On his sixth day as U.S. agriculture secretary, Sonny Perdue will visit an elementary school at lunchtime today to announce “regulatory flexibility” in the federally subsidized school lunch program that feeds 30.4 million pupils daily. Joining Perdue will be Senate Agriculture chairman Pat Roberts who recently asked USDA to go easy on requirements to use less salt and to use more low-fat dairy and more whole grains in cafeteria meals.
Perdue will unveil “an interim rule providing flexibility for the National School Lunch Program,” said USDA. A spokeswoman did not respond to a request for more details. However, the salt and whole grains rules have been a regular target for Republican lawmakers, who have blocked the rules through legislative riders.They flowed from the 2010 overhaul of USDA’s child nutrition programs. The legislation required more fruit, vegetables, whole grains and low-fat dairy in school meals and less salt, fat and sugar.
The trip to Catoctin Elementary School in Leesburg, Va, in the Washington exurbs, follows a trip by Perdue to meet USDA workers in Kansas City at the end of last week. He indicated tougher eligibility standards are in the future for the food stamp program, said the Kansas City Star. The secretary told Harvest Public Media that President Trump, while saying all undocumented immigrants are subject to deportation, may be open to allowing undocumented farm workers to stay.
In an April 6 letter to USDA, Roberts said rigid standards on school meals have led to lower participation in the lunch program, more wasted food and confusion about what foods can be sold in fundraising events. “I urge you to act administratively and provide immediate relief from certain egregious aspects of the standards, particularly in regard to the rapidly approaching sodium limits and the dairy and whole grain requirements,” wrote Roberts. “After providing immediate relief, I urge you to provide long-term flexibility and certainty for our schools, our food service directors and other stakeholders.”
School have said it was difficult to obtain enough whole-grain products to meet USDA requirements and that some recipes were problematic with whole grains. Others said they faced higher costs in meeting the requirements for more fruits and vegetables, and that students balked at some of the meals. USDA said the vast majority of schools complied with the 2010 revisions and has allowed leeway on some of them.
The Republican-controlled Congress was unable to complete work last year on a reauthorizaton of school meals. The House Education Committee proposed a three-state trial of block-granting school-food funds, with few controls over how the money was spent, and a much higher threshold for schools in poor neighborhoods that want to provide free meals to all students. The Senate Agriculture Committee approved a bill that would have expanded the summer food program and slowed down USDA rules on salt levels and whole grains in meals. Neither chamber voted on a child nutrition bill and neither has initiated action this year. Child nutrition programs, headlined by school lunch, cost around $22 billion a year.
Perdue told Harvest Media that he was working on a blueprint of policy guidelines to give Trump involving undocumented farm workers. Trump “understands that there are long-term immigrants, sometimes undocumented immigrant laborers, out here on the farms, many of them that are doing a great job, contributing to the economy of the United States,” said Perdue. “That is not his focus nor will that be my focus.”
During the campaign, a Trump senior adviser told farmers that the administration would not disrupt the agricultural labor supply. Farm groups have supported comprehensive immigration reform as well as action to give legal status to undocumented workers.
House Agriculture chairman Michael Conaway has advocated more stringent work requirements for food stamp recipients, particularly able-bodied adults without dependents, who generally are limited to 90 days of benefits in a three-year period unless they are working at least 20 hours a week, in a job-training program or performing at least 20 hours a week of community service.
Perdue said ‘there will probably be requirements to look for work or be working for work training,” said the Kansas City Start. “The goal of this administration is to put people to work with a good paying job where they don’t have to depend on food stamps.”
Critics say there are few job training or community service slots available, so the work requirement really is a time limit on benefits. States are allowed to waive the 90-day limit during periods of high unemployment. In the past, conservative Republicans tried to eliminate the authority for waivers.