Russ Feingold: “I first thank the senior Senator from Wisconsin for his leadership and dedication on this issue. He has been determined…”

“I first thank the senior Senator from Wisconsin for his leadership and dedication on this issue. He has been determined, and I think effectively, in fighting this battle that we have to fight on behalf of Wisconsin dairy farmers, upper Midwestern dairy farmers, and I think dairy farmers all over this country. I thank him and join in his words that we will fight this thing as hard and as long as we have to, to prevent this extremely unfair idea of trying to continue the New England Dairy Compact. But the really interesting thing about the measure before us, the issue the cloture is going to be about, is that it really does not have the impact that a lot of Senators think it might have. The Jeffords-Leahy amendment that they have offered will withhold funding--it will withhold funding--for implementation of the Federal milk marketing order reform in an attempt to preserve the Northeastern Interstate Dairy Compact. They thought this amendment would produce the same result it did when a similar amendment was offered during the appropriations bill last year--and that is a delay of milk marketing order reform--and then an extension of the compact. But it does not do that. As the senior Senator from Wisconsin has indicated, it does not do that. This isn't what the 61 Senators whom the Senator from Vermont was talking about signed a letter about. It isn't about picking 1-B or 1-A. That isn't what it does. What it simply does is create chaos.…”