According to a recent report by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), the Dairy Market Stabilization Program (DMSP) would impose private-sector mandates, as defined in the Unfunded Mandates Reform Act (UMRA), on the dairy industry.
An unfunded mandate is a statute or regulation that requires a state or local government, or in this case the private sector, to perform certain actions but doesn't provide funding for fulfilling the requirements. Congress passed the act in 1995 as a way to limit the number of unfunded federal mandates imposed by the federal government.
Both the Senate-passed Farm Bill (S. 3240) and H.R. 6083 passed by the House Committee on Agriculture include new regulatory requirements under the DMSP that would impose mandates on dairy handlers that purchase milk from dairy producers participating in the Dairy Producer Margin Protection Program and DMSP. Because dairy handlers are not voluntary participants in the DMSP, CBO is required to submit a report to Congress under the UMRA to estimate the impact of the costs of complying with the new regulatory and financial mandates on the private sector.
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