Posted May 13, 2014
The House Appropriations Subcommittee on Agriculture is looking to include language in the fiscal 2015 spending bill to stop school lunch reforms set to begin this July, according to an article by Politico available here.
Nutrition advocates are concerned about the House plans, saying that it shows growing partisanship and congressional intervention in school nutrition policy set by USDA. “This shift is really a big change in how the program has been dealt with in the past,” said Margo Wootan, director of nutrition policy at the Center for Science in the Public Interest. “I think the political wrangling that’s going on is really misguided.”
In 2011, tomato sauce was given “extra credit” as a vegetable and recently, the House inserted report language in the omnibus bill directing USDA to “create a waiver program for schools struggling to meet the new nutrition requirements, but USDA’s lawyers ultimately determined the department didn’t have the statutory authority to do so.”
The subcommittee is not releasing details on its plans, but the staff of Rep. Rodney Davis (R-IL) “confirmed appropriations staff has an interest in addressing the concerns raised by dozens of other lawmakers.”
“We already went through the omnibus, and we’re working through the appropriations process,” Davis said in an interview. “All we’ve ever asked for is flexibility for the schools,” said Davis who also pointed “out that more than a million children have dropped out of the program and says plate waste has increased since the latest round of nutritional standards went into place.”
Senator Tom Harkin (D-IA), a long-time nutrition advocate, expressed concern about the plans in the House and the “increasingly partisan debate that’s taking place.”
“It would be a sad day if child nutrition programs with 40 years of public health science and long-standing, bipartisan support behind them are eroded because Congress allows these programs to be guided by industry’s bottom line instead of what is best for our kids,” Harkin said. “Let’s be clear, the changes to nutrition programs people are pushing will mean more sodium in kid’s meals, fewer fruits and vegetables on their plates, more sugary drinks and snacks in our schools, and French fries for toddlers in the [Women, Infants and Children] program.”
For more information on school lunch and nutrition programs, please visit the National Agricultural Law Center’s website here.
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