David Obey: “I want to renew my comments on something that is likely to happen here later with respect to the dairy program; but…”

“I want to renew my comments on something that is likely to happen here later with respect to the dairy program; but before I do that, in the unlikely event that anybody in any of the congressional offices is listening, I hope they understand that there are at least 50 amendments pending to this bill. If we only take 10 minutes on each of those amendments and if we only have votes on about half of them, we will be here until about 2 or 3 o'clock in the morning. So I hope that Members will not expect us to have a schedule which allows them to go to supper and allows them to do other work around here and, at the same time, expect the committee to get us out of here before the wee hours of the morning. If all of these amendments are offered, that just isn't going to happen. Let me say, Mr. Chairman, that I want to once again take note of the fact that because the Rules Committee chose not to protect a provision in this bill that is very important to small dairy farmers around the country, we face the likelihood that a point of order will be lodged against section 752 of this bill. That section is meant to correct a major flaw in the authorization bill that was amended last year. Under existing law, supplemental payments to dairy farmers, the so- called MILC program, will expire 1 month before the other major commodities programs expire in the existing farm bill.…”