Senate rejects sugar reform amendment

   The Senate on Wednesday rejected an amendment to the 2012 Farm Bill that would have offered some reform to the U.S. sugar program. 
   “While we are disappointed the Senate voted to maintain the status quo — which costs consumers and businesses billions of dollars each year and the U.S. economy thousands of jobs — we are encouraged by the strong show of bipartisan support for reform,” said the Coalition for Sugar Reform, in a statement.
   “This is the closest Senate vote in decades. Designed in the 1930s as a program to exclusively benefit domestic sugar producers, the program has long outlived its usefulness — and (Wednesday’s) vote signals that on both sides of the aisle there is broad agreement on this fact,” the coalition added.
   The amendment was defeated by a vote of 53 to 46.
   The coalition said the current sugar program imposes a “hidden tax” on consumers — amounting to $14 billion over the past four years — and threatens the jobs of 600,000 workers in sugar-using industries. Estimates show that 125,000 American jobs in the food production industry were lost between 1997 and 2010 due to high sugar prices and a consequent move to increased foreign production, the coalition said.
   The sugar reform amendment would also repeal the Feedstock Flexibility Program and other trade restrictions, providing the U.S. Department of Agriculture with flexibility to allow additional sugar imports in response to market demand. The amendment would reduce higher price support levels for sugar growers, which, along with the current program’s other provisions, artificially inflate the price of U.S. sugar — now at an all-time high of 50 percent or move above the world price.
   In addition, the amendment would provide USDA with flexibility in administering import quotas and in modifying or suspending marketing allotments, as it would reform domestic supply restrictions.
   “Far from a ‘done deal,’ the House now has an opportunity to build on the widespread support for reform and allow open debate on the costs of the sugar program and the merits of reform, both in committee and on the House floor,” the coalition said.