Congress passes Child Nutrition Act reauthorization

[Discogoddess]

House Dems worked around a last-minute Republican amendment to send this puppy to Pres. Obama's desk for signature, yay! This issues is close to my heart as I've gotten an education around school food/wellness while working with one of my clients. Not perfect legislation, but an improvement for sure.

****

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/03/us...wt&twt=nytimes


December 2, 2010
Congress Approves Child Nutrition Bill

By ROBERT PEAR

WASHINGTON — Congress gave final approval on Thursday to a child nutrition bill that expands the school lunch program and sets new standards to improve the quality of school meals with more fruits and vegetables.

Michelle Obama lobbied for the bill as a way to combat both obesity and hunger. About half the $4.5 billion cost of the bill over 10 years is to be paid for by a cut in food stamp benefits starting in several years.

The House passed the bill by a vote of 264 to 157. It was approved in the Senate in August by unanimous consent. It now goes to President Obama, who intends to sign it.

In September, some liberal House Democrats and advocates for the poor railed against the bill, saying it was wrong to pay for the expansion of child nutrition programs by cutting money for food stamps, now known as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.

But the Democrats put aside their disagreements on Thursday, after concluding that it was better to take what they could get than to gamble on their chances of passing a modified bill in the next Congress. Republicans will control the House after Jan. 1, and the agenda is likely to be dominated by efforts to reduce the federal budget deficit.

Mr. Obama tamped down concerns by telling Democrats he would work with them to find other ways to pay for the bill before the cuts in food stamps take effect.

“The president will do everything he can do to restore these unconscionable cuts,” said Representative Barbara Lee, Democrat of California and chairwoman of the Congressional Black Caucus.

Democrats and a few Republicans praised Mrs. Obama. “She has been an incredible champion for our children, particularly in the areas of nutrition and obesity,” said Representative Jim McGovern, Democrat of Massachusetts.

Mr. McGovern, who is co-chairman of the House Hunger Caucus, said: “Hunger and obesity are two sides of the same coin. Highly processed empty-calorie foods are less expensive than fresh, nutritious foods.”

School meal programs have a major impact on the nation’s health, and supporters of the bill said it could reduce the prevalence of obesity among children. The school lunch program feeds more than 31 million children a day.

Representative Rosa DeLauro, Democrat of Connecticut, said, “The bill sets national nutrition standards that will finally get all of the junk food infiltrating our classrooms and our cafeterias out the door.”

Republicans complained that the bill would increase federal spending. Moreover, said Representative Lincoln Diaz-Balart, Republican of Florida, “it is paid for with funds that are borrowed by the federal government.”

Representative Paul Broun, Republican of Georgia and a physician, said: “This bill is not about child nutrition. It’s not about healthy kids. It’s about an expansion of the federal government, more and more control from Washington, borrowing more money and putting our children in greater debt. The federal government has no business setting nutritional standards and telling families what they should and should not eat.”

The bill gives the secretary of agriculture authority to establish nutrition standards for foods sold in schools during the school day, including items in vending machines. The standards would require schools to serve more fruits and vegetables, whole grains and low-fat dairy products.

In addition, for the first time in more than three decades, the bill would increase federal reimbursement for school lunches beyond adjustments for inflation — to help cover the cost of higher-quality meals. It would also allow more than 100,000 children on Medicaid to qualify automatically for free school meals, without filing paper applications.

One of the most contentious provisions of the bill regulates prices charged for lunches served to children with family incomes that exceed the poverty level by more than 85 percent, a threshold that works out to $40,793 for a family of four.

“This provision would require some schools to raise their lunch prices,” the Congressional Budget Office said.

Representative John Kline, Republican of Minnesota, said that the price provision was tantamount to a tax increase on middle-class families. The National Governors Association and local school officials objected to it as a new federal mandate.

But Margo G. Wootan, director of nutrition policy at the Center for Science in the Public Interest, a research and advocacy group, said: “The price of paid lunches needs to go up. Schools are not charging enough to cover the cost. As a result, money intended to provide healthy food to low-income kids is being diverted to subsidize food for higher-income children.”

School districts that comply with the new standards can receive an additional federal payment of 6 cents for each lunch served. The National School Boards Association, representing local board members, said “the actual increased cost of compliance” was at least twice that amount.

The bill was written mainly by Senator Blanche Lincoln, Democrat of Arkansas and chairwoman of the Senate Agriculture Committee, who lost her bid for re-election.

Passage of the bill followed years of studies by the National Academy of Sciences and negotiations by advocates for children and the food industry. It was supported by health, education and religious groups, labor unions and the food, beverage, dairy and supermarket industries.

The bill rounds out the tenure of Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Democrat of California. When she took the gavel in January 2007, she was surrounded by the children of House members, and she called the House to order in the name of “all America’s children.” On Thursday, though she left the supervision of preliminary votes in the House to others, Ms. Pelosi took back the gavel to personally declare the bill passed.

Ms. Pelosi said the child nutrition bill, besides being “important for moral reasons,” would increase the nation’s economic competitiveness and military readiness. Millions of young adults are unable to serve in the armed forces because they are overweight, she said.

