PHOENIX — Debating and passing a new tax bill to replace the 2017 bill that will expire at the end of 2025 is a higher priority than quick passage of a new farm bill, National Milk Producers Federation President and CEO Gregg Doud said here Tuesday at the dairy industry’s annual meeting.

“If Congress does nothing [on the tax bill] in 2025, taxes will go up by $5 trillion. That has to be debated,” Doud said in his address to the dairy farmers and cooperative leaders.

Doud said he’s “not sure when” Congress will pass a farm bill and that it could be in the lame-duck session after the elections, in 2025 or 2026. But he warned that in 2025 Congress will have to take time to get organized and to consider the new president’s nominations for Cabinet and subcabinet-level positions as well as deal with the debt ceiling and the tax bill.

Doud noted that the year had started with low milk prices and the challenges of updating the Federal Milk Marketing Orders, the cyclical rewrite of the Dietary Guidelines for Americans and the shift of the avian influenza known as H5N1 from birds to cattle, but told the membership: “You have had a tremendously successful year despite all this.”

On the Federal Milk Marketing Orders, Doud said the dairy farmers “spoke with one voice, and the government had to listen.”

On the Dietary Guidelines for Americans, Doud said he thinks the committee will continue to recommend that Americans consume three portions of dairy products per day.

On H5N1, Doud noted that a biosecurity protocol to fight foot and mouth disease was already in place and could be pulled off a shelf to begin informing producers of what they needed to do.

Doud noted that there was a successful, bipartisan vote in the House to put whole milk back in the schools.

Doud said, “That white liquid juice stuff that isn’t milk makes me crazy,” and that he will continue to do battle with the Food and Drug Administration over the regulation of plant-based alternatives to dairy milk.

“I am going to be respectful, but I am not going to give an inch,” Doud said.