Mark Sanford

Mr. SANFORD

Mr. SANFORD. Mr. Chairman, this amendment would simply hold at the fiscal 2000 year level special research grants. The reason I think that this is important is because there has been basically a $14 million increase in overall research grants, which represents a 24 percent increase in this category of spending within this bill, and that is significant, because that is about eight times the rate of growth in inflation. It is about eight times the rate of growth in overall government expenditure. Mr. Chairman, one of the reasons that this occurred was that there are $15 million in new research grants over the last year. They were not part of the fiscal year 2000 budget. They were not requested by the President. They were not appropriated by the Senate. In short, they were simply pork for Members within the agricultural committee. I do not blame them one bit for doing this. They were watching out for their district, but if my colleagues look at the last component of cooperative State research education extension grants, they are to be focused on a national mission. This just flat out is not the case as we look down to these grants. What I see is $1.25 million for efficient irrigation in New Mexico and Texas. I see $300,000 fish and shellfish technologies in Virginia. I see $300,000 for nursery, greenhouse and turf specialties in Alabama. I see $200,000 for International Asparagus Competitiveness in Washington that was just recently talked about. In fact, I see a number of increases on all kinds of different things, red snapper research up by 37 percent. Vidalia onions up by 200 percent. Wood utilization, I think this is just plain crazy one, if we look at wood utilization research, it is there to help in speeding the process from timbers' exit from the forest to the mill. Yet there is nothing more efficient than a redneck out in the woods of South Carolina with a chain saw. He is getting bit up by ticks and mosquitoes and red bugs. He is going to find the most efficient way to move the tree from the stump to the mill. He does not need a Federal Government grant to teach him how to do that. It is with that in mind that the USDA only requested $6.3 million of this type of research, because they, in fact, wanted broader research, research that was national in nature. In fact, on this very front, if we look, competitive research grants were cut by about $23 million while these noncompetitive grants have been added to. It is for this reason that I think this amendment makes sense, because not to have competitive grants means that Oklahoma, Vermont, South Dakota, Delaware got zero in research grants. In fact, two big farm States, Indiana and Tennessee, got one each. So I urge this amendment's adoption.

Mr. SANFORD. Mr. Chairman, will the gentlewoman yield?

Mr. SANFORD. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentlewoman, and I understand completely what she is saying. I guess my only question about this is those very needs that the gentlewoman is talking about could be addressed through a competitive basis. My problem with the special grants is that they are on a noncompetitive basis so that many States are left out and some of the very needs that the gentlewoman is talking about are not addressed because they are not on a competitive basis.

Mr. SANFORD. Mr. Chairman, if the gentlewoman would continue to yield, I would simply say on that point, that is why I think it is so important to go after some of the others that I think have far less merit, like the wood utilization program.

Mr. SANFORD. Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

Mr. SANFORD. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. SANFORD. Mr. Chairman, I commend the gentleman for the way he has been a consistent advocate for farmers in general and farmers specifically within his district. However, my concern here is that people have mentioned a lot of strange diseases, canker sores on the sides of citrus trees and whatnot; but again, based on the research grants themselves, if we actually break them out, what they are correlated to is not the diseases on the citrus trees, but they are correlated to who sits on the Committee on Agriculture. So while these are interesting points, that is not where the research grants are going, and that is why I think they ought to be made on a competitive versus not-competitive basis.

Mr. SANFORD. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. SANFORD. Mr. Chairman, on that point, I fully recognize the fact that while this particular Member may well do that with farmers from anywhere across the Nation, as a whole, at the end of the day, what comes out of this process is not that happening. In fact, again, we see a direct correlation between simply sitting on that committee and the research grants.

Mr. SANFORD. I would just make the point that the gentleman raises some areas of acute need. I would recognize those acute needs. The problem is, the money is not being spent here. I see $5.5 million on wood utilization research; $3 million on vidalia onions, we do not have a crisis there; red snapper research, I do not see a crisis there.

Mr. SANFORD. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. SANFORD. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. SANFORD. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding. I just want to make a point of clarification. The gentleman suggested that I thought Congress should never be involved in this decision-making.

Mr. SANFORD. Not me, but I am just saying generally. What is interesting is, I leave in place $60 million for special research grants. All this amendment goes after is the increase of $14 million, so Congress would very much be involved in the process of making special research grants.

Mr. SANFORD. If the gentleman will continue to yield, Mr. Chairman, I want to be clear, this is not about a green eyeshades analysis or nonspecialization. In other words, when I look at the wood utilization grants, I will bet I am the only Member of Congress who raises pine trees. I have been out there in the woods with a McCullough chain saw cutting timber, watching loggers do the same. It is based on that experience that says to me that the wood utilization program is a waste of money.

Mr. SANFORD. The question is how much time Members have spent in the woods.

Mr. SANFORD. Mr. Chairman, I just I want to make very clear that this amendment simply gets at the overall funding category, the 24 percent increase in funding. It in no way goes specifically after your very worthy research project.

Mr. SANFORD. Mr. Chairman, will the gentlewoman yield?

Mr. SANFORD. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. SANFORD. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. SANFORD. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman from Texas for yielding to me. Mr. Chairman, I would make two comments. One would be the semantics between ``cut'' and ``freeze.'' And we might say this differently. I would view this as more of a freeze at last year's level, rather than a cut from a proposed increase. Secondly, I would make the point that if there is anything arbitrary about what is in here, it is the degree of correlation between not the diseases that are being talked about but the degree of correlation between the grants themselves and membership on the Committee on Agriculture.

