WASHINGTON — Republican House and Senate leaders refused to go along with a farm-state plan to avert the “dairy cliff” yesterday, the last day to act before retail milk prices might climb toward $7 a gallon.
Meanwhile, some dairy processors said the plan that farm-state lawmakers hatched over the weekend for a farm-law extension would itself lead to higher dairy prices.
Without last-minute legislative action, the U.S. dairy-subsidy program will be run beginning today under an outdated 1949 law that would roughly double current dairy prices.
To avoid higher dairy prices, leaders of the House and Senate agriculture committees proposed extending key elements of a 2008 farm law through Sept. 30 and creating a new dairy program as part of it that would compensate farmers when milk prices are low and feed prices are high.