WASHINGTON -- Like a gallon of milk on the grocery shelf, a federal dairy price-support program has an expiration date stamped on it. And that date is fast approaching.
The Milk Income Loss Contract program, or MILC, which pays dairy farmers cash to help them cope with dips in the market price, expires on Friday. Upper Midwest lawmakers are scrambling to get it renewed.
On Wednesday, Rep. Mark Kennedy, a Minnesota Republican, wrote to House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., asking the speaker to make an extension of the program a top priority. Also Wednesday, Rep. David Obey, D-Wis., urged his colleagues to renew the program in a House speech.
Farmers in Wisconsin and Minnesota are among the top beneficiaries of the program. Since its inception in 2002, the MILC program has paid Wisconsin dairy farmers more than $400 million, more than any other state. Minnesota dairy farmers have picked up about $162 million, fourth in the nation. Overall, the taxpayer-funded program has paid out a little more than $2 billion. Because the program only pays farmers when prices are low, very little of that has come in the past two years, when prices have been above average. And even if Congress fails to renew the program by Friday, that will have no immediate impact because prices are too high to trigger any payments in October. Kennedy, who is running for Senate, acknowledged that getting the program renewed could be a tall order with Congress already spending billions on Hurricane Katrina relief.
"It's clearly a tougher environment from a spending perspective," he said in a telephone interview.
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Hastert's office did not immediately return phone and e-mail messages Wednesday.
Last year, during a campaign appearance in Wisconsin, President Bush called for the program's renewal. But Congress adjourned for the year without doing so.
In his speech, Obey said that if the program expires "we will have lost an important safety net for Wisconsin's dairy farmers."
Sen. Herb Kohl, D-Wis., said he doubted Congress would act on the program this week but was hopeful that it would be included in a final budget deal this fall.
But taxpayer groups said the program deserved to expire.
"This is the perfect opportunity for Congress to demonstrate its newfound, post-Katrina concern to keep the deficit in check," said Pete Sepp, spokesman for the National Taxpayers Union.
"One of the advantages that taxpayer advocates have in this fight is Congress doesn't have to do anything to let the savings take effect," he added.
Sepp called the MILC program redundant, noting that the dairy price support system, which predates MILC, already provides a safety net for farmers. Under that program, the Agriculture Department offers to buy surplus cheese, butter and milk from farmers.
