Untitled Document

News Release
Congressman Bob Etheridge
North Carolina

January 15, 2004

Contact: Sara Lang
Phone: (202) 225-4531

Etheridge to Bush: Don't Forget the State of Our Farmers in the State of the Union

RALEIGH - U.S. Rep. Bob Etheridge (D-Lillington) yesterday wrote on behalf of North Carolina's 18,000 tobacco farm families and 95,000 tobacco quota holders to President Bush to urge him to voice support for a tobacco buyout in his State of the Union address Tuesday. Last year Etheridge also asked the President to publicly support a buyout, but received only a short bureaucratic reply stating the Administration had no position on the issue.

"This is a critical opportunity for the President to demonstrate some leadership and jumpstart tobacco buyout legislation, which has stalled at the hands of the Republican leadership," Etheridge said. "Our farmers faced tough quota cuts again this year, and their families and our rural communities are struggling to survive. Now is the time for Democrats and Republicans to work together to provide a measure of hope to North Carolina's family farmers."

Etheridge first urged the President to support a tobacco buyout in January 2002 when he wrote to President Bush and asked him to include funding for a buyout in his yearly budget and reiterated the request for support in January 2003. Etheridge has worked throughout the 108th Congress with a bipartisan group of Representatives and Senators to pass a tobacco buyout without any assistance from the Bush Administration.

Because of declining tobacco leaf purchases from tobacco companies, the federal government has reduced tobacco quotas by more than 50 percent since 1997, cutting in half the incomes of both tobacco growers and quota holders. A tobacco buyout would reform the current tobacco quota system, compensating tobacco quota holders for the elimination of quota, assisting tobacco farmers with the transition and injecting nearly $6 billion into rural North Carolina's economy.