Now the members of the U.S. Senate must finish the job of placing whole milk back into our schools, now that Congressman G. T. Thompson has received a thunderous victory for his efforts in getting his dairy bill successfully passed in the U.S. House of Representatives. The bill is geared to enable our schoolchildren all across the United States to obtain whole milk in their school lunches.

Now it is up to the U.S. Senate to take further action to obtain whole milk in our school children’s lunches. A dairy bill (S-1957) has been introduced in the Senate by Sen. Roger Marshall (R-KS) and reported to the Senate Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry Committee, in which Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-MI) is chairwoman. 

We have spoken to members of her staff and urged her to support this dairy bill.

There are at least 15 members of the Senate who have signed onto this bill as co-sponsors.

However, neither Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) nor Sen. Robert P. Casey, Jr. (D-PA) have signed onto this bill. Both senators have had enough time to sign on to this bill. They need to be encouraged to sign onto this bill with our phone calls, emails and letters.

Isn’t it strange how adults took the choice of whole milk away from our schoolchildren, but many of these adults are free to choose to take home whole milk from the stores to use? Is this a double standard?

In addition, a fellow dairy farmer, Gerald Carlin, helped me write about three different dairy bills for Sen. Bob Casey and the late Sen. Arlen Specter. There was no opposition then. Why now?

Also, John Hathaway, a fellow dairy farmer in New York State, joined me in writing a dairy bill for Sen. Bernie Sanders. Bernie’s people invited me to come to two different meetings in Vermont. At the large meeting at night, Bernie asked me to explain his bill to a packed house. I said that Bob Casey and Bernie should support S-1957, and also they should help us to obtain new signatures to this bill as co-sponsors.

Remember, adults can choose the milk they want, but schoolchildren are not allowed to choose what kind of milk they drink. That’s why this bill must be passed by the Senate.

Call your senators and urge them to pass S-1957 to give our school children the option to drink whole milk if they so choose.

Pro-Ag can be reached at 570/833-5776.

Arden Tewksbury is the manager of Pro-Ag.