Worries of a Population-Watcher

The topic breeds statistics faster than a roomful of unrepentant chinchillas. That’s exactly the point. When it comes to world population growth, the numbers keep piling up every passing minute. With no timeouts.

Rep. Anthony C. Beilenson of Woodland Hills hears the clock ticking very loudly.

“The world’s population recently surpassed the 5.6-billion mark, and it is growing by almost 100 million people every year. Fifty years ago, the Earth’s population was 2 billion. Since then, it has nearly tripled, and the next billion will be added in less than 11 years. Twenty-four hours from now, there will be 260,000 more people in the world than there are at this moment.”

As the recently installed co-chairman of the Congressional Coalition on Population and Development, the nine-term Democrat relates these facts and figures with the polished cadence of a longtime advocate. He plans to journey to Cairo in September for the International Conference on Population and Development, sponsored by the United Nations, and earlier this month he spent several days in New York at a preparatory gathering of population control experts.

Beilenson’s crusade to rein in the world’s swelling population may not make him a media darling or give him a punchy campaign issue. But the daunting mega-topic has been at the top of his public agenda since his days in the California Assembly and Senate, when he authored the state’s first liberalized abortion law and wrote most of the family planning laws back in the 1960s and ‘70s.

“It’s always been the issue that’s concerned me the most,” Beilenson says.

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To many of his congressional colleagues, it’s a perfect fit.

Known for his thoughtful--and occasionally maverick--views on federal spending and campaign finance reform, his collegiality has been sought for various bipartisan tasks.

Although it barely shows up on the political radar scope, Beilenson believes his constituents appreciate his strong views on the perils of uncontrolled world population growth.

“When I work it into my speeches back in the district, the audience sometimes spontaneously breaks into applause,” Beilenson says.

Beilenson’s world population views dovetail nicely with his tough stance on illegal immigration.

“Immigration is the largest factor in the population growth rates in California and the country as a whole,” Beilenson says. “The state’s fertility rate is similar to that of developing countries. You can really feel the difference from what (the population) was five or 10 years ago.”

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Beilenson and his fellow population caucus members have been making some progress. Over the past four years the federal appropriations for world population programs have more than doubled, to $507 million. The Clinton Administration has requested $585 million for this year, and Beilenson is seeking $800 million for fiscal 1995.

Even so, it’s an open question how much impact that money will have against the cultural hurdles, religious taboos and abject poverty in some of the world’s most troubled countries.

The more sympathetic Clinton Administration is a sea change from the preceding Republican presidencies, when abortion politics kept the United States from taking a leadership position in the world population debate. In a 1984 policy statement, President Reagan rejected the notion of a global population crisis--a view that some experts still hold.

“It was hugely frustrating during the Reagan/Bush years, I’ve got to admit,” Beilenson says. “We weren’t talking about it and we weren’t doing anything about it. Now (the country) is back on track.”

He wouldn’t mind if President Clinton got more involved, “but he’s got 14 or 15 other things on his plate.”

Although Beilenson is optimistic that the United Nations meeting in Cairo will produce a general accord on controlling the planet’s swelling tide of humans, he is painfully aware that once the delegates disband and head for home, the topic will recede into the background, where it usually dwells in noble inattention.

“That’s one of the difficulties with an ongoing issue with major underlying problems that’s not time-specific,” Beilenson explains knowingly. “By its own nature, something can’t be happening on this (topic) every day.”

So don’t expect to see him on “Hard Copy” any time soon. Even the United Nations spaces out its major international population conferences every 10 years.