On behalf of the Coalition for Sugar Reform, congratulations on your confirmation to serve as U.S. Secretary of Agriculture. You will soon be inundated with a host of new issues to digest, but we write to call your attention to one program in particular that negatively impacts the U.S. economy. The U.S. sugar program hurts American manufacturers, workers and hardworking families. The program costs consumers $3 billion per year in the form of government-induced higher prices for sugar by restricting supplies and artificially pushing up domestic sugar prices. Higher U.S. sugar prices as a result of this policy put undue pressure on U.S. jobs in the sugar-using sector, contributing to the loss of 123,000 manufacturing jobs over the last 18 years.