In a letter to President Biden, the leaders of every House committee said on Wednesday that the pandemic had revealed the extent of hunger in America. “We call on you to convene a national conference on food, nutrition, hunger, and health that draws together all the arms of government, state and local leaders, tribal leaders, nonprofit and for-profit businesses, advocates and those with lived experiences to design a roadmap to end hunger in America by 2030,” said the letter.
House Rules chairman Jim McGovern, the leading advocate in Congress for a hunger conference, said on social media that the letter “is a major step forward” toward a White House conference. “Hunger in America isn’t a new problem. But it’s a solvable one,” said the Massachusetts Democrat.
President Nixon called the first, and only, White House conference on hunger on Dec. 2-4, 1969. More than 5,000 attendees voted on the final recommendations, said a Tufts archive. Key accomplishments were expansion of the food stamp and school lunch programs and authorization of the WIC program.
The text of the letter is available here.