By a unanimous vote, the Senate passed S. 3656 to reauthorize mandatory price reporting programs run by USDA last week. The House Agriculture Committee approved the Mandatory Price Reporting Act of 2010, H.R. 5852, but it still must be voted on by the full House.

This legislation will reauthorize the law requiring meat packers to report to USDA the prices they pay producers for animals. Within both bills there's new language to expand price reporting to include wholesale pork cuts, pork export information and weekly electronic reporting of dairy prices. The National Pork Producers Council and the National Milk Producers Federation support these additions.

The current mandatory pricing authority is set to expire September 30.

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