Sam Farr: “Mr. Speaker, I rise on the Andean trade debate because I think this is one of the most important votes, one of the most…”

“Mr. Speaker, I rise on the Andean trade debate because I think this is one of the most important votes, one of the most important decisions that this House ever makes affecting the Andean countries in South America. Certainly with the amendments to the Caribbean initiative and the Africa initiative, this is a very, very important trade bill. The Andean Trade Pact was adopted in 1991. It sunseted this year so we would have a chance to review. One of the parts that is broken in the process is essentially the flower imports from Colombia. I have spoken many times about the inequities. We set that program up in the early 1990s because we wanted the Colombian flower growers to make sure they have a legitimate market to divert investment away from cocaine. The Colombian flower growers have done very well. They have done so well that they are now 70 percent of the American market. In fact, practically every flower we see in a supermarket in America comes from Colombia. There has been an expense of that on the domestic side. We have lost hundreds of flower-growing small farms, small community greenhouse operations all over the United States. That is why so many Members of Congress have invested in this issue of wondering whether we ought to put the tariffs back on for Colombian flowers.”