Kent Conrad: “This amendment of the Senator from New Hampshire is a mistake. When the Senator from New Hampshire gets up and tells our…”

“This amendment of the Senator from New Hampshire is a mistake. When the Senator from New Hampshire gets up and tells our colleagues that the world price for sugar is just over 9 cents a pound, it is not true. That is not what the world price of sugar is. If one thinks about it for a moment, it could not possibly be because the cost of producing sugar is over 16 cents a pound. In fact, it is about 16.3 cents a pound. So how could it possibly be that the world price for the commodity is just over half of what it costs to produce? It cannot be, or the entire sugar industry worldwide would be bankrupt. This is very clear. I do not think there is anybody who really knows the sugar industry who does not understand that the cost of producing sugar is between 16 and 18 cents a pound. That is what it costs to produce. So anybody who tells you that the world price is a fraction of what it cost to produce is firing with blanks. The hard reality is, that is not the world price of sugar. That is a dump price for sugar.”