LEGISLATIVE REPORT

2020 GOVERNMENT LOBBYING & GOVERNMENT RELATIONS REPORT: IT MAKES A DIFFERENCE Let Representatives Know Where You Stand

BY BRUCE W. KRUPKE I would like to get your attention regarding your state’s government activity, bill introductions and potential new regulations that will affect your company’s ability to do business. What your state enacts could affect your ability to compete and stay profitable. As this is an election year, I want to impress upon you how important your interaction with your state legislators will be. This is in addition to both your statewide and federal elections, which will take place in November. I strongly encourage you to consider some of these suggestions.

If you do not know who your state senator and assembly representatives are, you should. They are going to vote on introduced legislation that will affect you. By knowing who they are, you can easily contact them to introduce your business. If legislators do not know you, then you are invisible to them when they make decisions about how they will vote on issues that will directly affect you.

You are not alone, our association will be there commenting and telling legislators who our members are and our position on introduced bills that could become law.

So how do you learn how to interact with your legislators? It is not that hard and will pay dividends. First, you can ask

us to find out who they are and how to get in contact with them. You should consider attending and/or contributing to their re-election campaigns. A small contribution gets you on their list. It says you support them to represent you and, in turn, makes them consider how they vote. You can send a letter to them personally introducing yourself and your company. Tell them how many employees you have, how many companies you buy from in your community, what you support in your community and your general outlook towards key topics like taxes and other regulations costing you more money.

Open your doors to them. Invite them to take a tour of your company, so they can see firsthand who you are and what you do. We can help set up this tour for you — just let us know. The best times are when they are out of session or not campaigning.

Consider supporting certain legislators, and let your employees know of this support. There is strength in numbers, and if your employees know who you support and why, it might help influence them to vote for the best candidate.

Our association’s main responsibility to you as a member is to stay on top of the bill introductions in each state and represent your position. We do this through an approval process that starts with our board of directors, which sets specific policy. Then, we adopt that policy into a general position on

(continued on next page) several topics. After that, we decide if we support, oppose or take no position on a bill or regulation. Springtime and into early summer, legislators are in session. We monitor introduced bills every day in all states that could affect our members. We contact the sponsors of these bills and even the committee they are assigned to let them know our position. And, we make appointments with those legislators on bills that may move faster. It is a process we are experienced at, and it can make a difference.

I would like to encourage you to look at our bill report of all the legislation we are monitoring in your state. This is easily accomplished by visiting our member website at www.nedairyfoods.org, created to provide you with a lot of information, including our bill report by state (just click on a bill and read the information provided). If you haven’t already, set up your member ID and then proceed to “Members Only Services.” There, you’ll see a slew of information, including legislative updates where you’ll find the bill reports.

I’d like to provide you with some examples of state bills we are working on to give you an idea of some of the topics we are addressing. If you have an opinion on any of this legislation, please contact me personally, I’d love to further delve into the topic with you.

But, before I give you the state reports, there is some good news. As I reported in the last issue of Northeast Dairy, one issue that we have supported since inception is the new version of the North American Free Trade Agreement. Under President Donald J. Trump, a new agreement has been crafted, called the USMCA, or United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement. USMCA, finalized after intense negotiations between the three countries, was approved by the respective presidents or prime ministers in each country. What remained was the passage of the USMCA by each country’s legislative bodies. Mexico signed before the end of 2019, and, just recently, our Congress passed it after some hand wringing. All that is left is to have Canada’s Parliament pass it. Canada held its elections late last fall, and it is our hope it will be signed soon. The passage of this agreement will be good for our dairy industry’s ability to export more processed and manufactured dairy products to both Canada and Mexico.

NEW YORK As usual, New York is the poster child for a lot of legislation we are working on. One of the issues involves Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s initiative to eliminate all Styrofoam in the state by 2022. He is adding this mandate to his 2020-2021 budget. His stated reasons to do this involve environmental concerns. We are apprehensive because our ice cream manufacturers that make cups for schools, nursing homes and hospitals could be directly affected. There is a reason other than being much cheaper than paper counterparts that they are used — Styrofoam keeps the product better insulated for consumption. We are opposing this initiative and hope to keep it out of the budget approval process.

A second very important topic that we are monitoring is single payer health care. The Democratic Party has been pushing this paid “health care for all” for many years. Now, the Democrats are in the majority in the legislature, and they have the votes to pass this law. We are in opposition for many reasons. Mainly, the cost to implement health care for all from cradle to grave could more than double our state budget from about $178 billion to over $320 billion. Who will pay for the cost to cover the estimated 400,000 state citizens out of 19 million who do not have current healthcare coverage? The answer is business owners and taxpayers! There is no way your taxes will not go up if this program is passed. This is one issue you should contact your legislators about now to let them know you are not in favor of passage. For more background on this topic, visit https://realitiesofsinglepayer. com/ to get the facts about how this will affect your business. A third topic we are opposing is the expanding prevailing wage mandates to private construction projects. The governor’s proposal would require prevailing wage to be paid

on construction projects of $5 million dollars or more that are paid for with at least 30% public funds.A newly created public subsidy board would be empowered to examine and make any necessary adjustments to thresholds included in the bill. Our association has strongly opposed expanding these mandates on to private construction projects. Doing so would dramatically increase costs and devastate development efforts throughout Upstate New York.

