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Reynolds Bill Aims at MILC, Not Compacts On March 10, Rep. Tom Reynolds (R-NY) and 23 co-sponsors introduced a bill (H.R. 1260) that would expand and extend the Milk Income Loss Contract (MILC) subsidy program. Last year, Reynolds and a similar group of lawmakers introduced legislation to create a new national dairy compact."While we are concerned about the costly and divisive nature of the MILC bill, this move suggests that the failed dairy compact experiment is a non-starter in the debate about national dairy policy," said Chip Kunde, IDFA senior vice president. "A productive next step would be for Congress to thoroughly review all the existing dairy programs to discover what works and what doesn't." Specifically, H.R. 1260 would extend MILC payments for two more years (through September 2007) and double the cap contained within the subsidy payment formula to 4.8 million gallons per year. The bill is similar to Senate legislation (S. 273) introduced last month by Senator Norm Coleman (R-MN). The current MILC formula cap is 2.4 million gallons annually — a level that has already cost American taxpayers more than $2 billion since 2002. The Reynolds/Coleman modifications to the program would raise the cost considerably; a comparable measure last year was estimated to cost $2.4 billion. There is also separate legislation in both chambers (H.R. 859/S. 307) to extend MILC payments through September 2007 without changing the formula cap. (For background information on that legislation, click here).
Posted March 14, 2005
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