Nancy L. Johnson: “I do not think it is as black and white as the gentleman from Wisconsin maintains. There is genuine ambiguity about the…”

“I do not think it is as black and white as the gentleman from Wisconsin maintains. There is genuine ambiguity about the germaneness of this amendment. Because while the statute the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Sensenbrenner) cites in terms of regional compacts is one consideration, the other consideration is that the agricultural bill and the Department of Agriculture do establish the whole milk marketing system, which is a market governance mechanism that if you were going to be consistent, should be under judiciary, if your point of order were to hold. This is merely a variant of the milk marketing order to accommodate it to meet the goals that the Department of Agriculture has set for its milk marketing system, which goals that milk marketing system does not meet. The milk marketing system's goals were to assure regional production, but within that system were also mechanisms to prevent overproduction. The national system is not working. This regional system is working. Under the national system, there was a 7.4 percent increase in production over the period of the compact, and in the region of the compact, production actually went down. Why? Because we have an incentive system that discourages overproduction. It is something the Federal Government has desperately tried to develop in every one of its ag subsidy programs and has failed.”