Senate Agriculture chairman Pat Roberts says the word he hears again and again is “flexibility” when the topic is renewal of U.S. child nutrition programs that cost $21 billion a year. The largest of the programs is school lunch, created during the Cold War, which provides hot meals to more than 30 million pupils daily.
“To me, [flexibility] means we protect the gains already achieved by many school districts and provide assistance to other districts so all students have healthy, filling meals,” said Roberts in announcing a Sept. 17 committee meeting “to mark up bipartisan legislation reauthorizing child nutrition programs.” Roberts said he was working with the committee’s top-ranking Democrat, Debbie Stabenow of Michigan, on a package “that increases efficiency, effectiveness, flexibility and integrity.”
A Roberts aide declined to discuss elements for the package. Congress has repeatedly delayed implementation of school-lunch reforms that would further reduce the salt content in foods and require schools to use more whole grains. Those requirements were part of the 2010 child nutrition law, which mandated healthier meals and provided a higher reimbursement per meal for schools that meet the guidelines. The School Nutrition Association says the reimbursement rate is inadequate to cover the cost of serving more fresh food. It has asked for more leeway on food sold in schools and for an increase in reimbursement rates of 35 cents per meal.
Besides school food, child-nutrition programs support meals and snacks at child and adult daycare centers for more than 3.3 million children and 120,000 adults. Pennsylvania Sen. Bob Casey, a member of the Agriculture Committee, filed a bill last week that would lower the threshold for aid to home daycare centers and allow centers to serve a third meal of the day for children who are at the centers for at least eight hours.