Here is the legislation that NMPF is watching and acting on farmers' behalf:
2008 Farm Bill
[0]After a clerical error mistakenly left out a portion of the Farm Bill that was initially approved in May, Congress re-voted on the whole package and sent it back to President Bush, who vetoed it again. On June 19, Congress overrode the veto by a vote of 317-109 in the House and 80-14 in the Senate. The complete Farm Bill is now law.
Click here [0] for a brief summary of the Farm Bill issues affecting dairy.
NMPF will provide further summaries of the details on each of the provisions of interest as they become available.
Flyers to the House
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Fix it or Forget It! - [0] This publication was sent to the House asking them to correct the forward contracting language in the dairy subcommitte mark.
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Don't Tatoo Forward Contracting on Dairy Farmers [0] - This flyer was asking Congress to establish a sunset on the forward contracting portion of the Farm Bill.
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Growth in Domestic Dairy Consumption and Imports [0] - This piece demonstrates the need for the Import Assessment on imported dairy products.
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Forward Contracting Should Not Favor Processors over Producers [0]- Another flyer encouraging Congress to make sure producer safeguards were in place in the forward contracting language.
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Where are the Dairy Importers? [0] - This piece urges Congress to bring dairy imports into the dairy checkoff program.
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Why Not Milk? [0]- This publication explains how ten other commodity promotion programs cover both domestic and imported products. Again asking for the import assessment to cover dairy products as well.
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2007 National Dairy Policy Direction [0]- NMPF put together a comphrensive package detailing the needs and wants of dairy producers around the country for a new Farm Bill. This was distributed on Capitol Hill, to USDA, and to our members.
This bill aims to amend the 1980 CERCLA "Superfund" Act to provide that manure is not considered a hazardous substance when reporting air emissions. Currently it has 128 House co-sponsors (bipartisan and multiregional) and 26 co-sponsors in the Senate. These are NMPF's views on amending the CERCLA/EPCRA legislation:
- Congress never intended the 1980 Superfund law to apply to farms and agricultural wastes.
- It doesn't make sense to lump thousands of farms and livestock producers with the 1300 federal Superfund toxic waste sites.
- American agriculture is effectively regulated by a wide range of federal and state environmental laws, regulations, and permitting. It has never been regulated by CERCLA or EPCRA.
- Dairy producers are responsible stewards of the land, water, and air.
Click here [0] to view NMPF's CERCLA/EPCRA webpage.
Agricultural Job Opportunity, Benefits, and Security Act – Gives migrant workers in agricultural fields the ability to become a resident of the United States.
The problem: Some 50 to 75 percent of America’s farm work force is undocumented. As border and internal enforcement improves, work force disruptions are increasing and some operations are simply shutting down because growers cannot find a reliable, legal labor supply. This comes at a time when American agriculture is in perhaps its most precarious condition in our history, and we are on the verge of importing more food than we grow for the first time since records have been kept. Click here [0] to read more about this issue.