Congress should allow an additional year of federal waivers that make all children eligible for free meals at public schools, said nearly 2,000 anti-hunger, medical, religious and farm groups on Monday. The waivers are scheduled to expire on June 30 but the pandemic is far from over, said the groups in a letter to leaders of the House and Senate Appropriations committees.
“We…ask you to further extend USDA’s nationwide waiver authority through school year 2022-2023 in recognition of the ongoing pandemic, the continuing school closures and the need for flexibility to meet the needs of students,” said the letter. “Without these waivers, the child nutrition programs would not have been able to adequately respond to the fallout from Covid-19.”
The government is operating under a short-term funding bill that expires Feb. 18. The House could pass another short-term funding bill as early as this week. The must-pass legislation could be a vehicle for riders, such as nutrition waivers, if there was sufficient support in Congress.
Besides making school meals available for free, the USDA waivers relaxed nutrition standards for meals. The USDA published a two-year regulation last week that would require schools to serve more whole-grain-rich foods and reduce the salt content of meals. The regulation would be a bridge to a long-term update of school nutrition rules, based on the Dietary Guidelines for Americans, in time for the start of school in fall 2024.
Before the pandemic, around 30 million students ate hot meals daily through the school lunch program. Participation plummeted due to school closings and averaged 7.6 million a day last October, the most recent month in USDA’s database.