FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE CONTACT: Doug McGinn September 15, 1999 (202) 225-3031 Green, Ryan kick off milk price reform battle
WASHINGTON - At a news conference at the U.S. Capitol Wednesday, U.S. Reps. Paul Ryan (R-Janesville) and Mark Green (R-Green Bay) announced their plans to mount an all-out legislative blitz this week against a proposal to halt reforms to the federal milk marketing system. Wisconsin Reps. plan aggressive fight against proposal to roll back first reforms to dairy pricing system in 60 years
The modest changes, proposed by the U.S. Department of Agriculture March 31, would be the first significant reforms to the milk pricing system since it was instituted in 1937. According to Green and Ryan, the current system puts dairy farmers in the upper Midwest at a serious competitive disadvantage.
"The current federal milk marketing system is unfair, unreasonable and outdated," Green said. "Now, the opponents of dairy reform are trying to roll back even the modest changes proposed by the USDA. The legislation to halt these direly-needed reforms adds insult to the injury Wisconsin farmers have had to endure in the decades since the milk marketing orders were first implemented. Although we face an uphill battle, we'll fight tooth-and-nail to try to defeat this proposal."
The proposal, H.R. 1402, introduced by U.S. Rep. Roy Blunt of Missouri, would block the USDA reforms - effectively retaining the milk pricing system that has been in place for the last 60 years.
Ryan emphasized that in a national referendum in August, nearly 97 percent of dairy farmers voted in favor of the new reforms.
"This results of the national referendum prove that our nation's depression-era, horse-and-buggy dairy policy has outgrown its usefulness," Ryan said. "We're going to fight this battle on the House floor because it's the right thing to do - not just for the sake of dairy farmers in Wisconsin, but also for the sake of fairness and integrity. Congress needs to end the ridiculous practice of picking winners and losers in the dairy industry simply by where they live."
Green and Ryan also said they were disappointed that Congress, after agreeing in 1996 to pass the responsibility for reforming the dairy pricing system on to the USDA - would revisit the issue three years later, bringing a bill to the floor that nullifies the proposed changes and returns the system to its pre-reform starting point.
"The opponents of dairy reform will accept nothing less than a system that provides their farmers with the most unfair advantage," Green said. "They are determined to stop any reform that doesn't serve their chief goal - to expand the painful artificial lead the milk marketing system gives their dairy producers at the expense of folks in the Midwest." "Our opponents seek to establish trade barriers that will continue to pit state against state and farmer against farmer," said Ryan. "Over the last six years alone, Wisconsin has lost over 7,000 dairy farmers. Without reforms, we will continue to see the wholesale departure of these family farms throughout our state. It is time to bring fairness to this process. It is time to end these Soviet-style agriculture policies once and for all and allow Wisconsin dairy producers to compete on a more even playing field."
Between the two, Ryan and Green have introduced 17 amendments to Blunt's bill. Over the next 48 hours, they said they plan to work to get their amendments accepted by rules and passed on the floor. Each said they also planned a pitched battle against final passage.
Both conceded their chances of defeating Blunt's proposal - which has over 225 cosponsors - were slim. But each added that if the bill does pass, it will merely be a small defeat in a larger war that includes fronts both in the Senate and at the White House.