The Summer EBT program, which helps low-income families buy groceries for school-age children, would become permanent as part of the government funding bill unveiled on Tuesday. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said the program, which could aid 29 million children, was a key victory of the $1.7 trillion package.
Congressional leaders aimed for passage of the omnibus bill by Friday, when stopgap funding for the government expires. The bill included $350 million in aid to rice growers and cotton merchandisers, as well as provisions allowing USDA to register entities that provide advice and verification services for farmers who participate in carbon markets. As a stand-alone bill, the Growing Climate Solutions Act was passed by the Senate, 92-8, but stalled in the House.
With benefits of $40 per child per month, Summer EBT would become “the first new permanent federal food assistance program of this magnitude in nearly 50 years,” said the think tank Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. The program could cost more than $2 billion a year, according to an unofficial estimate.
Like antihunger groups, the Center on Budget chafed at the financial offset for Summer EBT: Termination in February of so-called emergency allotments (EAs) that temporarily boosted SNAP benefits in response to the pandemic. “On balance, this is a tradeoff worth making,” it said. Hunger expert Lauren Bauer of the Brookings Institution said on social media, “Trading ill-targeted and expensive SNAP EAs for Summer EBT is a superior idea.”
“Premature cuts to SNAP EAs would hasten the hunger cliff for millions of people with low income as soon as March 2023,” said the Food Research and Action Center, an antihunger group. “We call on Congress to take the SNAP cuts out of this bill.”
Along with making Summer EBT permanent, the government funding bill would allow summer food operators in rural areas to offer grab-and-go meals or backpack programs, rather than eating as a group on-site.
“Our work is far from over, and I remain committed to passing comprehensive child nutrition authorization, and also protecting the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program as we begin work on the 2023 farm bill,” said Senate Agriculture chairwoman Debbie Stabenow of Michigan.
Summer EBT and more summer-food flexibility “falls far short of a comprehensive” overhaul of child nutrition programs, headlined by school lunch, that cost $28 billion a year, said House Education chairman Bobby Scott of Virginia, “although I am grateful we will be able to make some progress toward our ultimate goal of eliminating child hunger.”
Lawmakers have tried repeatedly but failed to update child nutrition programs since 2010. Republicans will take control of the House in January and are expected to look for budgetary savings. Ahead of the agreement on the omnibus bill, Food Fix newsletter reported, “The feeling is that it’s now or never for child nutrition reauthorization — or at least ‘now or not for a long time’ — as key lawmakers are expected to turn their attention to farm bill proceedings in the next Congress.”
Arkansas Sen. John Boozman, the senior Republican on the Senate Agriculture Committee, said the government funding bill included $250 million for rice growers, to offset high fertilizer prices, and $100 million for cotton merchandisers affected by supply chain disruptions related to the pandemic.
“We know that American agriculture can and should be a part of our solution to the climate crisis — in a way that supports farmers’ bottom lines and promotes voluntary practices,” said Rep. Abigail Spanberger of Virginia, a House sponsor of the Growing Climate Solutions Act.
Lawmakers also included language from the so-called SUSTAINS Act, which allows private sector funding to supplement federal funding of USDA land stewardship programs.
The environmental group Friends of the Earth condemned both approaches as “dirty ag riders” that legitimize “corporate carbon trading schemes and begin to privatize vital USDA conservation programs.”
A summary of funding for USDA, FDA and related agencies is available here.
A one-page fact sheet about USDA and FDA funding is available here.
An “explanatory statement” about USDA and FDA funding is available here.