July 21, 1979
Page 19982
Mr. MUSKIE. Mr. President, what is the time situation?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Maine has 59 seconds remaining.
Mr. MUSKIE. Mr. President, I simply wish to make two brief points.
No. 1, hides constitute, according to the best information that I have, 7 to 8 percent of the profit or price of beef cattle. Leather constitutes from 20 to 45 percent of finished product value.
What we are asking for here is a reasonable and equitable sharing of the economic prospects of this country.
The beef industry is not in trouble at the present time. If it is, then I do not know what prices have to soar to. I do not buy beef as often as I used to because of the price.
And here these representatives from beef States tell me that this amendment is going to damage the beef industry. The fact is, Mr. President, that the shoe industry is in deep trouble and it is in deep trouble on two fronts. One, because the shortage of raw material is closing down tanneries and closing down shoe industries. Two, because our leather hides are being converted by competition abroad into manufactured leather goods that come into this country at lower prices than our own, and undercutting our own people.
For Heaven's sake, I am for a healthy beef industry. But does that require that we deal a death blow to another important American industry? How greedy can you get? Beef prices are up, profits are up. My good friend from Oklahoma, Senator BELLMON, tells me constantly in the Budget Committee that farmers are making money this year. And here we have New England losing jobs because of this. We have a modest amendment, and I urge my colleagues to vote for it.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator's time has expired.
Mr. MUSKIE. Time is up.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Who yields time?
Mr. STEVENSON. Mr. President, I oppose this amendment. It is apparent from this debate that what is good for the leather industry is not good for the livestock producers.
I opt for exports, against Government regulation and for efforts to enhance the productivity and the competitiveness of the leather industry.
Mr. MUSKIE. Mr. President, will the Senator yield on that point? How can you get more productivity if you cannot get the raw material? Has the Senator got an answer for that?
Mr. STEVENSON. The raw material in this case, Mr. President, is substantially in excess of domestic supply. There is no shortage of raw material. It is the price.
Mr. MUSKIE. Price is no problem. There is a shortage of hides in this country that is less than half of the domestic requirements. The facts speak for themselves.
The Senator can choose to ignore those facts. The price has gone up, and our people are paying for it, but they are shipping abroad and the Japanese are speculating the price upward, and that speculation is attracting the hides and taking them away from our market.
Mr. STEVENSON. Mr. President, if what the Senator says is a fact — and I deny that it is a fact — then controls are available under existing authority and without this amendment.
With that I am prepared to yield back our time.
Mr. ROBERT C. BYRD. Mr. President, I am pleased to cosponsor the pending amendment introduced by my distinguished colleague, Mr. MUSKIE.
The American leather goods industry is facing a monumental crisis. It is faced by a rapid rise in the price of domestic leather hides — over 160 percent since December 1977 — which threatens its very ability to compete with exports.
The leather goods and tanning industries in West Virginia and the other States are hard-pressed to pay the higher prices for hides which, I might add, will eventually be passed on to the American consumer in the form of higher prices for shoes and other leather products.
What is the cause of these higher prices? There is an artificially created shortage of hides on the international market because major hides producers, including Uruguay, Brazil, and Argentina, are embargoing the shipment of hides produced in their countries in order to protect their own leather goods industries.
The net result is that U.S. hides, which represent only 15 percent of world production, account for 75 percent of the world hides trade. And the prices of U.S. hides are going sky high.
This is clear and simply an unfair trade situation. The amendment before us is the appropriate remedy.
It conditions free exports of U.S. hides on one of two factors:
First. Reasonable export levels from hide producing countries, and
Second. An adequate domestic supply, taking into account export demands.
Mr. President, I support the expansion of international trade — international trade that is fair.
This amendment confronts a trade situation that is blatantly unfair.