As promised, here are the comments of Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns to the National Milk Producers Federation 90th annual meeting in Las Vegas last week. Just came out today from the USDA – link to remarks.

Johanns concentrated much of his remarks on trade and the 2007 farm bill, highlighting his upbringing on a Nebraska dairy farm. Regarding some of the specific factors that will be considered relative to dairy in the next farm bill, Johanns also discussed Federal Milk Marketing Orders.

I am aware of concerns expressed by many in the industry regarding the length of time involved in the formal rulemaking process. I will tell you, as dairy farmers showed up at our Farm Bill listening sessions they brought this up. We have been working to shorten the amount of time involved in the decision-making process and to examine ways to improve our responsiveness at the USDA. We took your comments seriously.

However, it’s important that the integrity and, of course, the transparency of the process be maintained so that all parties — producers and handlers and the public — are allowed to fully participate in whatever our process is for a given case.

In that spirit of transparency, I want to discuss some Federal Order issues with you today.

First, we received the proposal that National Milk submitted in October requesting that USDA address the issue of Class I and Class II pricing levels. I recognize and appreciate the importance of this issue. I sincerely do. And I can assure you that we are thoroughly analyzing the impacts of the proposal on the industry.

I want you to know this is being given very serious consideration.

Secondly, the issue of make allowances. As you know, the Department reconvened the make-allowance hearing in September to obtain additional information from Cornell University. We are currently analyzing the complete hearing record and will issue a decision on this matter in the near future.

As part of our efforts to enhance the transparency of the rulemaking process, we will be holding a pre-hearing informational session later this year to begin the dialog on all Class III and Class IV proposals we recently received.

There are several other rulemaking issues that are underway with the Department, and we are working diligently to ensure that every issue is completely analyzed and addressed.