WASHINGTON, D.C. – Seventh District Congressman Dave Obey (D-WI) today blasted the House Republican leadership for refusing to honor the House Appropriations Committee’s decision to put the Milk Income Loss Contract (MILC) program on an equal footing with other commodity programs in the Farm Bill by closing the MILC gap.
“The MILC gap – a one-month gap in payments for dairy farmers under the MILC program adopted last year – was not imposed for any policy reason – it was done as a budget gimmick and we should not allow a budget gimmick to screw up consideration of the next Farm Bill,” said Obey, the senior Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee. “But, despite the fact that a majority of both the House Agriculture Committee and the House Appropriations Committee agreed with my provision to close the MILC gap, the Republican Chairman of the Agricultural Committee was able to knock it out through a procedural maneuver because the Republican leadership refused to protect America’s dairy farmers.”
“We now face a situation under which dairy will be at a distinct disadvantage when the farm bill comes up for renewal next year,” Obey added.
Payments to farmers under the dairy section of the Farm Bill are presently scheduled to expire one month before other farm programs. That expiration date, if not corrected, will create a huge problem for dairy farmers when the next Farm Bill is drafted because under congressional budget scoring rules that gap in MILC payments means that there will be no budget baseline for dairy. That will put dairy farmers at a disadvantage in comparison to other farm groups and could also hurt other farmers because unless that one-month flaw is corrected financing for any future dairy program will come at the expense of other agricultural programs.
“It’s clear that as long as the House remains in the hands of the current Republican leadership we are going to have an uphill fight to preserve the MILC program,” Obey said.
# # #