December 13, 1963
Page 24497
MEETING THE COTTON TEXTILE CRISIS
Mr. MUSKIE. Mr. President, a few days ago the House passed a bill H.R. 6196, known as the Cooley bill, designed to abolish the so-called two-price system for cotton in this country and thereby to relieve American cotton textile mills from unfair foreign competition.
I am wholeheartedly in accord with the purpose of this legislation, Mr. President, and I hope the Senate will soon have an opportunity to perfect and adopt such a bill.
However, I also am of the opinion that there is a better way to deal with the cotton problem than the method called for in the House bill.
A far more sensible approach -- indeed, a fresh, a new approach -- to the cotton problem is provided in a bill introduced in the Senate last March by the junior Senator from Georgia [Mr. TALMADGE] and cosponsored by the senior Senator from Minnesota [Mr. HUMPHREY.] This bill, S. 1190, entitled the "Cotton Domestic Allotment Act," makes a lot of sense. I urge my colleagues of the Senate, who have not already done so, to get a copy of this bill and study it carefully. To me, the Talmadge-Humphrey proposals appear to offer the most sensible solutions to our present problems in the cotton and cotton textile industries suggested to date.
I hope, Mr. President, that soon the Senate can consider H.R. 6196, the House bill, amend it so as to include the basic provisions of the Talmadge bill, and then go on to pass it. With this approach we can save our textile industry from destruction, insure a fair return to cotton farmers, and cut the costs of our agricultural programs.
The cotton textile industry is threatened today because, under the two-price system, American mills must pay 8½ cents a pound -- or $42.50 a bale -- more for American cotton than the foreign mills have to pay.
For too long now, we in the Congress have failed ailed to reach a real solution to the cotton problem. While we have postponed and delayed and temporized and quarreled, hundreds of American textile mills have shut down, throwing tens of thousands of workers out of jobs.
Textile jobs in this country have fallen from more than one and a quarter million in 1947 to less than 840,000 last year. This has created economic hardship in the textile manufacturing areas of New England and of the South.
In my own home State of Maine, there has been a 50-percent decline in the number of cotton mills in the last 5 years. Employment in the textile industry in Maine has dropped more than 50 percent in the past 12 years, from 25,900 in 1950 to 12,000 in 1962.
Domestic cotton textile producers are being displaced not only by manmade fiber substitutes, but also by foreign grown cotton and by increased imports of cotton textiles. Cotton exports during the 1962-63 marketing year were down sharply -- a total of only 3.4 million bales. Domestic mill consumption this past season was 8.4 million bales -- about one-half million bales less than the previous year. It cannot be said, under these conditions that this industry is a growing and prosperous segment of our economy.
We cannot be satisfied with less than around 5 million bales as our share of the export market for cotton. Neither can we be satisfied unless our biggest and best customers -- our own mills -- use more cotton as population rises and buying power is at favorable levels.
At present, it is an ailing segment that is being forced into an even worse position. This is a segment too closely tied to our economy and national welfare to permit it to wither on the vine for lack of legislative action. If inaction continues to preclude this industry from competing we simply give carte blanche to foreign competitors to capture world markets, and to dominate domestic markets. Also, we open the floodgates wider for use of manmade fibers. And everyone will suffer -- the grower, the mills, the consumer.
There also has been a sharp increase in imports of cotton textiles. For the first 8 months of calendar year 1963, cotton textile imports were up about 2 percent above the comparable 1962 period. Total imports of cotton textiles on a raw fiber equivalent basis were at a record level of 457,000 bales in the first 8 months of this year.
There has been increasing evidence of the loss of cotton markets to competing manmade fibers. We hear of more and more instances where rayon and other synthetic fibers are being substituted for cotton. The production of manmade fibers for the first half of 1963 was about 7 percent above the same period a year earlier. Mill consumption of cotton for the first 3 months of the current crop year is slightly below the same period a year earlier.
Cotton suffered a total competitive loss, as estimated by reliable economists, of 1,150,000 bales between December 1960 and March 1963. Over this period, consumption of rayon in cotton-type spinning mills rose 74 percent. Consumption of dacron and similar-type fibers rose 147 percent. Cotton's share of the fiber used in the cotton industry spinning operations has declined almost monthly.
There is another important factor which should be neither overlooked nor dismissed. This is that the cotton situation has sharply increased Government costs. As of August 31, 1961, Commodity Credit Corporation's investment in upland cotton amounted to approximately $300 million. By August 31, 1963, it had risen to approximately $1.2 billion. The carryover on August 1, 1963, was 11.2 million bales, up more than 3 million bales over last year.
Mr. President, the cotton bill passed by the House would eliminate the unfair two-price system, but it would go about it in the wrong way, by piling one 8½ cent-a-pound subsidy on another.
The House bill would do nothing about solving the problems of mounting cotton surpluses. It does not provide the answer to the decline in cash income to the cotton farmers. And, while it may help the mills and the workers, it does not help the taxpayers.
The Talmadge-Humphrey approach would do all of these things. It would end the two-price system and enable our domestic textile mills to compete once again with foreign mills. Costs to the mills would be lower under the Talmadge bill than under the House bill. It would protect the jobs of American workers. It would protect the income of the American cotton producers. Small family farmers would receive greater protection under the Talmadge bill than under the House bill. It would encourage the exportation of American cotton. And, by taking the Federal Government out of the business of buying and storing cotton, it would effect great savings to the taxpayers -- savings not possible under the House bill.
Although no cotton is produced in my State of Maine or in the New England region, I recognize the importance of cotton to the agricultural economy of this Nation. When we enact legislation designed to help the cotton mill worker in New England or the Southeast, I think we also should try to help the cotton producer of the South and the Southwest and the Far West, especially the small farmers, wherever they are.
The Talmadge bill would do this by providing for adequate price supports and compensatory payments to farmers on cotton they produce within their domestic allotment quota. At the same time, the Talmadge bill would allow the producers to grow and sell as much cotton as they please at the lower world market price.
This would eliminate the necessity for the export subsidy. It would restore American cotton to a competitive position in the world markets. It would improve cotton's competitive position with synthetic fibers. It would lower cotton textile prices and savings to the consumer.
Another great advantage to the Talmadge-Humpbrey plan, Mr. President, is that it would free the cotton farmer from acreage controls.
I would suggest one amendment to the Talmadge bill, Mr. President, to give the Secretary of Agriculture standby authority to impose controls on cotton production or marketing when and if the world price drops below 50 percent of parity. This would provide added insurance against runaway production.
My distinguished colleagues, the junior Senator from Georgia and the Senior Senator from Minnesota are experts in the field of agriculture legislation, and, Mr. President, they have combined their knowledge and talents to propose a program that I think needs to be enacted by this Congress.
I hope the Committee on Agriculture and Forestry will soon take up H.R. 6196, amend it to include the basic provisions of the Talmadge bill and send it to the floor of the Senate so that we may be permitted to vote our approval of it.
In this manner, Mr. President, we will be able to accomplish the avowed purposes of S. 1190:
To maintain the income of cotton producers, to permit cotton producers to grow and market cotton on a free enterprise basis, to protect the welfare of consumers and of those engaged in the manufacture of cotton textiles, and to encourage the exportation of cotton.
We have an opportunity here to benefit the farmer, the millworker, the mill operator, the consumer, and the taxpayer. And I hope we can seize this opportunity at the earliest possible moment.