[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 158 (2012), Part 7]
[House]
[Pages 9190-9191]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                           SENATE SUGAR VOTE

  (Mr. PITTS asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 
minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. PITTS. Mr. Speaker, I want to praise my colleague from 
Pennsylvania, Senator Toomey, for introducing an amendment to the farm 
bill to phase out the Federal sugar program. Though the Senate narrowly 
voted to table the amendment, it demonstrated that there is substantial 
bipartisan support to reform a program that hurts American job creators 
and consumers.

[[Page 9191]]

  Today's Wall Street Journal editorial entitled ``A Tale of Two 
Conservatives'' also praises Senator Toomey and calls out the 
Republicans who voted against this free-market amendment.
  By some estimates, the Federal sugar program artificially doubles the 
price of sugar in the United States. While we protect sugar growers and 
processors, sugar users and consumers are at a severe disadvantage. 
American jobs have been lost as foreign competitors benefit from 
reduced prices for raw sugar.
  The Department of Commerce estimates that sugar-using industries lost 
112,000 jobs from 1997 to 2009. Here in the House, I'm working with 
Danny Davis on a bipartisan amendment to the farm bill. I hope that 
when the Chamber considers reforming the farm bill, Democrats and 
Republicans can come together to protect jobs and stop the government 
from playing favorites.

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