John W. Olver: “I just want to say here that there is no one in this room, whether they are on one side or the other side of this issue…”

“I just want to say here that there is no one in this room, whether they are on one side or the other side of this issue, who can claim that the family dairy farmers in dairy farms in their part of the country are somehow prospering under the present system of milk marketing orders that we are using, not if they happen to live in upper New York State, where the gentleman who chairs the Committee on Rules comes from; not if they happen to live in Wisconsin, where the ranking member comes from; not if they happen to be the chairman of the Committee on Appropriations, coming from Louisiana; or the gentleman from Vermont, in an exporter State; or myself, in an importer State, in Massachusetts. Mr. Chairman, in the agriculture authorization bill in 1997, we authorized a limited set of changes. After looking at a number of different options, the Secretary of Agriculture has come up with two favorite options, two options, really, 1(a) and 1(b); under 1(a), which is the more moderate of these, a small number of changes, nearly the status quo; and 1(b), which is a pretty radical change, at least as viewed by farmers, as viewed by farmer cooperatives all over the country.…”