPERITY AND
SECURITY''
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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.
``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 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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