At a news conference today, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack will kick off the drive for renewal of child-nutrition programs that almost certainly will miss the Sept. 30 deadline for reauthorization. Collectively, the programs cost $21 billion a year, headlined by school lunch and WIC. Vilsack is to outline the administration’s strategy to improve national nutrition during the news conference at the National Press Club, says the USDA. Reforms approved by Congress in 2010 required schools to serve more grains, fruits and vegetables and less fat, salt and sugar.
“This is an important opportunity for the country to re-enforce the good work that was done in 2010, to expand on it, to solidify it, to institutionalize it and to strengthen it,” Vilsack said, in what amounted to a warm-up last week at the Center for American Progress. “Don’t take a step back. Let’s take steps forward.”
The Senate Agriculture Committee is scheduled to draft its reauthorization package on Sept. 17 and the House Education Committee has yet to set a date for a mark-up session. The Republican chairmen of both committees have said school food rules are unduly costly and handcuff school food directors. Congress voted last fall to delay requirements to serve more whole-grain foods and to reduce salt content in meals. The School Nutrition Association, representing food directors, wants a higher reimbursement rate for meals – a tall order when the Republican-controlled Congress is trying to cut spending – and would rather let children decide if they want fruit and vegetables with their meals rather than being required to serve them.
A short-term extension of child-nutrition programs, probably until late this year, is highly likely, says the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition, given the logjam over federal spending for fiscal 2016, which opens Oct. 1. “Putting child nutrition and school meals into the mix of a year-end mega-negotiations could actually improve its chances for passage in this calendar year,” says NSAC.
A handful of other food and agriculture bills are on the table for action during the fall session as well – country-of-origin labeling for beef, pork and chicken; mandatory livestock price reporting; pre-emption of state laws requiring GMO labeling; and revival of tax breaks that include the $1-a-gallon biodiesel tax credit, wind and solar power tax credits, and the Section 179 expensing deduction.
All are significant to the food and agriculture community but secondary to most lawmakers when compared to the face-off over fiscal 2016 spending. Later in the year, an increase in the federal debt limit will be needed. There has been speculation that an end-of-the-year omnibus bill may be the vehicle for passage of the COOL and GMO provisions, as well as the tax “extenders” package.
A USDA fact sheet on school meals is available here.