E PL UR UM IB N U U S Congressional Record United States th of America PROCEEDINGS AND DEBATES OF THE 106 CONGRESS, SECOND SESSION Vol. 146 WASHINGTON, TUESDAY, MARCH 28, 2000 No. 36 House of Representatives The House met at 12:30 p.m. and was the majority and minority leaders for ing about buying 250,000 tons of surplus called to order by the Speaker pro tem- morning hour debates. The Chair will sugar to pump up the domestic price, pore (Mrs. BIGGERT). alternate recognition between the par- but then what will officials do with all f ties, with each party limited to not to the sugar? Enough to fill two-thirds of exceed 30 minutes, and each Member, the Empire State Building. One idea is DESIGNATION OF SPEAKER PRO except the majority leader, the minor- to donate it overseas; although, no TEMPORE ity leader, or the minority whip, lim- country has indicated they are willing The SPEAKER pro tempore laid be- ited to not to exceed 5 minutes. to even take it. fore the House the following commu- The Chair recognizes the gentleman This is just the beginning, as the ar- nication from the Speaker: from Florida (Mr. MILLER) for 5 min- ticle goes on to say. We are talking WASHINGTON, DC, utes. about $550 million worth of sugar that March 28, 2000. f our agriculture department is going to I hereby appoint the Honorable JUDY have to buy this year, and it has no FAILING U.S. SUGAR PROGRAM BIGGERT to act as Speaker pro tempore on place to even give it away. Wow, do we this day. Mr. MILLER of Florida. Madam have an embarrassing situation here in J. DENNIS HASTERT, Speaker, today, I would like to bring to Washington. Speaker of the House of Representatives. the attention of the House the prob- The production of sugar has gone up f lems with the failing U.S. sugar pro- by 25 percent in the past 3 years, be- gram. The sugar daddy of corporate MESSAGE FROM THE SENATE cause we have this high price. The welfare is one of the most egregious price of sugar in the United States is A message from the Senate by Mr. programs that we have in the Federal three times what it is around the Lundregan, one of its clerks, an- Government, and it is now in the proc- world. You can go across the border nounced that the Senate has passed ess of imploding. into Canada, and it is a third of the with an amendment in which the con- It is a really bad, big government price of the United States; or go to currence of the House is requested, a program that is hard to understand in Mexico, it is a third of the price of the bill of the House of the following title: our great government we have here United States. H.R. 1658. An act to provide a more just that we continue to have a program What is happening to jobs in the and uniform procedure for Federal civil for- that just does not fit in our free enter- United States? We take companies that feitures, and for other purposes. prise capitalistic economy that we use a lot of sugar. Hey, I cannot com- The message also announced that the have. It is a program that is bad for the pete with the Canadian companies that Senate has passed bills of the following consumer. It is bad for jobs in this use a lot of sugar. For example, Bobs titles in which concurrence of the country. It is bad for the environment. Candies from Georgia makes candy House is requested: It is bad trade policy. It just makes canes. The candy canes use a lot of S. 1730. An act to amend the Federal Water zero economic sense. sugar, and it is a lot cheaper to Pollution Control Act to provide that cer- The way the program works is, the produce them in Canada or Mexico or tain environmental reports shall continue to Federal Government kind of acts like some other place that buys sugar for a be required to be submitted. OPEC, they want to manage supply to third of the price. So we are losing jobs S. 1731. An act to amend the Clean Air Act keep the prices high. Now, we are re- in the country because sugar is used in to provide that certain environmental re- quired to allow some sugar to be im- ports shall continue to be required to be sub- so many of our different products, mitted. ported into the United States. The whether it is cereal or baked goods. S. 1744. An act to amend the Endangered Government has a loan program that It is a very costly thing. In fact, the Species Act of 1973 to provide that certain they say we will guarantee the price General Accounting Office says it costs species conservation reports shall continue will not drop below this amount or else over a billion dollars a year extra per to be required to be submitted. we will buy the sugar. Well, all of a year on the consumer, because of the f sudden for the first time in decades, high price we pay for sugar. This is they are on the verge of getting ready really a regressive program, because MORNING HOUR DEBATES to buy a lot of sugar. the poor pay a lot higher percentage of The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursu- As reported in the newspaper this the total income for the sugar pro- ant to the order of the House of Janu- morning, the AP wire service story gram. ary 19, 1999, the Chair will now recog- says ``got a sweet tooth? Uncle Sam It is bad for the environment. I am nize Members from lists submitted by wants you.'' The Government is think- from Florida. We are considered to b This symbol represents the time of day during the House proceedings, e.g., b 1407 is 2:07 p.m. Matter set in this typeface indicates words inserted or appended, rather than spoken, by a Member of the House on the floor. H1415 . VerDate 20-MAR-2000 01:08 Mar 29, 2000 Jkt 079060 PO 00000 Frm 00001 Fmt 4634 Sfmt 0634 E:\CR\FM\A28MR7.000 pfrm06 PsN: H28PT1 H1416 CONGRESSIONAL RECORD Ð HOUSE March 28, 2000 have a real national treasure, the Ever- JOIN BIPARTISAN EFFORT TO ELIMINATE SUGAR Only after that murder could we get glades; and one of the real contributing PROGRAM the Secretary to say, okay, I will look problems to the Everglades environ- Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. into this, and he now has to acknowl- mentally is the runoff from the sugar Madam Speaker, I want to begin by ex- edge what we have been telling him plantations in Florida. pressing my agreement with the com- along. But he must understand that Now, we have this high price of ments of the gentleman from Florida. part of his own actions have been part sugar. They are growing more sugar in One of the things he called attention to of a pattern all along. Florida and causing more runoff, and is a very curious publishing phe- now we are having to buy this sugar nomenon. I have listened to many of When the Navy outrageously violated from the sugar programs. We are going my colleagues who are great supporters the privacy of a young man named to spend $8 billion restoring the Ever- of free enterprise and who attribute the Timothy McVeigh, a patriotic member glades. We are encouraging even more virtues of the market of free enterprise of the Navy, and a Federal judge ruled production in the sugar. This is one to all manner of people, mostly poor that they had violated his rights, the program that is hard to comprehend and working-class people who look for Defense Department resisted that rul- how you justify it in our country. help. But apparently there is in every ing, sought to appeal it, and had to be Let us talk about trade issues. When free market text ever written, Milton overruled by the President, one of the we negotiate trade agreements, what Friedman, Ludwig von Mises, et cetera, few times that the President did get in- we really want to do is encourage our a secret footnote that can only be read volved. Even now, in the aftermath of products to be exported around the by people who represent certain agri- the murder of Mr. Winchell, we have world, whether it is orange juice from cultural interests, which says to them, the people at that base where absolute Florida or airplanes from Boeing or this free market stuff is great for poor harassment was proven to have hap- computers or computer software. We people and for people who try to work want to open up markets so we can sell in factories, but it does not apply to pened going unpunished. We had an of- our products. The problem our nego- agriculture, because by some strange ficer at 29 Palms issue a viciously big- tiators have is that we will go around literary feat, the strongest supporters oted e-mail about gay people, and he and say, country, you need to open up of an unrestrained free market system goes unpunished. your markets for us, as we are talking consistently make an exception for The fact is that the administration about China, but do not sell us any some protected and politically favored cannot pretend that it did not know sugar, we want to protect our sugar parts of agriculture.