House bill would set regional price controls for milk.(Knight Ridder Newspapers)

After running a dairy farm for 40 years, George and Evelyn Williams decided against continuing the long hours when milk prices hit a nine-year low last year.

"After a while, you look at the price of milk and your profit for doing it," said Evelyn Williams. The couple decided to sell their last 75 cows in August from their Salem County, N.J., farm. "And you wonder if it's worth it, you know, having no life other than dairy farming."

For many farmers, such hardships are the price of doing business on the open market.

To soften that reality, legislators expect to introduce a bill Wednesday in the U.S. House of Representatives that would help Northeast dairy farmers like the Williamses by allowing regional price controls. If that bill passes, shoppers likely would see milk prices rise in convenience stores and supermarkets.

Under the bill, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and nine other Northeastern states would collectively set a minimum price that the region's dairy farmers could charge for their milk. The bill also provides for a 14-state Southeastern dairy compact.

The legislation would renew and expand the federally approved Northeast Interstate Dairy Compact that has protected milk prices in the six New England states for four years. The current compact expires Sept. 30.

But the bill, which proponents say has nearly 150 supporters in the House of Representatives, faces stiff opposition from a national milk processors group, which has complained about narrower profit margins, and from representatives of other dairy-producing regions, which would not benefit from the price controls.