Milk Price Rise Not Unexpected

It shouldn’t come as any surprise to see that California’s highest-in-the-nation milk prices are on their way back up now that the legislative pressure to bring them down is off [‘Cost of Milk Expected To Rise,” Sept. 6].

It was mid-March when the industry announced with great fanfare that the state-mandated price paid to dairy farmers would drop by 50 cents a gallon April 1. Of course, it was purely coincidental that the price break came after two bills were introduced in the Legislature to apply free-market standards to milk sales in an effort to increase competition and lower prices for shoppers.

Now that the dairy industry has killed proposals to permit milk to be sold below cost (California is one of only 13 states to ban the practice) and allow the federally approved milk sold in 49 other states to be sold here, that 50-cent price cut is about to disappear before your very eyes. If you combine the August 6-cent hike in milk prices with the 41-cent increase set for Oct. 1, it means 47 cents of that “record-breaking” price cut will have evaporated in six months.

Some blame the increase on an East Coast drought that dropped milk production, but the real culprit is California’s protectionist milk market that eschews competition in favor of quotas and fixed prices, The compassionate dairy industry calls the October price spike “unfortunate” for California consumers. From where I sit, it’s more than unfortunate--it’s state-sanctioned price gouging by the state’s largest oligopoly.

STATE SEN. DEBRA BOWEN

Redondo Beach