Conclusion

The Northeast Dairy Interstate Compact was approved by Congress over five years ago as a pilot project of interstate milk market regulation.  The Compact is now well-settled in law and the Northeast Dairy Compact Commission is well-established as an interstate regulatory agency, with its price regulation is a fixture of the regulatory landscape of the New England dairy landscape.

The Compact and the Commission have withstood legal challenges to their very existence.  The Compact and the Commission’s function have been upheld on both constitutional and procedural grounds.  The Commission and the courts have also scrutinized the substance and procedure of the price regulation through the formal handler exemption process.

The Commission continues to refine its work in several areas of its mandate under the Compact.  The Commission has refined the regulation’s inter-market impacts with the changes to the diversions and transfers.  Most significantly, the Commission has implemented its price/production supply program.

             Unchanged is the Commission’s over-order obligation, still set at the level of $16.94 for the New England Class I market.  The price regulation is a benchmark of stability for farm prices and constancy for milk procurement costs in the New England market.