Just months after Congress flirted with a national debt ceiling disaster during the government shutdown in October, dithering lawmakers could set off a consumer pinch in January.
Welcome to the "dairy cliff."
The farm bill expires at the end of the year and if Congress does not approve a replacement or extend the current law, the retail price of milk could rocket to $6 to $8 a gallon. Prices for other dairy products, including cheese, butter, ice cream and yogurt, would advance accordingly.
"If Jan. 1 comes and the old farm bill expires, things could hit the fan," said James Dunn, Ph.D., an agricultural economist at Penn State University. "Your food marketbasket prices would really be boosted."
Congress averted a similar crisis a year ago by extending the existing bill and lawmakers may extend it again and come to terms on final legislation in January.
But an ongoing battle over reduced spending on food stamps, which are financed through the bill, creates a sense of unease. Republicans are pushing for up to $40 billion in food stamp cuts over the next decade and Democrats are open to $4 billion in reductions.
Last week, lawmakers admitted they do not expect a new bill - or an extension - to emerge before Jan. 1.
The termination of current dairy subsidies would automatically revert to a 1949 farm bill. Under the 64-year-old law, the government would pay producers about $38 for each 100 pounds of milk, a standard measure equivalent to 11.6 gallons.
The current market rate for the same quantity is about $20, so suppliers would line up to cash in on higher government payments.
"We would have warehouses full of products, because the government would buy up surplus milk, cheese and powdered milk," Dunn said.
"A lot of people are concerned about that end-of-the-year deadline," said U.S. Sen. Bob Casey, a Scranton Democrat who sits on the Senate Agriculture Committee. "I think there's a substantial degree of determination to avoid any kind of a short-term extension, to get an agreement for a much longer duration."
The U.S. Department of Agriculture is expected to prevent any price eruption until the end of January and there is broad consensus Congress will avert a calamity before that.
"I actually believe that they will get this done in January," said Andrew Novakovic, an agricultural economist at Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y. "Even with our dysfunctional congressional circus, they have figured out that there is no good to come from this."
The public's dismal approval ratings of Congress should convince lawmakers to avoid more condemnation resulting from farm bill, Dunn said.
"They don't want to be tarred in public for being foolish again," he said.
Some are less assured, though, that trouble in the dairy aisle will be averted.
"We certainly would be concerned about it, for the fact that the price would go crazy," said Ray Petty, owner of Ray's ShurSave Markets in Old Forge, Factoryville, Waymart and Montrose. "Customers would be screaming at us because of it, and we don't want that to happen."
Further, Petty said, consumers would boycott dairy products at astronomical prices.
"Nobody is going to buy it if it's like that," he said. "It would just add to the mess that the economy is already in."
Dairy farmer Mary Fetter, who milks about 60 cows at a farm she and her husband, Paul, own near Lake Winola, shares the same concern.
"The farmer can't have milk at $6 a gallon," Mary Fetter said. "People will switch."
The farm bill affects many programs, from research and agricultural extension programs, to farm subsidies and payments to farmers whose livestock die in natural disasters.
But the political haggling over food stamps - currently costing $80 billion annually - leaves some farmers disgusted because the farm bill is important to their livelihood.
"Nobody is struggling like the dairy farmer and nobody cares," said Will Keating, a dairy farmer who lives near Mount Cobb. "At this point, every dairy farmer feels that everybody out there should own their own cow, feed it, take care of it and milk it twice a day for 365 days a year. Then, they would see what is involved."
The holdup bypasses debate over important farm issues as lawmakers engage in a feud over food stamps, Mary Fetter said.
"One frustrating thing for dairy farmers is, the actual agricultural part of the farm bill is not where most of the money is going. Most of the money is going to the welfare part," she said. "You have to wonder who the congressmen represent."