C.L. Otter: “one of the reasons that Idaho is so firm against CAFTA, and I have received phone calls from companies in Idaho that say…”

“one of the reasons that Idaho is so firm against CAFTA, and I have received phone calls from companies in Idaho that say we need you to support CAFTA. Absolutely I have. I am not going to try to kid anybody and say I have not. I have had some phone calls from folks in the agricultural business that tell me that they bought into some of those arguments. But for the most part the commodity groups in Idaho are supporting each other. And they have said yes, CAFTA may be good for us, but we remember when we asked the gentleman from Idaho (Mr. Otter) and the gentleman from Idaho (Mr. Simpson) and everybody to vote against the Australian trade agreement because it was bad for the dairy industry and it was not too handsome for the beef industry. And so now the beef folks and the dairy folks are remembering that the sugar beet folks and the other farm commodities in Idaho supported them. But all I need to do when they call me and say we want you to support CAFTA, I just need to remind them where we were in the early 1990s before NAFTA. Since NAFTA in my congressional district alone, since NAFTA passed, we have lost 32 sawmills, lumber mills in the State of Idaho. You do not just lose a lumber bill. The people of Clearwater County, Idaho, in a little town called Pierce, had a plywood mill that they had to close down as a result of not being able to compete with the Canadian lumber, and not having a softwood agreement with Canada.…”