[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 145 (1999), Part 17]
[House]
[Pages 23880-23881]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]



                              COOPERATIVES

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentlewoman from North Carolina (Mrs. Clayton) is recognized for 5 
minutes.
  Mrs. CLAYTON. Mr. Speaker, I rise to speak about cooperatives, but I 
cannot resist talking about my friend, the gentleman from Florida (Mrs. 
Meek).
  I did not know the gentlewoman before I came to Congress. I did not 
have that privilege. But we have become soul mates here, and I 
certainly want to express my admiration for her constituents, who 
understand her value and the true quality of the person representing 
them. I want to commend the newspaper, who also understands quality of 
service. So I just wanted to add those additional remarks.
  Mr. Speaker, I rise to talk about cooperatives and to say this is 
National Cooperative Week, celebrating the founding of cooperatives and 
why they are special and why we make this recognition.
  Cooperative businesses are special because they are owned by the 
consumers they serve and because they are guided by a set of principles 
that reflect the interests of those consumers. More than 100 million 
people are members of some 47,000 U.S. cooperatives, enabling consumers 
to secure a wide array of goods and services, such as health care, 
insurance, housing, food, heating, electricity, credit unions, child 
care, as well as farming.
  Farming community cooperatives indeed have been very important. In 
the agricultural sector, USDA's Cooperative Services' survey of farmer 
cooperatives for the year 1995 reported that actually there were more 
than 4,006 cooperatives in operation. These associations provide a 
variety of services, from buying, as well as producing, as well as 
marketing. So they have made a difference.
  Cooperatives structured properly can be of great benefit to farmers. 
They focus on their ability to collectively

[[Page 23881]]

buy at the most economic rates. They also allow them to sell and to be 
in an association to market their goods. So cooperatives in the farming 
community is very, very special, and we want to commend and strengthen 
their service in the rural community.
  Cooperatives are also effective in electric. In my area, I come from 
rural America, and electric cooperatives have made the difference. They 
have been in eastern North Carolina from the very beginning. In fact, 
in the 1940s, it was not very profitable to have electricity in our 
areas, and they were established in eastern North Carolina, which is 
sparsely populated, and they have made the difference. They have grown 
in my district. In fact, I perhaps have more electric cooperatives than 
anyone else in my State, and they are of value.
  In fact, in the recent Hurricane Floyd that we had, it was indeed the 
cooperatives not only in the State but those cooperatives from out of 
the State who came to the rescue of the cooperatives who were affected 
by Floyd. In fact, some 260 electric members were without electricity 
for a period of time, and there were 700 cooperative linemen of the 
entire State who engaged in securing the additional support for the 
rural utility service.
  So I want to just commend cooperatives and to say how valuable they 
have been for the quality of life and the protection of consumers and 
the value they have meant both in the agricultural community and also 
in the electrical service area.
  Cooperatives structured properly can be of great benefit to farmers. 
They help focus buying strength for quantity discounts on input and 
combine a larger volume to get a higher price on output.
  From an economic standpoint cooperatives can improve the bottom line 
and cut out the middleman, they create efficiencies that allow 
cooperative members to be stock holders and receive rebates.
  Cooperatives were born out of the low prices of the 1930's as the 
farmers' response to dealing with these low prices . . . now as we move 
towards consolidation and vertical integration farmers cooperatives in 
general will serve a more vital role than they have in the past.
  Cooperatives will continue to hold down prices by creating diversity 
within the market place.
  Electric cooperatives have been these since ``the beginning'' because 
they began electric power service in North Carolina. In the 1940s it 
simply wasn't profitable for established power companies to serve the 
sparsely-settled areas of eastern North Carolina.
  The electric cooperatives have grown with my district. Without 
stable, reliable electric infrastructure, economic development could 
not have taken place.
  Are they still needed today? Of course, they are. Cooperatives--owned 
by their customers--have been there when no one else wanted the 
outlying areas and they are still there, standing shoulder to shoulder 
with today's businesses ensuring that customers--large and small--can 
benefit in an ever-changing market environment.
  Electric cooperatives are not just cooperatives in name only, they 
truly stand for ``cooperation''.
  Hurricane Floyd provides an all too timely and graphic example as to 
the value of electric cooperatives.
  While more than 260,000 electric members were without power, the 700 
cooperative linemen of the entire state came together to ``turn on the 
lights'' in eastern NC. Additionally, 600 electric co-op linemen from 
10 states came in to assist. As the cooperatives borrow the Rural 
Utilities Service, standard engineering and construction facilitate out 
of state electric cooperative crews coming in to provide much needed 
hands-on assistance that is vital to restoring power.
  Electric cooperatives continue to serve vital functions in the coming 
new millennium as they did when they were first formed. Rather than 
constructing and bringing power into kerosene-lit homes, they now will 
continue to assist consumers through an ever-changing landscape of a 
restructured electric industry. Through the use of the cooperative 
model and principles, consumers need to be able to pull together as a 
electric-buying cooperative in order to create buying leverage in an 
open marketplace. Consumers can make themselves a powerful force in the 
marketplace . . . just as cooperatives have been doing for years.
  Electric cooperatives are working on models such as this in areas of 
the country that have begun to open their electric markets.
  Cooperatives can also serve consumers by bundling packages of utility 
services--such as internet, other home heating sources, water and 
sewer--to provide ``one stop'' shopping convenience. This is especially 
true for rural areas that traditionally are left behind when it comes 
to competitive services.

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