Press Release - Etheridge to Bush: Get Off the Sidelines and Support the Buyout

News Release
Congressman Bob Etheridge
North Carolina

July 8, 2004

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

Etheridge to Bush: Get Off the Sidelines and Support the Buyout

WASHINGTON - U.S. Rep. Bob Etheridge (D-Lillington) today sent a letter to the President imploring him yet again to end his silence on tobacco buyout legislation and support a buyout to give tens of thousands of North Carolina families an honest chance to survive. This is the fourth time that Etheridge has written Bush urging him to stand up and support a tobacco buyout.

"Yesterday in Raleigh, the President had time to raise campaign cash, meet with judicial nominees, meet with reporters to discuss his political prospects and even sample lemonade," Etheridge said. "But, he refused to take one moment to address the most pressing need in rural North Carolina: a buyout of the federal tobacco quota program. Our farm families are hurting because of the implosion of the Depression-era quota system. Farmers and rural communities desperately need a tobacco buyout, which this House has passed, but the President continues to fail to support our farm families. I urge the President to follow John Kerry's lead, get off the sidelines and support a tobacco buyout."

When asked about the tobacco buyout during an interview in May, Bush said, "They've got the quota system in place - the allotment system - and I don't think that needs to be changed." Days later, Senator John Kerry publicly announced his support for a tobacco buyout, bringing national attention to the issue.

The U.S. House of Representatives passed buyout legislation as part of H.R. 4520 on June 17th. The legislation must now go to the floor of the U.S. Senate and then to a conference committee to iron out differences between the House and Senate bills. Ultimately, each chamber will have to vote on the legislation that comes out of the conference committee.

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 and assisting tobacco farmers with the transition.