CONNECTICUT We are finding in many states, including Connecticut, an attempt to try to mandate beverage requirements for any food service location selling children’s meals. The idea is to reduce the amount of sugar included in the meal to combat obesity in kids. We oppose this type of legislation because it is the parent’s responsibility to determine what kids can or cannot eat, not the state’s. Restaurant owners will respond to consumers if they request alternatives for beverages in kid’s meals.

This type of law affects our fluid milk industry, as chocolate milk can have more calories than what will be mandated in the law. So only white milk would meet the requirements. White milk doesn’t sell as often, creating inventory problems. And, chocolate milk, which is arguably a more popular choice by kids, has only a few extra calories and provides much better nutrition than soda or water options. The bill we are specifically opposing is Connecticut House Bill 7006. This would be a good bill to contact your House representatives about and let them know your opinion. If you would like more background and assistance with this, contact us. process. It would shift the cost of recycling from Maine’s 400-plus municipalities and taxpayers to the producer of the packaging. This would be done by establishing a costshare system managed by one or more nonprofit third-party stewardship administrators that internalizes most of the cost of municipal management of end-of-life packaging within the purchase price of a product. It would provide incentives for producers to use — and, to the extent costs are passed on in the purchase price, for consumers to buy — less packaging and packaging that is more recyclable.

Last year, the legislature asked for research to be conducted to put together the program and report back in 2019. The comments received were very much against such a proposal by business and industry but strongly supported by environmental groups. One of the key comments received was from the commissioner of the Maine Department of Environmental Protection. This agency is opposed to the program, stating it requires at least more study and should be held from passing.

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MAINE Do you do business in Maine? If so, there is one major issue that could possibly affect you regarding recycling. The Maine Environmental Protection Legislative Committee is calling for any producer of a package that can be recycled to pay for that

At Agri-Mark, we are continually investing in the Northeast Dairy industry because this is our home. We have finished the $21 million investment in a new dryer at our butter/powder/condensing plant in West Springfield, Mass., shown above, for the 950 dairy farm families that own the co-operative. This project boosts the plant’s capacity by roughly 33% and will allow us to better serve our customers. Please contact us at 978-552-5500 for more information on how we can serve you!

With this information, the legislative committee disagreed by responding that it should be moved forward. Our association will continue to lobby along with others in the state to oppose this program.

NEW JERSEY A topic that seems to come up each year in the legislature is a bill that allows the sale of raw milk direct to consumers from the dairy farm. We oppose this concept because raw milk can be dangerous to consumer. In New York state alone in the past year, four dairy farms that have been cited for potential listeria or other contaminants are being told to stop selling the product until the issue can be resolved. If a milk plant were to be found with unpasteurized milk on the shelf, there would be an immediate recall with the possibility of having the plant shut down. The law that allows the permitted dairy farms to sell raw milk should be repealed. We are trying to prevent any new permits from being issued.

In New Jersey, Assembly Bill #502 would permit the sale of raw milk under certain conditions and establishes a raw milk permit program. Currently, New Jersey doesn’t allow the sale of raw milk, and we are lobbying to keep it that way. Every time a raw milk desist order is issued, it makes the news. We do not need to scare people and give them a reason not to drink milk. The public doesn’t necessarily make the connection between raw and pasteurized. People simply interpret it as a problem with milk in general. This kind of negative press does the entire legitimate milk industry harm.

VERMONT The Vermont Senate Bill 141 would mandate specific calories in the entire children’s meal served by any food service institution or restaurant to no more than 600 calories. It must contain no more than 770 milligrams of sodium, 35% of calories from total sugars, 35% of calories from fat, 10% of calories from saturated fat and 0.5 grams of trans fat.

It includes at least a half cup of unfried fruit or unfried vegetables, excluding white potatoes, and at least one of the

following:a whole-grain product that contains not less than 51% by weight in whole-grain ingredients or lists whole grains as the first ingredient; a lean protein, consisting of at least 2 ounces of meat; one 20-ounce portion of nuts, seeds, dry beans, or peas, or one egg; or at least a half cup of nonfat or 1% milk or low-fat yogurt, or two 1-ounce portions of reduced-fat cheese. For the purposes of this section, juices, condiments and spreads shall not be considered fruits or vegetables. If a children’s meal includes a beverage, that beverage shall be water, sparkling water or flavored water with no added natural or even artificial sweeteners. Milk or dairy alternatives, 100% juice with no added sweeteners in a serving size of not more than 8 ounces.

Although milk is included, keeping to the 600 calorie total mandate would make it hard for chocolate milk to be included. In general, more and more customers are simply not asking for any kind of milk in fast food restaurants, and, consequently, fewer establishments are keeping it in inventory.

These are just a few examples of the 50-plus bills we are monitoring and working on. As the legislative season progresses, we can expect many more to be introduced that will impact your business, including wage laws, energy, environmental issues and health.

Rest assured, your membership dues are being put to great use. We have your backs and will continue to strive to educate lawmakers before a bill is passed. These representatives take our positions seriously, and it is imperative that we protect your ability to compete in the marketplace by keeping costs and burdensome regulations from hindering your business.

If you have any questions about a law or regulation, please do not hesitate to contact us at 315-452-MILK. We look forward to hearing from you.

Bruce W. Krupke is the executive vice president of Northeast Dairy Foods Association, Inc.