Thursday, June 25, 1987/The Battalion/Page 3
State and Local
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WASHINGTON (AP) — Express-
ng exasperation at the irony of
"armers whd are having trouble put-
drs mvan ing food or their own tables, Texas
Agriculture Commissioner Jim
Eghtower called Wednesday for
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Hightower calls for federal help
to aid struggling Texas farmers
Minority farmers are losing their
land at twice the rate of their white
counterparts, Hightower said, and a
Texas farmer, Ollie Williams, told
the committee what he felt were the
ieral help.
The old poor, the new poor and
he near poor are in need of imme-
ger — “and if you haven’t ever felt
hunger, then you just don’t know
how hard it is.”
He urged the committee to help
formulate markets and show the wav
is washing its hands of them,” High-
ower told the House Select Commit-
eeon Hunger.
The Democratic commissioner
aid that since 1981, more than
13,000 Texas farmers and ranchers
lave gone out of business and that
year alone, H,000 commercial
It help!) farmers lost their farms,
start, li
“Farm failures are already up 300
rercent in the fim four months of
.987 when compared to the same
reriod last year,” Hightower told the
ommittee, chairtd by Rep. Mickey
.eland, D-Houston.
“The old poor, the new poor and the near poor are in
need of immediate help at a time that Washington is
washing its hands of them. ”
—Jim Hightower,
agriculture commissioner
“No financing, lack of education
and, most important, lack of a mar
ket,” said Williams, a founding
member of the Hempstead Small
Farmers Cooperative, an organiza
tion of black farmers who market
watermelon to Kroger Co.
Williams said that because of their
fundamental problems, Texas farm
ers are faced with the threat of hun-
to future productivity.
Hightower said the federal gov
ernment could begin helping farm
ers through a series of initiatives in
cluding crop insurance and
alternative crop loans, which would
allow farmers to take some chances
and make some advances.
“There are 150,000 Orientals in
the Houston area, your district, Mr.
Leland,” and last year they bought
$5'million worth of Oriental vegeta
bles, most of which came from Ha
waii, Hightower said.
“Safeway has said they would like
to buy all their Oriental vegetables
from Texas farmers,” which could
be grown by the Oriental farmers in
the Houston area, Hightower said.
To aid the hungry in the near-
term, he suggested the government
help distribute surplus foods, such
as those left in the fields because
they are too ripe for shipping but
could be consumed in the immediate
area without quality problems.
He also stated his support for leg
islation authored by Sen. Edward
Kennedy, D-Mass., and Rep. Leon
Panetta, D-CaliL, that would return
the food stamp eligibility require
ments to 1981 levels.
“As policymakers and as worker-
people, we’ve got to put. our faith
and our energy and out resources
into here-and-now, hands-on, grunt-
level economic development pro
grams,” Hightower said.
Bentsen speaks
against Senate critics
of new energy plan
Supreme Court abolishes law barring
spouses from filing suit against mates
AUSTIN (AP) — A century-old state doctrine
that has barred married partners from suing
each other for personal injuries was abolished
Wednesday ty the Texas Supreme Court.
“It is difficult to fathom how denying a forum
'or the redress of any wrong could be said to en
tourage domestic tranquility,” Justice William
’.ilgarlin wrote.
The case jarnered a 9-0 opinion.
The ruling came in a San Antonio case in
hich Kimberly Price was injured when a motor-
ycle on wnich she was riding collided with a
ruck in Ju^ 1983.
The motorcycle was driven by Duane Price
imberly vere married.
Kimbeny Price then sought damages from her
usband ind the driver of the truck, claiming
their negligence caused her injuries.
The truck driver and his employer settled with
Mrs. Price.
The trial court granted summary judgment
for Duane Price, relying on the doctrine that one
spouse could not sue another for negligent con
duct.
The Supreme Court said the origins of the
doctrine of interspousal immunity “are shrouded
in antiquity,” but the basis of the law is “that a
husband and wife are one person.” The court
cited a 1764 case from England as an example of
the law’s application.
