Congress returns to work this year with two issues on the must-do list for the Agriculture Committees: reauthorization of child nutrition programs costing $22 billion a year and reauthorization of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, the overseer of the futures markets. Both issues are in the hands of the Senate Agriculture Committee, where Chairman Pat Roberts says child nutrition “will be the committee’s first priority in the new year.”
Roberts has yet to set a date for the committee to vote on the bill, or release details of what he says will be a bipartisan bill. The chairman has said there will be no expansion in funding for child nutrition, and said in mid-December that “we have combed through these programs to increase efficiency, effectiveness, flexibility and integrity.” Some of those words, such as flexibility, have been used by Republican critics in trying to relax USDA rules that require schools to serve more fruit, vegetables, dairy and whole grains and less salt, fat and sugar.
Michigan Sen. Debbie Stabenow, the Democratic leader on the committee, says the reauthorization bill would build “on the successes made over the past five years” in healthier school meals.
There was no agreement on the legislation when Congress adjourned for the holidays, said Stabenow. She has been a staunch ally of the administration in opposing a rollback of the rules for healthier meals. The administration wants the new bill to expand enrollment in school breakfast and summer food programs and to see more schools enlist in a program that allows free meals to all children in neighborhoods with high poverty rates.
While Roberts and Stabenow say they want to move as quickly as possibly, Congress rarely starts the year at a sprint. The tentative calendar for 2016 says the Senate will be in session 14 days in January. A couple of those days will be consumed by preparations for, and reaction to, President Obama’s final State of the Union speech on Jan. 12.
Because of differences in jurisdiction, the Senate Agriculture Committee and the House Education Committee are in charge of child nutrition; the House Agriculture Committee shares control of food stamps with Senate Agriculture. The House Education chairman, John Kline of Minnesota, has said Congress should give schools “the flexibility they need to fulfill the promise of child nutrition assistance.”
Some 30.5 million children ate hot meals daily through the school lunch program in fiscal 2015. Participation has swung heavily in recent years toward students who receive food for free or at reduced price. They consumed nearly 73 percent of meals in 2015, up 10 points in six years. An average of 11 million school breakfasts were served daily in 2015, with 85 percent served for free or reduced price due to family incomes. The summer food program fed 2.6 million children per day at its peak last year.
Statutory authority for child-nutrition programs expired last year. The CFTC authorization expired in September 2013. A renewal was ensnared in arguments over scaling back the Dodd-Frank reforms that brought the swaps market under federal jurisdiction following the 2007-08 financial crisis. The White House has threatened to veto the reauthorization bill that was written by the House Agriculture Committee and passed by the House on a party-line vote last June. The administration says the bill would hobble CFTC. The House bill would ease regulation of so-called end users but create new safeguards for customers’ money. End users include utilities, farmers, processors and manufacturers who rely on swaps and futures contracts to assure a supply and to set prices.
House Agriculture chairman Michael Conaway says he will oppose increased funding for CFTC until a reauthorization bill becomes law.