Repasteurized milk: Milk Producers Security Trust Fund: future shipment coverage eligibility: handler default.

(1) Existing law prohibits repasteurized milk to be sold as market milk. This bill would instead authorize repasteurized milk to be reprocessed and sold as "Grade A" product under certain specified conditions and restrictions. The bill would permit the Secretary of Food and Agriculture, upon request, to authorize reprocessing of packaged milk and milk products provided certain requirements are complied with. (2) Existing law confers upon the Secretary of Food and Agriculture the ability to establish and administer the Milk Producers Security Trust Fund to protect milk producers against loss of payment for bulk milk transferred to handlers. Existing law authorizes the secretary to determine if future shipments to a handler are not eligible for coverage, subject to specific criteria. This bill would provide that future shipments to a handler are automatically not eligible once that handler satisfies specific criteria already in existing law. (3) Existing law authorizes the secretary to pay money from the Milk Producers Security Trust Fund to the pool equalization fund to cover the amount that a handler defaults in payments to the pool equalization fund if, after consultation with the Milk Producers Security Trust Fund Board, the secretary determines that additional efforts will not result in collection of the amount due. This bill would require the secretary to first exhaust all administrative and legal remedies within his or her authority against the defaulting handler, and execute all judgments resulting from those remedies, prior to recommending to the board this payment from the Milk Producers Security Trust Fund.