NEWPORT – Maine’s congressional delegation is pledging to continue to back a federal dairy support program, despite charges by Democrats that President Bush intends to drop the program after the election in a move to help solve the nation’s ballooning budget deficit.

The taxpayer-funded Milk Income Loss Contract subsidizes farmers when the price of milk drops. It replaced the processor-funded Northeast Dairy Compact, which was eliminated after Midwest dairy states said it was unfair. In its first month, October 2003, MILC paid out nearly $500 million, far above what was originally estimated.

MILC expires in October 2005, and a bipartisan group of legislators, including Maine’s, is pushing hard to extend the program for two more years.

However, Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry said last week that Bush is “keeping secret his reported plan to abandon America’s dairy farmers after the election by doing away with the MILC price support and raising taxes on dairy farmers.”

According to a U.S. Department of Agriculture presentation to the American Dairy Products Institute in April, the Bush administration deliberately is keeping quiet on dairy issues during election campaigning to garner votes in key dairy states, such as Wisconsin and California.

Under the heading “Election Year Fallout,” one of the USDA’s presentation slides indicated the growing federal budget deficit “will be addressed after the election” with the likelihood of MILC termination and possibly small producer support price declines.

The USDA has released a statement that the Bush administration “has no plans to impose a new milk tax or cut milk price supports this year.”

“What this means is that USDA is playing cynical, behind-the-scenes politics to try to win dairy farmer votes before the election and is going to stick it to them in their pocketbooks after the election,” charged Rep. David Obey, a Democratic congressman from Wisconsin, a key dairy state.

Here in Maine, retaining the MILC program is a priority for U.S. representatives and senators, who have launched a bipartisan effort to reauthorize MILC by adopting the National Dairy Equity Act next year.

The act is a bipartisan, multiregional bill that would re-establish the Northeast Dairy Compact and permit other regions to establish compacts. It also would reauthorize the MILC program.

“Allowing MILC to sunset would leave family dairy farmers across America vulnerable to the wildly fluctuating milk prices that characterize the dairy industry,” said Maine Democratic Rep. Tom Allen on Friday. “For many of us, the MILC program was not our first choice in terms of competing dairy policy. But there is no doubt that the MILC program prevented family dairy farmers across the country from going out of business during the historically low dairy prices that farmers suffered through last year. Therefore, we all agree that it is critically important to keep MILC from expiring.”

Fellow Democratic Rep. Michael Michaud expressed similar thoughts. “I believe allowing MILC to sunset would leave family dairy farmers in Maine and across America vulnerable to the price fluctuations of the dairy industries. While the MILC in its current form is not my first choice for an effective dairy policy, I believe we should seriously examine renewing he Northeast Dairy Compact. It has helped family farmers in Maine through recent difficult times.”

Michaud also has joined the bipartisan group in supporting the National Dairy Equity Act, as has Republican Sen. Olympia Snowe.

“Last June, I joined with my colleagues in the Senate in introducing the National Dairy Equity Act, which is a win-win proposal that lends dairy farmers a hand, without tapping into the federal treasury. The National Dairy Equity Act will work for both the people and dairy farmers in Maine by providing them with a safety net and a stable price for fluid milk,” said Snowe. “Until this legislation is passed in Congress, I will support the MILC program as a means of helping Maine’s dairy industry.”

Republican Sen. Susan Collins is a co-sponsor of the National Dairy Equity Act.