Volume 165, No. 152 covering the 1st Session of the 116th Congress (2019 - 2020) was published by the Congressional Record.
The Congressional Record is a unique source of public documentation. It started in 1873, documenting nearly all the major and minor policies being discussed and debated.
“HONORING DR. LINDA BIRNBAUM, CHAMPION OF ENVIRONMENTAL HEALTH RESEARCH” mentioning the Environmental Protection Agency was published in the Extensions of Remarks section on pages E1188 on Sept. 20, 2019.
More than half of the Agency's employees are engineers, scientists and protection specialists. The Climate Reality Project, a global climate activist organization, accused Agency leadership in the last five years of undermining its main mission.
The publication is reproduced in full below:
HONORING DR. LINDA BIRNBAUM, CHAMPION OF ENVIRONMENTAL HEALTH RESEARCH
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HON. DAVID E. PRICE
of north carolina
in the house of representatives
Friday, September 20, 2019
Mr. PRICE of North Carolina. Madam Speaker, I rise today to recognize Dr. Linda Birnbaum, Director of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) and the National Toxicology Program (NTP), who is retiring in October. Dr. Birnbaum has served as director of NIEHS, located in North Carolina's Research Triangle Park, for the past 10 years. She is the first woman and first board-certified toxicologist to serve in this position.
Dr. Birnbaum always had a clear vision for the NIEHS/NTP, evidenced by her implementation of two strategic plans over the course of her tenure. Under her leadership, NIEHS has become a world leader in environmental health and toxicology research. For example, scientific studies, such as the annual Report on Carcinogens, which analyzes substances in our environment that may cause cancer, have ignited changes in health policy and safety standards in the U.S. and across the world. The creation of the Children's Health Exposure Analysis Resource, a grant program that established a network of exposure assessment laboratories across the country, paved the way for policy changes that protected the health of children. Dr. Birnbaum's team also established the NIEHS Clinical Research Unit, allowing the NIH to partner with top biomedical teams at our RTP Universities: Duke, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and North Carolina State.
In the wake of environmental disasters, Dr. Birnbaum and her team led critical research projects following the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico and the 2014 West Virginia chemical spill. Dr. Birnbaum and her team worked in coordination with scientists across the NIH and with the residents of affected areas, recruiting over 33,000 participants for the Deepwater Horizon study.
Dr. Birnbaum has received numerous accolades for her outstanding achievements in the field of science. In 2010, she was elected to the Institute of Medicine, now known as the National Academy of Medicine. She also was awarded the North Carolina Award in Science in 2016, the state's highest civilian honor given by North Carolina's Governor. For her work in toxicology she was named the Distinguished Toxicology Scholar by the Society of Toxicology in 2018 and earned the Mildred S. Christian Career Achievement Award from the Academy of Toxicological Sciences.
Dr. Birnbaum's work as a federal research scientist spans nearly 40 years, including 19 years directing research at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. She also currently serves as an adjunct professor in the UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health and held a similar position in Toxicology and Environmental Health at Duke University. She has maintained her research program even while serving as NIEHS/NTP director, and at last count had over 700 published articles and reports to her credit. Fortunately, she plans to continue her laboratory research part-time.
Madam Speaker, it has been my privilege to know and work with Dr. Birnbaum during much of her tenure at EPA and NIEHS. I was delighted to see her--an accomplished, practicing scientist--appointed to the directorship of NIEHS, and she has been a trusted source of advice on the Institute's needs and the state of the research enterprise. She has a passion for the NIEHS/NTP mission and has inspired a generation of scientists with her vision of what well-designed research can contribute to public health and environmental quality.
I ask my colleagues to join me in congratulating Dr. Linda Birnbaum as she reaches this milestone. We thank her for her years of dedicated service and the contributions she has made toward the health and well-
being of millions of people.
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