“Without ascribing any reasons for doing so,
Texas adopted the doctrine of interspousal im
munity 100 years ago,” barring all civil actions
for tort between husband and wife, the justice
wrote.
COOL
“The doctrine of interspousal immunity has
previously been abrogated as to some causes of
action in this jurisdiction,” Kilgarhn said.
“We now abolish the doctrine completely as to
any cause of action,” he said.
Justice Oscar Mauzy wrote a concurring opin
ion in which he said he was outraged ai a recent
State Board of InsuLapve ; derision incorporating'
the same “senseless doctrine” into contract law by
prescribing a standard auto policy endorsement
that excludes liability coverage for intrafamily
units.
The Supreme Court in the Price case reversed
the judgmen t of the 4th Court of Appeals at San
Antonio, which had upheld the trial court’s sum
mary judgment in favor of the husband.
The .case was cotw.iM.od- to the trial court, for.
further proceedings.
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WASHINGTON (AP) — In a
point-by-point response to sen-
atorial criticism of his energy se
curity measure, Texas Sen. Lloyd
Bentsen argued Wednesday that
his bill seeks only to avert another
oil crisis.
The Democrat’s measure, at
tached to the omnibus trade bill
due for Senate debate this week,
would establish a 50-percent ceil
ing on oil imports and require the
president to reduce imports if
they are expected to reach that in
a three-year projection.
Last week, Sens. Bill Bradley,
D-N.J., and Bob Packwood, R-
Ore., sent out a letter in which
they labeled Bentsen’s measure
unconstitutional because it “up
sets the traditional division of
powers between Congress and
the president.”
Twenty-seven senators joined
them in opposing the provision.
“The president could impose
an oil-import fee, a gasoline tax
or tax incentives for domestic oil
production,” the two senators
wrote. “He could use quotas or oil
rationing. He could also suspend
environmental regulations and
antitrust laws, regardless of the
impact on U.S. consumers or
manufacturers.”
The Bradley-Packwood letter
suggested that oil prices are
driven by a global market and
that the price of U.S.-produced
oil will always be the same as the
price of imported oil.
“If supplies are disrupted and
the world price of oil goes to $60
per barrel, so will the price of do-
mestic oil,” wrote the senators,
both ol whom are members of the
Finance Committee.
Bentsen, who chairs the com
mittee, called their arguments in
accurate and, in a responding let
ter, addressed the constitutional
question and others raised by the
measure’s opponents.
“According to opponents of
i lu Energy Security Act, the act
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‘is unconstitutional (because the)
authority delegated to the presi
dent appears boundless,’ ” Bent
sen wrote.
“This is not the case. The act
. . . directs the president, in lim
ited conditions defined in part by
him, to control imports of oil
through the use of . . . the Trade
Expansion Act.”
He ridiculed the idea that an
oil-independent America would
make no difference in the price
stability of oil for U.S. consumers.
“If the United States produced
enough oil to satisfy all its needs
and did not import any oil at ail,
there would be so much excess ca
pacity in the world that virtually
any disruption could be covered,”
he wrote.
As for the position advanced
by opponents that a 50-percent
import cap was merely an arbi-
“Fifty-percent depen
dence on foreign oil is a
•bona fide emergency in
just about any circum
stances that one can imag
ine. ”
— Sen. Lloyd Bentsen
trary ceiling and not necessarily a
national threat, Bentsen was in
credulous.
“The only foreign sources of
oil on which our dependence can
increase are unreliable,” he said.
“More than 70 percent of the new
oil imported into the United
States now and in the foreseeable
future will come from the Persian
Gulf.
“Fifty-percent dependence on
foreign oil is a bona fide emer
gency in just about any circum
stances that one can imagine.”
A close fight on the measure is
expected when the Senate takes
up the trade bill, which is ex
pected this week.
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