Bowles, Burr Push Tobacco Buyout

Source from:  JOURNAL RALEIGH BUREAU By David Ingram 05/25/2004

Candidates for the U.S. Senate traded jabs this weekend over the proposed buyout of the federal tobacco-quota system. Erskine Bowles, a businessman, and U.S. Rep. Richard Burr, R-5th, emphasized the importance of the buyout to North Carolina farmers, quota-owners and their communities - and each said that he is the most qualified candidate to deliver a buyout in Congress. Several proposals for a buyout, which have been sitting idle in Congress, could pump as much as $6 billion into the state's rural economy over five years. "We've got to get it done, but it takes leadership," Bowles said yesterday during a joint news conference with Sen. John Edwards, D-N.C. Bowles, a Democrat from Charlotte, said that the buyout is critical to farmers and quota-owners who have seen their incomes fall because of competition from foreign growers and reduced demand for leaf by U.S. manufacturers. "How would you like to work the hours they've worked and have your income cut in half?" Bowles said. There are about 80,000 quota-owners in North Carolina and fewer than 10,000 tobacco farmers. Bowles met with tobacco farmers and quota-owners near Goldsboro Saturday. Burr, a five-term Republican congressman from Winston-Salem, was the keynote speaker Saturday at the N.C. GOP convention in Greensboro. "I understand the importance of a tobacco buyout in this state because the people affected are my neighbors and friends," Burr told the delegates. "We will vote on it in the House of Representatives regardless of the politics that are played with the issue." Burr told reporters afterward that he is focused on getting a buyout bill through the House. He said he spoke with Vice President Dick Cheney about the bill last week. Burr said he is not concerned about resistance from the Bush administration or the Senate. "I think that the vice president understands the issue, his staff understands the issue and the president understands the issue," Burr said. "Where they are and what their comments are don't necessarily affect (the bill), but I am very confident that this will be the strongest effort on tobacco buyout that we've had." Edwards, the senator whose seat Bowles and Burr are competing for, appeared with Bowles in Raleigh yesterday. They attended a fund-raiser with about 200 people who each paid between $75 and $1,000, said Susan Lagana, a campaign spokeswoman. The fund-raiser was expected to raise $100,000 for Bowles' campaign. Speaking to reporters before the fund-raiser, Edwards declined to comment about whether he has spoken with the presidential campaign of Sen. John Kerry, the presumptive Democratic nominee, about being chosen as the vice-presidential nominee. "I have a nonanswer to that question, and I've given it about 100 times," Edwards said. "Sen. Kerry has said he wants this to be a confidential process." But he and Bowles endorsed each other for vice president and Senate, respectively. "If John Kerry does not put him on the national ticket, he is absolutely nuts," Bowles said. Edwards delivered a short version of his presidential-stump speech, describing "two Americas" divided along socioeconomic lines. He also criticized Burr for being reluctant to endorse the regulation of tobacco products by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration - seen by many as a necessary concession if a majority of senators are to support a federal buyout. "Richard Burr is wrong about the tobacco buyout," he said. Edwards also defended his own record on the buyout legislation. "I have worked hard on the tobacco buyout the entire time I've been in the Senate," he said. "This is just a tough fight, and I understand that." Reached by telephone afterward, Doug Heye, a spokesman for Burr's campaign, said that Edwards has done little to move the buyout legislation. Heye accused Edwards of abandoning North Carolina's interests by running for president. "I would agree that it's a difficult fight for the buyout, but I think it's rather difficult to be fighting for North Carolina issues when you spend more time in New Hampshire than in New Hanover County," Heye said. Enditem