Whole Milk Legislation has 60% Chance This Year, Sen. Welch Says

The Whole Milk for Healthy Kids Act has a 60 percent chance of becoming law this year, with congressional momentum building along with consensus that whole milk in schools is the best option for schoolkids, Sen. Peter Welch, D-VT, said in a Dairy Defined podcast released today.

“This is one of those things where, if we get it on the floor, and get the cooperation of leadership, we get the votes,” he said. “This is one of those areas of rare bipartisanship that we have right now.”

Welch, the ranking member of the Senate Agriculture Committee’s rural development subcommittee, is a Senate co-sponsor of Whole Milk for Healthy Kids, which passed the House of Representatives in 2023 and this year is advancing in both chambers. The legislation would restore the ability of schools to offer whole and 2% milk as options.

Welch also serves on the Judiciary, Finance and Rules committees, touching on agricultural issues including immigration and trade. 

Transcript

Alan Bjerga: Hello and welcome to the Dairy Defined Podcast. Today we are joined by Senator Peter Welch, a longtime dairy advocate and the junior senator from Vermont. He's here to talk to us about exciting and challenging times in dairy. Exciting, because it seems like the whole Milk for Healthy Kids Act is on a path towards success and challenging, because nutrition immigration and other policy areas remain very much open questions. But Senator Welch offers a key perspective. The lawmaker who has long taken pride in governing over gridlock is the ranking Democrat on the Agriculture Subcommittee overseeing rural development, the top Democrat on the Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution, and a member of the Rules and Finance Committees. We're happy he has some time for us today. Welcome, Senator Welch.

Sen. Welch: Hey, so good to be with you.

Alan Bjerga: So, let's start with the Whole Milk for Healthy Kids Act. It's bipartisan. You are a co-author. The Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee's scientific report last fall said milk, which has three of the four nutrients of public health concern, is under-consumed by most of the population. The Senate Ag Committee had a hearing to review your bill. What were your main takeaways?

Sen. Welch: Well, that there's a lot of support, especially in the Ag Committee. Nutrition is really, really important. And milk is really a contributor to good nutrition for our kids. And there was a period of time when milk went from being something you got at school, as I did as a kid, morning at break and at lunch, to not getting it at all. And now, we got caught up in these debates about flavored milk or 2%, or whole milk. And bottom line, the whole milk for healthy kids is to put milk on the table for kids. And it can be what folks want. So, I think cold milk is terrific. Some folks who like a different or flavored... Actually, I do like chocolate milk, so that's the adult me. But it's given kids a chance in the schools to have milk.

And we all know that a lot of temptation for kids these days is sodas, sugary drinks that are not nutritionally helpful. So, I found a lot of support for this. And the flexibility that we have in the bill for some choice I think helps, and also acknowledges that some kids are lactose intolerant. And obviously, we want to protect them from doing something that would be bad for their health. So, I think there's been a real swing here towards seeing the incredible benefits on nutritionally that we have... in my view, we return milk to the school lunch table, much like it was when I was a boy growing up.

Alan Bjerga: You also said this was a piece of legislation that can happen this year. Give us some odds.

Sen. Welch: Well, I'm going to say over 60%, since it could happen, but this is one of those things where if we get it on the floor and get the cooperation of leadership, we get the votes. And this is one of those areas of rare bipartisanship that we have right now. It's a tough time in Congress. We all know that. But there's some areas where there's real bipartisan support. And the Ag Committee has always been a place where there has been a willingness on the part of those of us who represent rural areas, whether Republican or Democrat, to work together. And I know that's still true in the House and it's true in the Senate. So, our effort is to get this on the floor and persuade leadership to put it on the floor. And I think we get it there, we get a vote and people feel good about it.

Alan Bjerga: Staying on nutrition for a moment, you've been a leading voice for years in urging the Food and Drug Administration to enforce its own rules on how plant-based beverages mislabel themselves, claiming dairy terms without dairy's unique nutrition profile. FDA chiefs appointed by presidents from both parties have acknowledged that while consumers know these products don't contain milk, they often don't realize their nutrition profiles are quite different. Can this problem be solved? How can it be solved and can it happen this Congress?

Sen. Welch: Well, first of all, the current law, this is a labeling issue. And milk comes from a mammary gland. A nut-based product doesn't. A plant-based product doesn't. They're just different. So, just start with the proposition that truth in labeling suggests that you only apply milk to a product that the definition fits. And the FDA could do this. You don't even need a congressional law, but the FDA is not doing it despite the clear language. So, it appears like we may have to compel the FDA to do it through a congressional action. This is tougher for us, because a lot of people blow this off as though the consumers know if they're buying an almond or oat milk. They know the difference and probably most consumers do.

