[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 151 (2005), Part 19]
[House]
[Page 26261]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                     TEXAS RICE NEEDS TO GO TO CUBA

  (Mr. POE asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 
minute.)
  Mr. POE. Mr. Speaker, southeast Texas has over 40,000 acres of rice 
fields. Until recently, the combined acreage of rice farms in the State 
of Texas was about 600,000 acres. That is bigger than the State of 
Rhode Island. Hometown rice farmers, like my friend Ray Stoesser, are 
seriously struggling, however. Ray, like most rice farmers, simply 
wants more markets to sell American rice.
  The House and Senate versions of the Treasury, Transportation 
appropriations bill enhanced markets and included language that would 
allow agricultural trade to Cuba. The conference report, however, 
stripped that language out and maintains the current trade embargo. The 
conferees' refusal to allow rice trade to Cuba defies common sense. It 
places politics above American farmers like Ray Stoesser, not to 
mention it is bad for the American economy.
  The Cuban people will continue to eat rice. If we do not sell it to 
them, they will get it from that communist nation Vietnam. We hear talk 
of free trade. NAFTA, CAFTA, we trade with the Communists in China, but 
not selling rice to Cuba does not punish Castro and his Communists. It 
punishes American rice farmers.
  Mr. Speaker, this ought not to be.

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