House Leadership

Below is listed the bills in the House of Representatives for the year of the worst dairy crisis ever:

H.R.778 : To authorize the interstate traffic of unpasteurized milk and milk products that are packaged for direct human consumption.
Sponsor: Rep Paul, Ron [TX-14] (introduced 1/28/2009) Cosponsors (None)
Committees: House Energy and Commerce
Latest Major Action: 1/28/2009 Referred to House committee. Status: Referred to the House Committee on Energy and Commerce.

H.R.3166 : To amend the Food, Conservation, and Energy Act of 2008 to index for inflation the payment rate for payments under the Milk Income Loss Contract Program.
Sponsor: Rep Welch, Peter [VT] (introduced 7/9/2009) Cosponsors (12)
Committees: House Agriculture
Latest Major Action: 7/9/2009 Referred to House committee. Status: Referred to the House Committee on Agriculture.

H.R.3322 : To respond to the current over-supply of milk by temporarily increasing the payment rate for payments under the milk income loss contract program and by directing the Secretary of Agriculture to facilitate the efforts of producer associations and other third parties to remove dairy cows from production, and for other purposes.
Sponsor: Rep Murphy, Scott [NY-20] (introduced 7/23/2009) Cosponsors (4)
Committees: House Agriculture
Latest Major Action: 7/23/2009 Referred to House committee. Status: Referred to the House Committee on Agriculture.

H.R.3674 : To impose tariff-rate quotas on certain casein and milk protein concentrates.
Sponsor: Rep Welch, Peter [VT] (introduced 9/29/2009) Cosponsors (18)
Committees: House Ways and Means
Latest Major Action: 9/29/2009 Referred to House committee. Status: Referred to the House Committee on Ways and Means.

H.R.3935 : To establish a temporary minimum price for Class II and Class III milk under Federal milk marketing orders, and for other purposes.
Sponsor: Rep LaTourette, Steven C. [OH-14] (introduced 10/27/2009) Cosponsors (None)
Committees: House Agriculture
Latest Major Action: 10/27/2009 Referred to House committee. Status: Referred to the House Committee on Agriculture.

Three out of the five bills were sent to the House Ag Committee headed by Colin Peterson of Minnesota.

There are no additional sponsors for H.R.3935. H.R.3935 is a very straight forward bill. Sherry Bunting (no kin)writing in the recent "Farmshine" described the bill as a "stop the bleeding bill." "To place some sort of moratorium on the severe losses endured by dairy farmers and provide some breathing room to consider a more permanent solutions. In a sense one could say that such a bill if passed would be like forcing the Secretary of Agriculture to exercise his section 608C18 power under the federal milk market agreement act of 1937, which holds that the secretary has the authority to set the minimum price floor that considers cost of feed fuel and other commodity inputs."