James Barcia: “I rise in opposition to the Miller-Schumer amendment. While this amendment is an effort to end the sugar price support…”

“I rise in opposition to the Miller-Schumer amendment. While this amendment is an effort to end the sugar price support program and claims to take 5 years to do it, the negative impact on my growers in our domestic industry will be immediate. We are reducing the other farm price support programs because of cost. Yet, as many have spoken on this floor tonight, there is no cost to the sugar program. Let me repeat that. There is no cost to the U.S. taxpayers of this sugar program. In fact, year after year, it has generated money for our Treasury. By now we should all know the basics about the reasons for our domestic sugar program: It provides us with a stable supply at a reasonable price. No matter what you may hear about the so-called world market, our consumers pay less than most consumers throughout the world for sugar. Every other producing country has a sugar program. If they were all to be eliminated, study after study has shown that the price to the United States would be exactly where it is now. This amendment will force many of our constituents and many Americans across the country out of business. I strongly urge defeat of the Miller-Schumer amendment.”