The House won’t vote until next week at the earliest on the headline issues for the Agriculture Department funding bill – a waiver of school lunch reforms for some schools and adding whilte potatoes to the WIC food basket. The chamber spent 5-1/2 hours on the USDA bill on Wednesday but didn’t get to the section containing both of those items. Republican leaders scheduled two tax-break bills fpr debate today, with no votes on Friday.
California Democrat Sam Farr said he will try to remove the waiver language from the bill. “Industry thinks this is some sort of marketing program for their products,” said George Miller, California Democrat, who opposes the waiver. Alabama Republican Robert Aderholt, who drafted the bill, said the waiver is a reasonable answer to rising costs and unpopularity of the revamped meals. “This is a real problem in many school districts across the country.”