[Discogoddess]

See also: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...202737_pf.html



House votes to send child nutrition bill to President Obama

By Nick Anderson
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, December 2, 2010; 4:04 PM

The Democratic-led House voted Thursday to send President Obama a bill that would enable more poor children to receive free meals at school, raise the nutritional quality of cafeteria fare, and reduce the junk food and sugary beverages sold in school vending machines.

The bill, which cleared the Senate in the summer, won House approval on a 264-157 vote. More than 15 Republicans broke party ranks to join Democrats in favor of the bill. A handful of Democrats were opposed.

The bill, a priority for the president and first lady Michelle Obama, would boost spending on child nutrition $4.5 billion over 10 years and raise federal reimbursements for school lunches more than the inflation rate for the first time since 1973. It also would require for the first time that free drinking water be available where meals are served.

The bill accelerates the budding healthy-food movement in public education - think whole wheat pizza, with lowfat cheese and low-sodium sauce - but leaves unanswered key questions about whether schools can afford to give tens of millions of students better meals.

Democrats took steps to offset the bill's costs, including a $2.2 billion cut to food stamp benefits for needy families. Those maneuvers, reflecting political pressures to avoid adding to the budget deficit, caused many Democrats to wince even as they voted for the bill because it would effectively shift funds from one anti-hunger program to another.

House Republicans opposed the bill as a needless expansion of government by the lame-duck Congress weeks after voters punished Democrats at the polls. National groups representing school administrators and boards also were opposed, calling the bill an unfunded mandate that would strain already-strapped school budgets.

But the Senate approved the bill through unanimous consent in August. It had strong backing from an array of groups seeking to improve child nutrition and has become part of the first lady's campaign against childhood obesity and hunger.

For House Democrats, approval of the bill marked a show of force a month before they cede the gavel to a new Republican majority.

"In a country as great as ours, no child should go hungry," Rep. George Miller (D-Calif.), chairman of the Education and Labor Committee, said Wednesday. But he added that many do. "We cannot afford to let that continue."

Rep. John Kline (R-Minn.), the incoming committee chairman, said Democrats were flouting the will of the voters. " 'Stop growing government,' people are telling us," Kline said. " 'Stop spending money we do not have.' It's a simple request, and a sensible one. Yet it continues to be ignored."

Republicans proposed Wednesday to amend the bill, including a requirement for background checks for certain child-care providers, and thereby force another vote in the Senate that would jeopardize the bill's chances of becoming law.

To neutralize that threat, Democratic leaders staged a vote on a separate measure that mirrored elements of the Republican proposal. Then they muscled the nutrition bill, unamended, through its final vote.

The nutrition bill, steered through the Senate by Sen. Blanche Lincoln (D-Ark.), seeks to expand access to subsidized meals for needy children and ensure that those meals have more whole grains, lean proteins and fruits and vegetables. The national school lunch program serves 31 million children, with more than 62 percent receiving free or reduced-price lunches.

Key provisions of the legislation would:

lUse Medicaid data in some states to enroll children automatically for free meals. That would add about 115,000 new students each year to the program. Experts say needy families often fail to fill out paperwork required to show their eligibility. This provision would address that problem.

lExpand an after-school supper program for the needy - now offered in the District, Maryland and 12 other states - to all states. Doing so would provide an additional 21 million meals annually.

lAuthorize the establishment of nutrition standards for all food and beverages sold on school grounds throughout the school day. Currently, the government's regulatory scope is limited to cafeterias during hours when meals are served. This provision, advocates say, would force out sugary beverages and snacks and clear the way for more healthy food and drinks to be offered through a la carte sales at snack bars and vending machines.

lRaise the federal reimbursement by 6 cents per lunch for school districts that comply with new meals standards to be issued by the Agriculture Department. The reimbursement rate is now $2.72 for each free lunch, which most school administrators say is insufficient to cover costs. The 6 cent increase, like the base rate, would be indexed to inflation.

The American Association of School Administrators, the National School Boards Association and the Council of the Great City Schools opposed the bill, saying it would impose a host of new requirements without providing schools money to pay for them.

Jeff Simering of the council said that the bill's advocates won't suffer the fiscal headaches of implementing it. "They don't have to balance a budget. They can take positions on issues that a lot of us would like to support."

Diane Pratt-Heavner of the School Nutrition Association described the bill as "our best chance" for getting more money for school meals. "Whether a child is in the cafeteria ordering a school meal or in front of a vending machine, or in an a la carte line," she said, "they'll be receiving a consistent message about healthy food choices."


© 2010 The Washington Post Company

[Armento]

good stuff!!! sounds like the leadership stepped up and bluffs are being called.

[Discogoddess]

good stuff!!! sounds like the leadership stepped up and bluffs are being called.

I'm guessing they don't use the hang-wringing and gnashing of teeth on the P as a guide to action.

[dj kelvin]

Good Stuff...........

[Armento]

I'm guessing they don't use the hang-wringing and gnashing of teeth on the P as a guide to action.

wrong.. they did.. it was being barricaded this morning, then djklas read our toughts to Harry Reid and he pressed the issue.

[AK]

Good to see. Was very important to Flotus.

[BrazenMuse]

Anyone think this is going to lead to modifications in the Farm Bill...? Subsidies continue to go to crops that do people very little good...and the Farm Bill does indeed affect school meal programs. Hmmm...