Herb Kohl: “This is a very, very bad amendment. The amendment should not go through. It is anticonstitutional. It only can be…”

“This is a very, very bad amendment. The amendment should not go through. It is anticonstitutional. It only can be authorized by Congress. It should not be authorized by Congress. It would allow six States to set the price of milk in their States and nobody else would be allowed, no other State would be allowed to compete in that market unless they were prepared to meet that price. If you can imagine, this is not the way we conduct the American economy. No State would like to be the subject of that kind of a restriction. It would allow other States at other times to come to Congress and ask for permission to set prices. We do not set prices in this country. We allow commerce to proceed in a competitive way. The Northeast area compact is specifically an action to prevent that. The proponents will say that we voted 65 to 35 for this. We have not voted 65 to 35 for this before. The previous vote was on several different provisions on a much broader agricultural amendment. It was not an up-or-down vote on the Northeast area compact. It is bad policy for this Congress, and I urge my colleagues to vote in favor of the motion to strike the amendment.”