Richard Pombo: “I appreciate a great deal the job that the gentleman from Vermont has done in his attempt to try and bridge some of the…”

“I appreciate a great deal the job that the gentleman from Vermont has done in his attempt to try and bridge some of the differences, some of the regional differences that exist. But I do have to oppose his amendment to the bill. I came to Congress 10 years ago, or almost 10 years ago. The committee that I was put on was the dairy subcommittee. I have had the great joy of spending literally countless hours debating dairy, not only here today, but over the last 10 years, and getting to appreciate those regional differences and just how difficult it is to try to construct national dairy policy that actually addresses one region of the country where their average dairy may be 40, 45 cows, versus a region of the country like the one that I happen to represent, where our average dairy is almost 600 cows. With the Vitter amendment, which is a step in the right direction, he is still about half the size of the average dairy in my district. That makes it totally unworkable in terms of my district.”