The sugar program is the 'sugar daddy' of corporate welfare. Why? Because most of the benefits of this program go to huge corporate sugar producers, not the typical family farmer.

Mr. Speaker, today myself, Representative George Miller and more than 40 of our colleagues are introducing the Sugar Program Reform Act, a bill to phase out the sugar program by the end of 2002.

The sugar program's sole purpose is to prop up the price of sugar in the United States through a complex system of low-interest, nonrecourse loans and tight import restrictions.

As a result, the sugar program imposes a 'sugar tax' on consumers, forcing them to pay more than $1 billion in higher prices for food and sugar every year.

It devastates the environment, particularly the fragile Everglades in my home State of Florida.

Finally, it hampers our ability to expand trade opportunities for America's farmers.

The sugar program is an archaic, unnecessary government handout to corporate sugar producers at the expense of consumers, workers, and the environment.

The Sugar Program Reform Act will do what the 1996 farm bill failed to accomplish.

This legislation is good for consumers, good for the environment, good for American workers, and good for the economy.