Mr. SANFORD. Mr. Chairman, if the gentleman would again yield, that is fair enough and a point well taken.

Mr. SANFORD. Mr. Chairman, the gentleman raises very valid points in terms of the overall net effect of what is done in terms of research. My question would be on some of the things that the gentleman mentioned. On the New York Stock Exchange we find Boise Cascade and International Paper and Westvaco. And given the fact that these are multimillion-dollar corporations, and given the gentleman's advocacy for people in need, and given the fact that there are scarce dollars in Washington, all I am suggesting by this amendment is given the fact that we have publicly traded companies that can do this basic research, why not let them do it, rather than having them subsidized by people who frankly are not so well off in these research projects?

Mr. SANFORD

Mr. SANFORD. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding me the time. Mr. Chairman, I would just commend the gentleman from New Mexico (Mr. Skeen) for his work on this bill. I just wanted to add basically one editorial comment and, that is, that I do have one reservation on this bill that I would like to touch on, and; that is, I think that what was worked out with Cuba has a fatal flaw, and that is, if we propose to offer food and medicine without the ability to travel, I think we are making a real mistake. I would say that for a couple of different reasons. First of all, the present policy in Cuba has not worked. We changed welfare, because it supposedly did not work. Here we have a policy that has been in place for 40 years that has not worked, and we are not going to change it. That, to me, does not make common sense. Mr. Chairman, I would say also it does not make common sense from the standpoint of history, which interesting thing is, that one of the tools that Ronald Reagan used in changing things behind the Berlin Wall was travel, allowing young kids with backpacks to travel in the international community, in South Africa, apartheid South Africa, allowed people to travel, actually promoted the exchanges with young kids coming to America or American kids going there, so we had one-on- one personal diplomacy. It was key to changing things down there. Mr. Chairman, the other reason I do not think the present policy works and, therefore, I think it was tragic that it was incorporated in this bill, I think that Americans have a constitutional right to travel. We can travel anywhere in the globe with the exception of Sudan and Iraq and Cuba, that makes no sense to me. We can travel to North Korea. They are developing nuclear weapons. They are sending bombs over to the top of Japan. We can travel to Serbia. We just bombed the place, but we cannot travel to Cuba. That makes no sense to me. In fact, Zemel v. Rusk, which was a Supreme Court decision back in the 1960s, said Americans have the right to travel unless there are overwhelming military reasons not to do so. The Defense Intelligence Agency in 1998 said, there is no military threat from Cuba, so Americans ought to be able to travel there from a constitutional right. Finally, it is inconsistent with the notion of engagement. Engagement is what this body proposed. China engagement is what this body has proposed in many places around the globe, but for some reason we will not do that with Cuba, and that is inconsistent with what I heard when I traveled down there myself from political dissidents and independent journalists who said, if we want to change things in Cuba, we need to change the embargo.

Mr. SANFORD

Mr. SANFORD. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word. Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of this amendment because I think it makes a whole lot of common sense. I would say that for a couple of different reasons. I would say this amendment is important first and primarily because I think that this present program in its present configuration is just plain evil. I would go so far as to say that I think this program is the equivalent of a crack cocaine of corporate welfare, because we have been talking about family farms. What we do not see with this program are family farms. Mr. Chairman, 42 percent of all the benefits that come as a result of this program go to 150 sugar producers in the United States. That is to say if we take about these two sets of chairs over there, and every person in each of those chairs would get about $6 million per chair. That is not a family farm. Then we look at some of the egregious examples: the Fanjul family living down in Palm Beach are not exactly family farmers. Are they a family farm if they have a Gulfstream jet, which is a $35 million jet? Are they a family farmer if they have a yacht, which they happen to have? Are they a family farmer if they own their own resort in the Dominican Republic called Casa de Campo? Are they a family farmer if they have a mansion in Palm Beach? I don't think so. Mr. Chairman, I do not think this debate is about family farmers, which is to a degree what we have been talking about. I would say secondly, that this amendment is about simply the idea of watching out for the taxpayer, as the author of this amendment has pointed out. Mr. Chairman, $54 million of taxpayer money will go to buy sugar that will be used for nothing. Does that make common sense? In fact, if we look at the overall cost to the consumer based on the GAO reports, based on a number of different studies, $1.9 billion is the aggregate cost to American consumers in this program. That comes to about $15 per family in America that go to the likes of the Fanjul family who lives the lifestyle of the rich and famous down in Palm Beach. That, too, does not make common sense to me. Thirdly, I would mention that this amendment makes sense because we have to ask a larger philosophical question. This is especially the case for Republicans. That is: Why are we here? I heard conversations about ``dump price.'' We do not want to see the dump price. Every time I turn on the television back home there is talk about we are moving to 2001 models with Ford or Chevrolet or other cars and we are dumping them down at the local car lot. ``Come on and get yourself a bargain.'' Nobody complains about those ads. So I look at other products out there, whether we are talking about cars, whether we are talking about homes, whether we are talking about computers or shoe repair or dry cleaning. The dump price is the market price, and so it seems to me that none of that is complained about. Mr. Chairman, all we are talking about is the market price. I live on the coast of South Carolina; and if we look at the, quote, ``dump price'' with watermelons, with cucumbers, with tomatoes, all of those are similar. Whatever the market will bear, that is what the consumer pays for. That, to me, seems to be a very Republican idea of standing on one's own two feet and working through markets. So I think that this amendment makes a whole lot of sense for a number of different reasons. Mr. Chairman, I yield the balance of my time to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Miller), the author of the amendment.