SCIENCE, RESEARCH AND TECHNOLOGY. 1970-79 593 



grow and harvest guayule so it could be commercialized for a profit, 

 and meet the needs for high-grade rubber. 



The more he looked into the idea, the more appealing it became. 

 During World War II, when Japan had cut off our supply of imported 

 rubber, we set up a synthetic rubber industry. But synthetic rubber 

 requires hydrocarbons derived from petroleum, and OPEC prices make 

 synthetic rubber less and less competitive. Brown also realized that our 

 imported rubber from Malaysia and other equatorial, rainy countries 

 was getting more expensive and was increasing our balance-of-pay- 

 ments deficit by nearly $1 billion a year. So he figured: Why not help 

 guarantee our future supply of rubber, provide jobs for people in the 

 Southwest, help our balance of payments, and use applied scientific 

 talent to make it profitable? 



THE PHILOSOPHER-POLITICIAN 



George Brown, a cigar- and pipe-smoking philosopher who was 

 always looking into the future, also knew how to play politics. He 

 drafted a bill authorizing the Secretary of Agriculture to carry out 

 guayule research activities leading to commercialization, in such a 

 way that it would be jointly referred to the Science Committee and 

 the Agriculture Committee. Then he persuaded the two chairmen of 

 those committees, Teague and Representative Thomas S. Foley (Demo- 

 crat of Washington), and also "Kika" de la Garza (Democrat of 

 Texas), chairman of the key Agriculture subcommitteee with juris- 

 diction, to cosponsor the bill. Teague was more than normally in- 

 terested. He knew all about guayule from his own experience. Also, the 

 Texas Agricultural Experiment Station at Texas A. & M. University, 

 Teague's alma mater, was doing research on guayule. The longtime 

 chairman of the House Agriculture Committee, Representative W. R. 

 Poage (Democrat of Texas), had been a champion of guayule use for 

 many years. When he learned that Congressman de la Garza while in 

 high school used to work weeding the guayule bushes, near his home, 

 Brown talked with him in terms of holding joint hearings on the de la 

 Garza-Brown bill. He got an enthusiastic response, and the joint 

 hearings were held on June 19, 1978, which is fairly fast timing. 



It did not take too much effort for Brown to interest his subcom- 

 mittee chairman. Thornton, along with Brown, was already a member 

 of the Agriculture Committee, and his interest in agricultural research 

 was deep and genuine. Thornton immediately grasped the energy and 

 economic implications of the bill, and gave it strong leadership at 

 all stages. 



Brown went out of his way to enlist Republican support for the 

 bill. Hollenbeck, who had developed into an expert on materials policy, 



