This was the legal, regulatory pricing circumstance confronted by the New England and New York states when farm prices dipped far below costs of production in the late 1980s. With the distinct exception of Maine, (whose fluid milk market remained almost exclusively intrastate) the function of milk control boards had been phased down, if not eliminated outright. In essence, with their elimination, a legal power vacuum with regard to the promotion of the local public interest had developed in the regulated dairy marketplace.