A bill to amend the Farm Security and Rural Investment Act of 2002 to promote growth and opportunity for the dairy industry in the United States, and for other purposes.

Bill: 110-s-1721
Sponsor: Sen. Specter, Arlen [R-PA]
Introduced: 2007-06-27 in the Senate
Policy area: Agriculture and Food
Subjects: Agricultural cooperatives
Agricultural credit
Agricultural estimating and reporting
Agricultural prices
Agricultural subsidies
Agriculture in foreign trade
Commerce
Crop insurance
Dairy industry
Dairy products
Disaster relief
Economics and Public Finance
Emergency Management
Federally-guaranteed loans
Feeds
Finance and Financial Sector
Foreign Trade and International Finance
Foreign trade promotion
Governmental investigations
Marketing orders
Milk

Summary:
action_date: 2007-06-27
text: 
Amends the Farm Security and Rural Investment Act of 2002 to repeal the dairy price support program.
 
Amends the national dairy market loss payment program to: (1) extend the sign-up and contract duration periods; (2) replace the &quot;Class 1 milk&quot; definition with a &quot;Class III milk&quot; definition; (3) revise the payment formula (which shall include a feed adjustment factor); and (4) establish a maximum annual payment of $50,000 per dairy operation.
 
Directs the Secretary of Agriculture to: (1) establish a national dairy options program; and (2) make nonrecourse loans available to commercial processors of cheddar cheese, butter, and nonfat dry milk.
 
Amends the Federal Crop Insurance Act to direct the Commodity Credit Corporation to carry out a milk revenue insurance pilot program under which dairy producers may elect to receive insurance against revenue loss due to natural disasters and price fluctuations.
 
Directs the Secretary to: (1) study the economic benefits to milk producers of establishing a two-class system (fluid milk class and manufacturing grade milk class) for classifying milk under federal milk marketing orders; and (2) amend federal milk marketing orders to implement such system if it would benefit milk producers.
 
Amends the Agricultural Adjustment Act, as amended by the Agricultural Marketing Agreement Act of 1937, to eliminate pilot program status for, and extend, the dairy forward pricing program.
 
Amends the Consolidated Farm and Rural Development Act to authorize rural industrial assistance loans and loan guarantees for dairy processors to invest in new equipment and technologies.
 
Amends the Farm Credit Act of 1971 to authorize banks for cooperatives to assist dairy processing cooperatives with export activities.
 
Amends the National Agricultural Research, Extension, and Teaching Policy Act of 1977 to establish a new subtitle P, entitled the &quot;Federal Dairy Education Loan Forgiveness Act.&quot; Directs the Secretary to carry out a dairy education loan forgiveness program under which the Secretary shall assume the obligation to repay a specified amount for one or more qualified loans made to eligible applicants. 
 
Amends the Agricultural Marketing Act of 1946 to provide for mandatory reporting of specified dairy commodities.


Legislative actions:
action_date: 2007-06-27
text: Read twice and referred to the Committee on Finance.
action_date: 2007-06-27
text: Sponsor introductory remarks on measure. (CR S8620-8621)
action_date: 2007-06-27
text: Introduced in Senate