Edited by AgWeb.com Editors. AgWeb.com. Sep 18, 2000 EDT
Rep. George Nethercutt, R-Wash., told the National Journal that he hopes to offer several "technical corrections" to compromise language on Cuba trade in a conference committee on the FY2001 Agriculture spending bill.
Nethercutt, who represents a large wheat-growing district in eastern Washington, said he is worried that an agreement reached with Rep. Lincoln Diaz-Balart, R-Fla., would not allow foreign financing for Cuban purchases of U.S. commodities.
"I have some questions about whether it does what it purports to do," Nethercutt told the National Journal. "There's some question as drafted whether the language allows third party funding."
Nethercutt, an Agriculture Appropriations Subcommittee member, said he wants to move quickly within the next two weeks to settle the issue. The agreement, brokered by GOP House leaders, would allow Cuba to purchase food products with cash, but would prohibit financing by the U.S. government or
by U.S. corporations or banks. The compromise language also would ease restrictions for the purchase of medicine and codify into law the travel ban to Cuba.
Diaz-Balart said today he has not seen any of Nethercutt's proposed "technical corrections" and said he thought the deal was final.
"It was signed," Diaz-Balart said. "The understanding was entered into and signed."
Nevertheless, Diaz-Balart said Nethercutt had very clearly voiced his views on the financing issue and he said they were incorporated into the compromise.
"I don't believe it precludes third party financing," Diaz-Balart said. "That was not the intent."
House leaders have yet to appoint conferees to the Agriculture Appropriations conference committee. A spokesperson for the House Appropriations Committee said some preconferencing had begun on the bill, but the committee is waiting on House leaders to work out some issues, including sanctions on
Cuba. Comment from House Majority Whip Tom DeLay, R-Texas, who strongly supports the Cuba embargo and was involved in the compromise, was not immediately available.
Nethercutt is not the only GOP farm-state member with a stake in the final outcome of the Cuba provisions. Before the August recess, Reps. Jerry Moran, R-Kan., and Mark Sanford, R-S.C., successfully amended the FY2001 Treasury-Postal appropriations bill on the floor to block funding for the
Treasury Department to enforce federal restrictions on travel and sales of food and medicine to Cuba.
The controversial provision was dropped, however, in the final conference report on the combined Legislative Branch and Treasury-Postal bills, which the House narrowly passed last week, 212-209.
While most farm-state Republicans ended up voting for the conference report, a handful - most notably Moran, and Reps. Kenny Hulshof, R-Mo., and John Thune, R-S.D., - withheld their votes until the final seconds and had to be persuaded by top GOP leaders that the real fight over agricultural
exports to Cuba would come in the Agriculture appropriations conference report.
In related news, the National Journal reports that Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., will testify before the International Trade Commission on Tuesday to explain why it is time for the embargo to be lifted.
Baucus visited with Cuban President Fidel Castro, dissidents and other observers of the situation in Havana in July and will contend that what he learned confirmed for him the need to abandon the "fossilized policy" of the United States. He and House Ways and Means ranking member
Charles Rangel, D-N.Y., have offered legislation that would end the embargo and begin the process of full trade relations between the United States and Cuba.
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