(Washington, D.C.) –The Council for Citizens Against Government Waste (CCAGW), America’s largest taxpayer watchdog group, today commended 41 members of the U.S. Senate who have expressed opposition to the expansion of the milk tax.  In the letter, CCAGW President Thomas Schatz thanked the senators for urging Majority Leader Trent Lott (R-Miss.) to keep any legislation that would expand the milk tax off the Senate floor schedule.

Dairy compacts impose a milk tax by allowing a cartel of dairy farmers to set an artificially high price for milk, and preventing competition from outside the compact region.  CCAGW opposes any legislation to expand the Northeast Interstate Dairy Compact or to create new compacts in other regions of the country.

"Compacts impose an unfair 'milk tax' on consumers," Scahtz wrote.  "If compacts are allowed to swallow up a vast percentage of the country, the cost to consumers would dwarf the $70 million that has been imposed on New England’s consumers.  While the New England region produces less than 3 percent of the nation’s milk supply, adding additional states to the Northeast Compact and creating a Southern Compact would bring more than 40 percent of the nation’s milk supply and 60 percent of the nation’s consumers under the power of milk-pricing cartels."

The following senators have written to the majority leader on this issue and have received the thanks of CCAGW's 600,000 members:  Spencer Abraham (R-Mich.), Wayne Allard (R-Colo.), Max Baucus (D-Mont.), Evan Bayh (D-Ind.), Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M.), Sam Brownback (R-Kan.), Richard Bryan (D-Nev.), Ben Nighthorse Campbell (D-Colo.), Kent Conrad (D-N.D.), Larry E. Craig (R-Idaho), Michael D. Crapo (R-Idaho), Mike DeWine (R-Ohio), Pete Domenici (R-N.M.), Byron L. Dorgan (D-N.D.), Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), Mike Enzi (R-Wyo.), Russell Feingold (D-Wis.), Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), Peter Fitzgerald (R-Ill.), Rod Grams (R-Minn.), Charles Grassley (R-Iowa), Chuck Hagel (D-Neb.), Tom Harkin (D-Iowa), Orrin G. Hatch (R-Utah), Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-Texas), James Inhofe (R-Okla.), Daniel K. Inouye (D-Hawaii), Tim Johnson (D-S.D.), J. Robert Kerrey (D-Neb.), Herb Kohl (D-Wis.), Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.), Frank R. Lautenberg (D-N.J.), Carl Levin (D-Mich.), Richard Lugar (R-Ind.), Frank Murkowski (R-Alaska), Don Nickles (R-Okla.), Pat Roberts (R-Kan.), Craig Thomas (R-Wyo.), George V. Voinovich (R-Ohio), Paul Wellstone (D-Minn.), Ron Wyden (D-Ore.).

CCAGW is the lobbying arm of Citizens Against Government Waste, a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization dedicated to eliminating waste, fraud, mismanagement and abuse in government.