Mike Conaway: “I thank the gentleman for yielding time. Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong opposition to the Pitts-Goodlatte amendment for a…”

“I thank the gentleman for yielding time. Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong opposition to the Pitts-Goodlatte amendment for a number of reasons. First of all, we have already voted on the Pitts-Goodlatte amendment provisions during the farm bill, and the House voted to reject it. I am not sure why we are here again today to retread all of these issues. Even if this resolution were to pass--which hopefully it doesn't--I hope our Members remember how they voted in July and understand why they voted the way they did in July and stick with that this week. But because the provisions in both bills in the House and Senate are the same this has even less effect than for the conferees to ignore it. Our trade laws allow a lot of sugar to be imported in this country. We can and do grant extra access above and beyond the commitments if, in fact, we do need more. But the farm bill simply says, let's wait to see how much Mexico is going to send us before we grant others extra access. Remember that Mexico has 100 percent access to our market. They heavily subsidize their sugar, and the Mexican government owns 20 percent of that industry. The Pitts resolution would ignore market forecasts and start granting extra access to Mexico and other countries right off the bat before the growing season. Mr. Speaker, that is reckless.…”