Home > FRAC 2007 Farm Bill Food Stamp Reauthorization Center > Action Alert - 6/15/07

RE: 2007 Farm Bill Nutrition Title Clears House Subcommittee

On June 14th, the nutrition title of the 2007 Farm Bill cleared the House Agriculture Subcommittee with improvements in a renamed Food Stamp Program and emergency feeding system. The bill now goes to the full House Committee before the July 4th recess, where we will aim to ward off threatened negative amendments and bolster the bill’s provisions for more adequate food stamp benefits and greater program access. Throughout this process we will work for financing for the new investments.

Below we provide details and links on the Subcommittee bill, information about momentum from Food Stamp Challenges, support for the broader McGovern/Emerson Bill (H.R. 2129), and the outlook for full Committee action.

Nutrition Title Clears House Subcommittee

The nutrition title that cleared the House Agriculture Subcommittee on Oversight, Nutrition and Forestry contains $5.4 billion in new five-year investments for the Food Stamp Program (to be renamed as the “Secure Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program") and The Emergency Food Assistance Program (TEFAP). A good part of the new provisions are contingent on financing made available for the Farm Bill reserve fund. The Subcommittee nutrition title would make a modest start on addressing the inadequacy of food stamp allotment levels by increasing and indexing the standard deduction for households of three or fewer persons; and removing the cap on the amount of child care costs food stamp households can deduct from income in determining benefits. It would exempt certain education and retirement savings accounts from counting against household food stamp asset limits and would start to index the resource tests. It would set TEFAP mandatory purchases at $250 million a year. For links to the section-by-section analysis of the bill as presented to the Subcommittee, go to http://agriculture.house.gov/inside/Legislation/110/nutritionsecbysecFINAL.pdf and http://agriculture.house.gov/inside/Legislation/110/nutrition_changes.pdf; for the amendments that were adopted, go to http://agriculture.house.gov/list/press/agriculture_dem/pr_061507_DOONF_markup.html

The Subcommittee considered and rejected amendments to remove from its mark a ban on states privatizing the Food Stamp Program enrollment decision and indexing the standard deduction. On a day of mostly party-line votes, Representative Jerry Moran (R-KS) joined Democrats in retaining the Subcommittee bill provision indexing the standard deduction. Other amendments offered and withdrawn, but may come up for full Committee consideration. Also expected to be offered at full Committee is a negative amendment to eliminate categorical eligibility (Cat El) for families that receive services only (not cash) under the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) Program. This proposal by the Bush Administration was twice rejected in the last Congress.

While a good start, the Subcommittee Bill needs further strengthening in order to more fully address benefit inadequacy (especially the minimum monthly benefit), more reasonable asset rules (raising the current limits, unchanged for many years, significantly and then indexing), and access for more vulnerable populations. For more information on such provisions, see the summary of H.R. 2129 posted at http://www.frac.org/html/news/FAF_Act07_Summary.html.

Outlook

The Food Stamp Challenges that Members of Congress, other elected officials, reporters and community leaders have taken are giving momentum to the “asks” in H.R. 2129. And the list of H.R. 2129 cosponsors now numbers 95.

We will urge Congress to build on the Subcommittee nutrition title and strengthen it further--at full House Committee, floor and/or Senate approval stages. We will oppose negative amendments along the way, continue to build support on and off Committee for H.R. 2129 provisions, and ask congressional leaders to find the funds that will finance new Food Stamp Program investments.

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