More children would be eligible for free school meals and the WIC program would cover children up to age 6 under legislation approved on a party-line vote by the House Education and Labor Committee on Wednesday. While the bill’s Democratic sponsors claimed it will reduce child hunger, Republican Rep. Lisa McClain said it “is chock-full of new spending” when austerity is needed to dampen high inflation.
The bill, HR 8450, now goes to the House floor for a vote with four weeks remaining on the legislative calendar before midterm elections on Nov. 8. There was no companion bill in the Senate. Congress has deadlocked repeatedly over child nutrition updates since the last reauthorization in 2010.
Headlined by school lunch, child nutrition programs cost more than $26 billion a year. WIC is an additional $6 billion.
The child nutrition bill would make it easier for schools in low-income areas to qualify for the community eligibility provision, which allows them to serve meals to all pupils for free and increases the federal reimbursement rate by 10 cents for each lunch served. The Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) program, which provides supplemental food vouchers and healthcare referrals for low-income pregnant individuals, new mothers, infants, and children up to age 5, would be expanded to cover children up to age 6. A Congressional Budget Office estimate of the bill’s cost was not immediately available.
“One of the key lessons reaffirmed by our response to the Covid-19 pandemic is that when we invest in child nutrition programs, we help reduce child hunger,” said Education Committee chair Bobby Scott of Virginia. “Still, we have more work ahead to achieve our ultimate goal — eliminating child hunger in America.”
North Carolina Rep. Virginia Foxx, the Republican leader on the committee, said Democrats were “rushing to score political points before November.”
The last child nutrition law, passed in 2010, called on schools to serve more fruits, vegetables, and whole grains and to trim fat, sugar, and salt from foods. The new bill would align school nutrition standards with the Dietary Guidelines for Americans. Dairy groups applauded language that allows schools to offer milk options, such as low-fat flavored milk, that are consistent with the guidelines’ recommendations for a healthy diet.
Also on Wednesday, the committee approved, along party lines, a bill ordering the Labor Department to write a heat safety standard to protect workers from overexposure to hot weather, with an interim regulation due within a year. Some 344 workers died from heat exposure from 2011 to 2019, according to the government.
“A heat safety standard will be more important than ever with our overheating of the planet,” said Rep. Andy Levin, a Michigan Democrat. Some Republicans on the committee sneered at the “so-called climate emergency” and said the department should be allowed to draft a heat rule at its own pace.
To watch a video of the committee’s bill-drafting session, click here.
A one-page fact sheet on the child nutrition bill is available here.
A section-by-section description of the child nutrition bill is available here.
A fact sheet on the heat bill is available here.
A section-by-section description of the heat bill is available here.