Agriculture and Nutrition Act of 2018

Floor Speech

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Ms. FOXX. Mr. Chairman, I commend my colleague Mike Conaway and the other members of the Agriculture Committee for their work on the farm bill. I have every intention of voting for the bill and have stated that on many occasions.

Having been working on a reauthorization of a major bill recently, I can certainly sympathize with the effort here and say that, overall, this bill is an improvement on past farm bills because it responds to the desperate need of work requirements for able-bodied people.

However, there is another piece of this bill that has been around for a long time, 85 years, that is not corrected, is decidedly bad policy, and is long overdue to be corrected, and our amendment does that.

This amendment is not new. In fact, this body has debated it in every farm bill for over a generation. The issue of which I speak is the issue with sugar and the need for reform of the way we treat sugar, which is different from all other commodity programs.

It is the only program that provides both loan supports and supply management. Supply management is the ugly cousin of direct payments. It rewards inactivity.

Americans are outraged when they hear tales of direct payments to farmers for not producing something. That same injustice--reward for inactivity, protection from competition--is what we find in the sugar program.

Let's be crystal-clear about what the sugar program does. It puts the government in charge of deciding how much sugar will be produced in this country, which inflates the cost, and it guarantees the processing industry a base profit by giving them subsidized loans. We stopped these practices years ago for other commodities, and only sugar is left with this sweet deal.

When the government gets into picking winners and losers, American jobs are at risk. The International Trade Commission has stated that for every job the sugar program protects we lose three manufacturing jobs. Congress should not be in the business of defending a program that is a bona fide job killer.

This amendment has a broad coalition of support. Free market groups, economists, environmentalists, consumer groups, and manufacturers all support this amendment.

Let me tell you about the other coalition. It is not very large. It is made up of 13 vertically integrated sugar processors. That is it. Our government is transferring wealth to these processors. It shifts cost onto our Nation's manufacturers and consumers by almost $4 billion annually.

We are going to hear that the amendment subjects farmers to some new exposure to foreign imports. What they will fail to tell you is that, between our government's suspension agreements, import quotas, and tariffs, our government already regulates every single ounce of foreign sugar coming into our market. Will our amendment weaken the ability of the USDA to regulate these imports? Not in the slightest. We simply give USDA more flexibility.

We are going to hear arguments about candy bars, candy companies, and lots of other distractions. But it is all brought up to shift your attention away from the very program we are here to debate, the sugar program.

In reality, the sugar program hates sunshine. It hates getting the spotlight. But I am glad we are debating it here today.

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Ms. FOXX. Mr. Chairman, not my words, but the International Trade Commission says that for every job sugar protects, we lose three manufacturing jobs.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Hensarling).

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Ms. FOXX. Mr. Chairman, do I have the right to close or does the gentleman from Texas have the right to close?
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Ms. FOXX. Mr. Chairman, in closing, our government's current sugar program is a job killer. It ensures profits for the connected few at the expense of the many. It operates at a substantial cost to taxpayers, consumers, and businesses. It is rooted in supply management economics that were drafted nearly 90 years ago.

Every other commodity program was subjected to reforms during the last farm bill except the sugar program. Economists, consumer groups, environmentalists, manufacturers, editorial boards, and groups on both the left and right of the idealogical spectrum have all endorsed the idea of substantially reforming this program.

It is time to end Congress' codification of a special interest giveaway. It is time to modernize the sugar program. I ask my colleagues to support our amendment and the farm bill.

I yield back the balance of my time.

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