MONTPELIER, Vt. – Efforts to extend the Northeast Dairy Compact suffered a serious setback Friday when the Senate passed a package of special farm assistance that does not include a provision to reauthorize the compact.

Supporters of the compact had hoped to use House-Senate negotiations over the $5.5 billion package as a vehicle for extending the compact.

But Senate instead abruptly approved a House-approved measure on a voice vote after Democrats failed to break a Republican filibuster of a $7.5 billion measure that had been approved by the Senate Agriculture Committee.

The 5-year-old compact must be reauthorized by Congress before the Sept. 30 expiration date.

While Vermont and other Northeastern lawmakers have vowed to pass that legislation, Midwestern lawmakers have fought to kill the compact, saying it is unfair to other dairy farmers and hurt consumers by raising prices.

“This was the best opportunity to get an extension before the September 30 deadline,” said Dan Smith, executive director of the Northeast Dairy Compact Commission in Montpelier.

Both Vermont Sens. Patrick Leahy and James Jeffords voted against the measure.

“To put it bluntly, Vermont farmers – and farmers throughout the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic states – receive little to no relief from this package,” Leahy, a Democrat, said on the Senate floor. “This package was unbalanced and unfair to my region when it passed the House, and it remains unbalanced and unfair as it has passed here in the Senate.”

Jeffords, who like Leahy had made the dairy compact a top priority, also railed against the final legislation.

“It’s hard for me to understand why we get so much criticism when it’s the only farm program that doesn’t cost the federal government money,” Jeffords, an independent, said during the Senate debate, “and that it’s first on some people’s list to get rid of. It’s entirely unbelievable and incomprehensible.”

Supporters of the compact said it was possible new compact authorization legislation would be included in the regular farm bill that could come up for consideration, sometime in October.

Other New England lawmakers were less worried about the impact of Friday’s vote on the compact’s future.

A spokesman for New Hampshire Sen. Judd Gregg, a Republican, said the vote was a setback, but stressed it wasn’t the dairy compact’s last chance. Other opportunities would come in the fall, he said.

Jeff Turcotte pointed out that 38 senators have signed on to a bill that would renew the Northeast compact, and create new ones in the South and the West.

“This wasn’t the end all, be all,” Turcotte said.

Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, D-S.D., said Democrats might try to win passage later of the additional $2 billion they wanted. Some observers said that might provide the next opportunity for getting compact legislation passed.

Daschle earlier this week had expressed personal interest in keeping and even told fellow Democrats at a private luncheon to mute their criticism of the compact, The Washington Times reported Thursday.

Andrew Meyer, executive director for Governors’ Council for Interstate Compacts, said the loss of the compact legislation was a serious setback. But he also said it was heartening to see other Northeast lawmakers speaking out in favor of the compact during the Senate debate.

The council is a taxpayer-funded organization set up to lobby for Northeast Dairy Compact and similar compacts.