Statement of Maine Speaker of the House Michael Saxl at the Monthly Meeting of the Northeast Dairy Compact Commission on July 9, 2001

I’m delighted to be here today. I am impressed by the length of travel different folks from around the Northeast have taken to express their passion for the Northeast Dairy Compact. I was approached right after lunch about the nature of our joint resolution (we have a joint resolution that has been presented to promote the reauthorization of the Northeast Dairy Compact) and it says “We, your Memorialists,” at the beginning and I was asked if that meant that it was already dead, and I assure you, that is not the legislature’s intent whatsoever. As my friend Representative Carol Weston, the Representative from Montville, will tell you, she has been a leader along with Senator Nutting from Leeds in working with Commissioner Spear to come together unequivocally in the state of Maine to say that the Northeast Dairy Compact is something that we must have here in Maine and as a part of the greater New England region.

As I was driving here and I was thinking about what I’d learned prior to coming to your meeting today, “why is it that it’s so important?”

And I thought, “Well, is it about the 500 family farms and the $107 million in gross product?” I think those are important, but I don’t think that’s the reason the Northeast Dairy Compact is essential for the state of Maine.

Is it because it helps stabilize milk prices and that it makes sure there are a diverse number of producers? Well, those are very important reasons to support the Northeast Dairy Compact, but I don’t think that’s the reason.

Is it because we want to protect open space here in our state? And if you drive outside the city of Portland you can see we’re having challenges with open space and we want to look at private solutions. Am I right? Private solutions to preserving open space in our state. Is that important? It’s clearly critical for our state and our future. Our tourism industry, our agriculture industry. But it’s not the only reason.

Is it because of things in my neighborhood? The Reiki School. A little school in my district where about 90 percent of the kids are on subsidized breakfast and lunch programs and their parents participated in the WIC program. Is it because we’re trying to make sure these kids get a healthy start? Well that is vitally important also, but that is not the reason.

For me the reason comes in an Oakhurst bottle and Smiling Hills Farms bottle. It comes to me out of my refrigerator. It comes to me right down the block. It comes from Grant’s Dairy.

I grew up in Bangor and I grew up about 10 blocks from Grant’s Dairy. If you go out to Bangor and you go to Outer Essex Street, which means nothing to most of the folks outside of Maine, and probably outside of Bangor. But Bangor, like most of Maine, is still a pretty rural town. We had dairy farms ten minutes from my, what is just about as close to a city home in Maine as you can have. It’s about what comes in the bottles from that Grant’s Dairy, or for me now Oakhurst Dairy or Smiling Hills Farms and the other dairies in Maine.

It’s about the excellence of the product. It’s about providing an adequate, stable supply of an incredibly good product.

Yes, it’s about open spaces. Absolutely, it’s about promoting small businesses that are family farms in the state of Maine. Absolutely, it’s about protecting open spaces. Absolutely, it’s about making sure that we stabilize costs across the market over different months of the year. But at the end of the day, it’s about the work that people do, literally, in the field: providing an incredible product for our state and for our people so that we can literally have a healthy future.

I’m delighted to be here just to add my voice to those of Representative Weston and Senator Nutting and the Commissioners and my old friend Bob Tardy, former House Chair of the Agriculture Committee, and former Republican leader Whitcomb, who I served with in my first term in the legislature. I’m glad to be just another voice from the woods of Maine to say that what you’re doing does make a difference to the every day lives of Maine people. I admire you for your tenacity. I will work by your side to preserve the reauthorization of the Northeast Dairy Compact. And I hope that I can be of some service to you. Thank you for giving me the chance to give a city boy’s rendition of why it’s important to have the Northeast Dairy Compact. I hope you’ll call on me if I can be of service to all of you.