United States · Amendment · HAMDT

HAMDT 601 (101st)

An amendment to strike the bill's provisions regarding the dairy price support program by providing for a support price of $10.60 per hundredweight in 1991 (compared with $10.10 in the bill), and by requiring USDA to adjust the price support level annually to reflect the percentage change during the preceding year in prices paid for articles and services purchased by milk producers, wages paid to hired farm labor, interest on farm debt, and taxes on farm real estate. The amendment also establishes a "two-tier" price support system which can only be triggered if dairy surpluses are estimated to exceed 5 billion pounds in a given year. Such a program would only be implemented by requiring the USDA to annually establish a milk "marketing base" for each producer, which would be based on the producer's past milk marketing history. If the two-tier program takes effect, any producer who markets milk in excess of his or her marketing base would have to pay an assessment equal to 65% of the support price for each unit of excess production.