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.
“SWEET NEWS” mentioning the U.S. Dept of Agriculture was published in the House of Representatives section on pages H4170-H4171 on June 9, 2000.
The publication is reproduced in full below:
SWEET NEWS
The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Simpson). Under a previous order of the House, the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Miller) is recognized for 5 minutes.
Mr. MILLER of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I have sweet news. The General Accounting Office just released a report today on the United States Sugar Program. This is an update of the 1993 report, and the report says that the United States program supporting sugar prices increases user costs while benefiting producers.
The bottom line in this 100-page document is that the sugar program in the United States costs the American consumer, the American economy,
$2 billion a year. $2 billion a year.
Mr. Speaker, this is the General Accounting Office. This is the independent, nonpartisan office here in Washington that works for Congress. The head of the agency has got a 15-year term. So there is no partisanship in this. This report was requested by Senator Diane Feinstein, the Democrat from California, the gentleman from California
(Mr. George Miller), Democrat, and myself, a Republican from Florida.
This is not a biased report coming from the Agriculture Department or the sugar growers, but the most authoritative source; and it shows that the sugar program costs $2 billion a year. The sugar program is bad for consumers, bad for the environment, and bad for jobs in this country.
Mr. Speaker, let me briefly explain what the program is first. The program that the Federal Government runs makes the price of sugar about three times world price. The price of sugar in Canada is about a third of the price it is in United States. The price of sugar in Mexico is about a third of the price in the United States. The Federal Government maintains the price at about three times what the world price is for sugar.
The way they do this is a complicated process of controlling imports and also a government loan program that means the Government will have to buy back sugar if the prices ever drop below this guaranteed price that the United States Government will offer.
In 1996, we had a chance to reform this program. Unfortunately, we did not reform it. And what has happened is that the price is so high that everyone is growing more sugar. In the past 3 years, sugar production has gone up 25 percent in this country. What is happening now is that the Federal Government is having to buy sugar. The Federal Government has not had to buy sugar for 15 years.
Last month, Secretary Glickman announced they were going to buy 150,000 tons of sugar that the Government has no use for. They cannot give it away in the world because nobody wants it. The corn people will not let them use it for ethanol; so we are going to store it, and that is just the beginning.
According to news reports, they are projecting $500 million worth of sugar that the Federal Government is going to buy and does not know what to do with. They cannot use it. They are going to store the stuff.
Now, that is just real crazy Federal Government policy, and it is going to get worse because people are growing more sugar because it is so profitable to grow. What is bad about that is it is costing consumers. Sugar is part of all kinds of items, whether it is candy or ice cream, whether it is bread or baked goods. It is used for sweetening cranberry juice. Any product one can think of, sugar is a small part of the cost of that product. So it is going to cost all consumers.
It is a very regressive type of program because low-income people pay so much more for their food products. It is bad for their environment. I come from Florida, and we have the beloved Florida Everglades. One of the problems that we have with the Everglades is the agriculture runoff from the huge sugar plantations in Florida that help destroy the Everglades, Florida Bay and the Florida Keys. What the sugar program does, it provides incentives to grow for sugar which means we have more runoff and more damage to the Everglades.
One of the things that is crazy about the program is that we are going to spend $8 billion to save the Everglades. One of the methods of doing that is by buying a lot of land from the sugar growers to take it out of production. Mr. Speaker, we are paying an inflated price for the sugar land because we have a sugar program that make its more costly to buy that land.
It is bad for jobs in this country. One company that we talk about is a candy company, Bob's Candy, in Georgia, makes candy canes. For three generations they have been making candy canes. Well, when sugar is a third of the price in Canada, they cannot afford to compete with Canadian and Mexican candy canes, so we are just going to drive them out of business.
The cranberry growers up in Massachusetts are struggling because cranberries need sugar to sweeten them. The cranberry growers in Canada love it because they get to buy their sugar for a third of the price to sweeten their product, and they can underprice our cranberry growers.
When the Federal Government tries to manage prices, it is bad economics. It does not make economic sense. We have a private enterprise system in this country that allows for competition. But the one program that we allow basically a monopolistic type of situation, because the Government sets the prices, is in sugar. So it is hurting jobs, it is hurting the environment, and as this GAO report says, the independent nonpartisan General Accounting Office, this is the authoritative source, says it is almost $2 billion a year. That is up from 1993 when the estimate was only $1.4 billion.
So I hope we can start the process, and I have got legislation to do away with the sugar program. We will have an opportunity during the Agriculture Appropriations bill to address part of the problem and certainly next year when the authorization bill is up that hopefully we can get rid of this program and allow the marketplace to work in this country and give benefits to the American consumer.
____________________
