• Submitted by: admin
• United States
• Personalities
• Politics and Government
• 05 / 04 / 2010

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Business and human rights groups urged Congress to ease the decades-old embargo on Cuba by passing a bipartisan bill to lift a ban on travel to the island and remove certain obstacles to legal farm sales.

Representative John Tanner (D-Tenn.), chairman of a Ways and Means subcommittee on trade, called the hearing to examine a bill crafted by House Agriculture Committee chairman Colin Peterson (D-Minn.) and Representative Jerry Moran (R-Kan.).

That legislation would lift restrictions on American citizens traveling to Cuba and remove certain obstacles to the cash sale of agricultural products, already allowed under previous reforms.

"Lifting these travel and trade restrictions is about what is best for the United States," Tanner said, adding it would create U.S. jobs through additional farm sales and help the Cuban people through increased tourism.

Representative Kevin Brady of Texas, the top Republican on the House trade subcommittee, said he supported normal financing for food and medicine sales but opposed further moves.

Source: Reuters - miamiherald.typepad.com/