Providing for Consideration of H.R. 2744, Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2006
PROVIDING FOR CONSIDERATION OF H.R. 2744, AGRICULTURE, RURAL DEVELOPMENT, FOOD AND DRUG ADMINISTRATION, AND RELATED AGENCIES APPROPRIATIONS ACT, 2006 -- (House of Representatives - June 08, 2005)
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Mr. BLUMENAUER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time to speak on the rule.
I favor the rule. It will enable us today later in the debate to consider an amendment that, if approved, will reduce by 6 percent the sugar subsidy that we have under our current system.
We will hear in the course of this debate how the current sugar subsidization is a serious misallocation of resources to a few large farmers and agribusiness interests when we are unable to meet the needs under the ag bill for America's small- and medium-sized farmers.
We will learn how the current policies damage the environment, especially in the Everglades. The Everglades are polluted from the practice of cane sugar production, threatening drinking water for south Florida, maritime habitat is seriously damaged, and makes the $8 billion down payment that we have made on the cleanup of the Everglades harder, larger and ultimately more expensive.
The current policies violate our own principles of free trade. Forty-one other sugar-producing countries cannot compete with the lavishly subsidized American market, where they are largely excluded, particularly for poor countries. It makes our free trade arguments hypocritical.
It is costing American consumers with this unjustified subsidy, forcing them to pay two or three times the world price for sugar. And it is costing jobs. There are seven times more businesses that use sugar than produce sugar and is forcing them, I see my colleague from Illinois here, where the confectionery industry in Illinois is being driven across the border to Canada because the raw material is so much cheaper.
There will be an opportunity, thankfully, to discuss this under an open rule, and I am hopeful that we will take this small step to put a little sanity in the way we treat sugar.
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