Patsy T. Mink: “may I point out that the figure that has been touted around today and weeks before today that this sugar program is…”

“may I point out that the figure that has been touted around today and weeks before today that this sugar program is costing the consumers this outrageous sum of $1.4 billion is absolutely untrue. The U.S. Department of Agriculture has refuted this and said it was not based upon any sound analysis whatsoever. Second, there has been a suggestion that the sugar program is environmentally harmful. Let me say that in my area, which is almost the total production of sugar in my State, we follow every single environmental rule that has been established by this Congress. Yet you want to eliminate the sugar program, turn it over to the foreign countries who heavily subsidize this industry, just because our big megacorporations want to buy cheap sugar. This vote today to eliminate the sugar program is going to eliminate 420,000 jobs, 6,000 of which are in my district. I thought we all stood for jobs, American jobs; this is what this amendment is all about. Vote against it.”