05/12/05 Will Congress reject CAFTA over sugar?

Sugarbeet grower Duane Grant thinks the momentum has changed. GRANT "At this point you can't count up enough votes to get CAFTA passed. Congress is listening and they're sympathetic to the fact that CAFTA would be the death knell of US sugar producers and they're backing away from it." Congressman Butch Otter agrees with the Rupert farmer. Despite pressure from the White House Otter steadfastly opposes CAFTA. OTTER "I think the intensity that we've seen in their efforts on CAFTA in the last week or so simply tells me that they don't have the votes for it." Otter says we can increase trade with Central America and do it without CAFTA. His solution, can the Caribbean Basin Initiative, or CBI. OTTER "That will open the borders because they have duties against all of our stuff that's going into most of these countries in the Caribbean basin whereas under the CBI they come in here duty free, quota free." Otter says the administration has changed the paradigm. He refuses to buy their argument that passage of CAFTA helps promote democracy among five Central American nations. But other Idaho producers sing the CAFTA praises. That part of the story tomorrow. Voice of Idaho Agriculture Bill Scott