Flood Insurance and Modernization Act

Floor Speech

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mrs. SHAHEEN. Madam President, I am pleased to join my colleagues in talking about why it is so important to pass this transportation bill. I thank Senator Whitehouse for organizing this effort.

In New Hampshire, we understand what Senator Klobuchar was saying, that it is important to get this bill passed so we can get our construction season underway. We have a limited amount of time. In only 17 days, this Nation's surface transportation programs are going to shut down unless Congress acts to reauthorize them.

In March, nearly three-quarters of this Senate voted to pass a bipartisan, long-term transportation bill that maintains current funding levels and avoids an increase in both the deficit and in gas taxes. This legislation is important as we look at roads and bridges and mass transit that are going to have support. It is important as we look at the jobs in the construction industry and manufacturing businesses that depend on our transportation system.

In fact, the Federal Highway Administration estimates that for every $1 billion in highway spending, we support about 27,000 jobs. I was pleased last week to see an overwhelming bipartisan majority in the House vote to reject policies that will cut spending on roads and public transit by one-third. If that had passed, an estimated 2,000 New Hampshire jobs would have been lost. I think that vote sends an important signal to members of the conference committee that there is a strong bipartisan majority in both Houses of Congress to support funding for crucial investments in our transportation network.

I call on the House to work with the Senate in a similar bipartisan manner, as we did in the Senate, to pass transportation policies that put Americans back to work and generate economic growth. We have seen it in New Hampshire, where we have 29 construction projects that are going to be on hold if we cannot get transportation legislation passed here. We have seen it with Interstate 93, one of our main corridors going up and down the middle of our State, which has been delayed because of the delay in passing this transportation bill.

If we are unable to set aside election year amendments, unable to set aside this partisan politics and come together to do what is right for our country and our economy and pass a transportation bill, it will be putting this country in a very difficult situation.

The Congressional Budget Office has projected that the highway trust fund will run out of money next year--sometime in 2013. We are not exactly sure when. But that will mean funding to States will face drastic cuts without any reauthorization to shore up that revenue. And were the highway trust funds to run out of money, projects in this country would grind to a halt; it would decimate jobs in the construction industry. We cannot afford that.

Investing in transportation creates jobs and creates the conditions for our small companies to succeed. It should not be an issue about politics or partisanship. I urge our colleagues on the House side--because they are the ones holding this up--to come together and pass a transportation reauthorization bill.

I yield the floor.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mrs. SHAHEEN. Mr. President, I am pleased to join my colleague Senator Toomey to talk about what truly is an egregious oversight in the underlying farm bill we are considering.

This morning, the Senate is going to have the opportunity to vote on an amendment that would repeal the Sugar Program. As Senator Toomey has pointed out, I submitted several amendments. One would reform the Sugar Program. The one we are going to vote on this morning is the one to actually repeal the program. I, as does Senator Toomey, hope we will get a vote on both, but I certainly hope people will vote against the tabling motion to repeal the Sugar Program.

The underlying farm bill we are considering reforms almost every farm program we have. Every farm group has had to sacrifice with this farm bill so we can reform these programs. Unfortunately, there is one glaring exception to these reforms; that is, the Sugar Program.

We need to reform the sugar subsidy because it costs consumers and businesses $3.5 billion each year in the form of higher prices. That is almost double the world average. We can see on this chart--which shows sugar prices over the last 30 years since 1981. This is the world price for sugar, and that is the U.S. price. We can see demonstrated very graphically--no pun intended--that we in America are paying almost twice what the world price is for sugar. It also costs us about 20,000 jobs every year. We are doing all this--we are affecting consumers and hundreds of thousands of jobs--to benefit fewer than 5,000 sugar growers. To benefit those 5,000, all of us are paying more, and we have been paying more, as this chart clearly indicates, for the last 30 years.

How does the subsidy program work? Senator Toomey did a great job of explaining it, but it essentially manipulates the market. It controls how much sugar is grown in the United States. It restricts how much sugar comes into the United States from outside the country. It sets a floor on sugar prices by providing a government guarantee to sugar growers on what they are going to get paid, and it requires the government, in some cases--this is what is truly outrageous--it requires the government to buy sugar off the market and then sell it to ethanol plants at a loss to taxpayers. The proponents of this program say it doesn't cost us any money? What our amendment would do is phase out this outdated program over the course of a couple years.

I wish to respond to some of the claims we have heard from those who support this Sugar Program. The first is that it doesn't cost taxpayers any money. That is if we ignore the fact that consumers are paying out of one pocket; they may not be paying as taxpayers in taxes, but they are paying out of the other pocket as consumers. But, in fact, that is not even accurate when it comes to taxpayer dollars. A recent study by Iowa State University showed that the program costs $3.5 billion a year to consumers in the form of higher prices, and the Congressional Budget Office estimates this program will cost taxpayers directly in the coming years. CBO has scored this amendment as saving millions of dollars for taxpayers in the next decade. So repealing the Sugar Program, according to CBO, will save millions for taxpayers in the next decade.

Those who support the Sugar Program also claim prices just aren't that high and that consumers actually benefit from the sugar subsidy. That is absurd. We can see graphed out very clearly what consumers are paying. Consumer groups, such as the Consumer Federation and the National Consumers League, support our amendment because the sugar subsidy costs consumers and businesses $3.5 billion a year.

Subsidy supporters cite a study which was paid for by the sugar industry to support their data. That is not accurate. Using data from USDA shows a very different story, because for wholesale prices which represent two-thirds of the sugar bought by businesses in the United States, the effect of the Sugar Program is obvious, and it is hard to argue with this drastic difference as displayed on the chart. What we have is a hidden tax that is designed to benefit a small powerful interest group. Again, studies have found that consumers are paying a cost to the tune of $3.5 billion a year.

The supporters of the sugar subsidy also say this program doesn't get in the way of job creation. This is an argument that just doesn't hold up when we look at the facts. Multiple studies have found we are sacrificing hundreds and thousands of jobs by keeping sugar prices high. In 2006, the Department of Commerce found that for every job protected in the sugar industry, three were lost in manufacturing. A recent study from Iowa State University found that we are sacrificing 20,000 new jobs created every year due to the sugar subsidy program. So we are losing 20,000 jobs every year because of the sugar subsidy. There is no evidence sugar reform is going to hurt job creation; in fact, it is going to help. We have a small business in

New Hampshire, a family-run business called Granite State Candy. They have been doing very well. They would like to expand, but because of the high cost of sugar they are having trouble thinking about how they are going to pay for that.

There is nothing more definitive than the illustration Senator Toomey showed earlier today and that I showed yesterday on the floor which is from a Canadian brochure designed to attract businesses in the confectionery industry to come to Canada. It points out how much less they are going to pay. Here it is. It points out how much less businesses are going to pay for sugar in Canada and how much more beneficial it would be for companies to do business in Canada rather than the United States. It says very clearly:

Consider these hard facts: Sugar refiners import the vast majority of their raw materials at world prices. Canadian sugar users enjoy a significant advantage. The average price of refined sugar is usually 30 to 40 percent lower in Canada than in the United States. Most manufactured products containing sugar are freely traded in the NAFTA region.

If one needs any other evidence, that is it. It is clear we are losing those jobs.

I strongly urge my colleagues to vote against tabling this amendment today.

This may be our only chance to reform the Sugar Program in this farm bill. Tabling this amendment would be a vote to support special interests, those fewer than 5,000 sugar growers, at the expense of over 600,000 employees in the food industry and millions of consumers.

Thank you very much. I yield the floor.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source