But it's really about, I think two things. One, the labeling issue. Truth and the labeling that I mentioned. But number two, the Dairy Pride Act is the right term. Our dairy farmers the last couple hundred years have been providing us with incredibly important nutritious milk. And they have a lot of pride in the work and effort in the family generational element to being the custodians of this product that's been so beneficial to us. And they feel pretty insulted when that label, and that nutritional value, and that allegiance that people have as a result of their hard work from their perspective. And I agree with them on this, it's just taken over as a marketing tool for a product that doesn't fit the definition.

This is something that I think a lot of us who have farmers in our district, a lot of us from rural America, we understand it. We understand how important this is. Some of our urban folks who think that milk is made on shelves in the local grocery store, I don't quite get it. So, that's a problem we have.

Alan Bjerga: Let's talk about an issue that unites some of your work on agriculture with your work in judiciary, and it's very important for farmers, immigration policy. In addition to the Senate Ag Committee, you're on judiciary. You've long been a leading voice for fixing our immigration system to meet the need of dairy farmers in Vermont and nationwide. It tends to get handled in bits and parts. And given the current climate, it's as big a concern as any. What do policymakers need to keep in mind this time around in seeking immigration solutions?

Sen. Welch: The thing we have to keep in mind is that if we don't have immigrant labor on our dairy farms, we don't milk our cows. It's really that simple. And it's really tough with the immigration politics, but we can make it... And I can't we make a distinction between protecting the border so there's not illegal crossings, a difference, a distinction between deporting folks who've committed criminal acts. And the importance and necessity of having legal immigration to help us do the farm labor. We had a bad event in Vermont just a week or so ago. Six farm laborers got picked up and three of them have already been deported. And it's a real blow to the farming community, and it sent a lot of anxiety and chills throughout. And the farms did the paperwork that they were supposed to do. But we have to have access to the labor, otherwise we don't milk the cows.

And this is a separate question from the legitimate border questions, a secure border deporting people who commit serious crimes. We can agree on that, but we have got to have some pathway so that our farms can get access to the labor they need. And talking about local people working on those farms, that just doesn't work out. Now, we could get this done, but we actually would need President Trump to say he wants to get it done. There's an immense amount of politics, of course, in the immigration issue. But on this question of farm labor, I see a lot of democratic and republican unity, but we're going to be dependent on the president saying, "Hey, we've got to get a fix for our farms so they can milk the cows." And if he did that, I know we could get it passed.

Alan Bjerga: You are also on Senate Finance, which oversees trade. Volatile time, to say the least, but maybe the targeted use of tariffs can help make some headway in terms of dairy exports. People always want to stay optimistic. We're thinking specifically about the European Union, where we have a $3 billion dairy trade deficit. How can the US best leverage the current dynamic on trade to drive changes that help American farmers and exporters?

Sen. Welch: Well, this tariff for dairy is tough, because that means there's going to be the tariffs on every other sector, including every other commodity and dairy. We've got our issues with Canada. We really don't have access to their market. We have our issues with the EU. So, obviously, from the perspective of US dairy, we'd want to have the capacity to sell into those markets. Do we do tariffs as leverage, or do we try to do trade deals? My preference is trade deals, and I'll tell you why. There's a real retaliatory element to any tariffs we impose. So, I think folks, and I think President Trump overestimates the effectiveness of tariffs to achieve policy goals. And I have a big worry about the impact of tariffs. Less on dairy, but to some extent on dairy, but more on our commodities.

Our Midwestern farmers and the first version of the tariffs in the first Trump administration, lost markets in China. We lost them to Argentina, we lost them to Brazil. And we haven't fully recovered those. So, it's been a body blow to a lot of our ag sectors in the Midwest and the South. And we're already seeing that happen now. So, I get apprehensive about this overuse of tariffs, particularly its impact on some of our agricultural farmers who are working hard and want to have access to foreign markets.

Alan Bjerga: Senator Welch, I know you have an extremely tight schedule today, but I wouldn't want to let you go without asking you, is there anything else that you'd like to cover in the time we have available?

Sen. Welch: Well, I want to just express my gratitude to all the folks, and not just in dairy, but in agriculture. It's always been tough. We were talking to folks at the ag hearing today. You've got to be more than a half glass full person or family to take on the challenge of weather, of wild fluctuations in prices, and uncertainty in public policy to farm. And there's such a family element in tradition and generational transfer of farms that has been so good for us in many ways, feeding us, obviously. But also, the farmers are the custodians of our landscape. And I just want to acknowledge my respect and appreciation for folks who've got the grit, the will, and the competence to be able to keep a farm operating.

Alan Bjerga: We've been speaking with Senator Peter Welch of Vermont. Thank you, Senator, for joining us today.

Sen. Welch: Thank you.

Alan Bjerga: It's not hard to find Senator Welch online. Along with his active social media accounts on X and other platforms, his website is welch.senate.gov. And it's not hard to find us either. On the Dairy Defined Podcast, you can hear all of our interviews on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or Amazon Music. Just search under the podcast name, Dairy Defined. We'll talk again soon.