Political Quotes

“I rise, first of all, to indicate again my strong support for the bill that is in front of us, the Food and Energy Security Act, and to thank one more time our leader, Senator Harkin, and his partner in this, Senator Chambliss, for their leadership and great work, and for all the support of the committee in bringing forward a unanimous bill, bipartisan bill. Amendment No. 3672 I specifically today, though, want to touch briefly on two amendments that have been proposed by my good friend from New Hampshire. I really do mean that. He is somebody whom I enjoy working with very much, although I must rise to oppose him on an amendment dealing with the asparagus growers of this country. As a background to this, the U.S. asparagus industry was and continues to be economically injured, unfortunately, by an agreement back in 1990, the Andean Trade Preferences Act, which extended duty-free status to imports of fresh Peruvian asparagus. This particular agreement eliminated the tariffs on a wide variety of products, including asparagus, coming into this country. Unlike most trade agreements, ATPA provided no transition period for American growers to allow our producers to prepare or adapt to an unlimited quantity of Peruvian asparagus coming in with a zero tariff. The recently approved Peruvian Trade Promotion Agreement actually codifies that particular situation for American asparagus growers.”