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WASHINGTON — The sugar industry is protected for
another year. The U.S. Department of Agriculture announced Friday it would
offer producers a special, forgiving loan program that this year will cost
taxpayers more than $100 million.
But to offer the deal, the USDA has to bend the rules
established under the 1996 Farm Bill.
Under the arrangement, known as
"non-recourse" loans, the sugar producers can hand over their
sugar in lieu of repaying their government loans if prices are too low for
them to break even. The farm bill dictates that such loans can only be
offered if more than 1.5 million tons of foreign sugar is imported in a
year — 250,000 more tons than is required under international trade
agreements.
Last year, despite forecasts of bumper crops in the
United States, the USDA set the import limit at just over 1.5 million, but
that much sugar was never placed on the open market. Instead, much of it
was kept "in reserve."
That action keeps the extra sugar off the market but
guarantees the non-recourse loans at the same time. And the same thing
will take place this year, according to a USDA announcement Friday.
Sugar producers hailed the action, saying it's needed
"in this time of extremely economically distressed sugar
farmers."
Sugar critics condemned the department's creative
accounting on the import limits in comments submitted to the USDA prior to
Friday's announcement.
"If USDA had followed the intent of the law last
fall, taxpayers would not be paying for sugar purchases now," the
group Citizens Against Government Waste wrote. "Processors could have
still gotten the loans, but they would have had to pay them back with real
money, not sugar."
Everglades
bill
The Everglades restoration bill is languishing in the
hands of senators whose interests lie outside of Florida. The latest
roadblock arose this week after announcements on Sep. 6 that opposing
parties had all signed off on the plan and it was ready for quick passage.
Florida Sens. Bob Graham, D-Miami Lakes, and Connie
Mack, R-Cape Coral, tried to get the bill cleared for passage this week
under a unanimous consent rule where no recorded vote and little debate is
necessary.
But 12 senators put "holds" on the bill,
preventing a unanimous consent. The holds are said to concern issues
unrelated to the Everglades in the Water Resources Development Act, the
umbrella bill for the restoration and a host of other water projects
around the country.
The holds mean the Senate leadership must schedule
time for full debate on the floor with a recorded vote — no easy task
when only three weeks are left in session and the bill is competing with
urgent spending measures that must be passed before lawmakers go home.
Sen. John Warner, R-Va., and Sen. George Voinovich,
R-Ohio, also plan to offer an amendment to the Everglades plan that
supporters say will kill it.
Despite a carefully worked-out agreement that calls
for the state and the federal government to share ongoing maintenance
costs equally, Warner and Voinovich want the state to carry 100 percent of
the cost. They pushed an identical measure at the committee level, which
failed.
Officials with the Interior Department and the state
plan to lobby hard to get the latest effort defeated as well.
"This is an issue that we're going to
fight," said Peter Umhoffer, a spokesman for the Interior
Department's Everglades team. |