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Senators Urge Ag Chairman to Omit Import Assessment from Farm Bill Nine senators last week sent letters to Senator Tom Harkin (D-IA), chairman of the Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry, urging him to omit language from his version of the Farm Bill that would enforce the implementation of an assessment on imported dairy products. Although Congress is in recess for the month, the chairman is expected to release his initial draft of the Farm Bill by month's end, and the Senate will consider the bill when legislators return to Washington, D.C., after Labor Day.Sens. Daniel Akaka (D-HI), Daniel Inouye (D-HI), Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ), Robert Menendez (D-NJ), Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), Benjamin Nelson (D-NE), Pat Roberts (R-KS) and Ted Stevens (R-AK) co-signed one letter to Chairman Harkin. Sen. Richard Lugar (R-IN), a member of the agriculture committee as well as ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations committee, sent a separate letter stressing his opposition to adding costs to domestic and imported dairy products through assessments. "It is important that we not enact legislation that further complicates both our existing trade relations and negotiations for future trade opportunities," Lugar states. The 2002 Farm Bill included a dairy import assessment to help fund the National Dairy Promotion & Research Program, but the assessment was never implemented, because in its current form it would violate a number of World Trade Organization rules. The House included language that may address some of the trade concerns in its version of the Farm Bill. The House bill also delays implementation of the assessment until one year after the enactment of the 2007 Farm Bill. To read the letters, click here. For more information, contact Clay Hough, IDFA senior vice president, at chough@idfa.org or 202-220-3516.
Posted August 13, 2007
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