Findings

Congress finds that— (1) the generic programs to promote and provide research and information for an agricultural commodity (commonly known as checkoff programs) are intended to increase demand for all of that agricultural commodity and benefit all assessed producers of that agricultural commodity; (2) although the laws establishing checkoff programs broadly prohibit the use of funds in any manner for the purpose of influencing legislation or government action, checkoff programs have repeatedly been shown to use funds to influence policy directly or by partnering with organizations that lobby; (3) the unlawful use of checkoff programs funds benefits some agricultural producers while harming many others; (4) to more effectively prevent Boards from using funds for unlawful purposes, strict separation of engagement between the Boards and policy entities is necessary; (5) conflicts of interest in the checkoff programs allow special interests to use checkoff program funds for the benefit of some assessed agricultural producers at the expense of many others; (6) prohibiting conflicts of interest in checkoff programs is necessary to ensure the proper and lawful operation of the checkoff programs; (7) checkoff programs are designed to promote agricultural commodities, not to damage other types of agricultural commodities through anticompetitive conduct or otherwise; (8) prohibiting anticompetitive and similar conduct is necessary to ensure proper and lawful operation of checkoff programs; (9) lack of transparency in checkoff programs enables abuses to occur and conceals abuses from being discovered; and (10) requiring transparency in the expenditure of checkoff program funds is necessary to prevent and uncover abuses in checkoff programs.