irreparable harm the denial of emergency snap benefits about one million california one million of california's poorest families in need to avoid going hungry during the unprecedented pandemic that the country is now facing now the st preliminary injunction factor the likelihood of success on the merits involves a pure question of law a straight question of statutory interpretation at this court oval and that question really boils down to this who did congress intend to benefit when he wrote his statute providing emergency allotments to address temporary food that congress intend to benefit all snap households including those with the lowest incomes or and us yet he contends that intend to benefit only a subset of households those with relatively higher incomes while completely denying emergency aid to the lowest income households solely because those households already see the maximum non emergency benefits statutory language is clear and unambiguous on this point and allows only one answer congress intended these benefits to be available to all anneliese and often at households first there's a phrase that congress used to describe who intended to provide these benefits to outsold participating in that program that race unambiguously includes all households without any need up to the maximum wealth the the phrase temporary food needs and in the context of an emergency shows that the needs congress is addressing are necessarily need above and beyond the needs addressed by a regular snap benefits so if you if you apply the will of the left and the state and say ok this statu is concerned with temporary food needs and the measure of those temporary food needs is that they cannot be greater than the maximum regular allotment the the value of those food needs is the up to the full amount the maximum allotment it's not the difference between the maximum allotment and the amount the household receives that the phrase that  the quantity that u s d a is actually saying the living phrase applies to but that phrase never appears in the statute so the limiting phrase cannot apply to that that quantity  means i'm not sure i understand that because what seems like a and i take your point that we don't have this phrase elsewhere to draw on other other meanings of it but it seems like just thinking about what that phrase could the temporary need now i do think is take a step back we need to understand that the the amount that normally provides to all households if the same amount every household receives an amount that is sufficient to bring that household up to the maximum allotment for that household size whether it's strict for the lowest income families they get that amount strictly through the snap benefits when it is for someone with higher income they get that amount to a combination of their i contribution and the snap benefits that they receive but everyone is raised to the same baseline level by the by regular staff benefits therefore a temporary need during an emergency is that answer everybody is brought up regardless of their income or contribution the same amount regular maximum correct people get less than the maximum because their income available to them plus the benefit that they get equals the maximum so everyone is raised to that same baseline maximum whether it's through their own funds combined with snap or with just stamp benefit everybody doesn't get the same amount of food and and the staff benefits raise everybody to that same amount so temporary food needs is necessarily something that  know but at the same time they didn't provide they didn't include any exceptions to that they didn't say all house of they didn't say households participating in snap except for those receiving the maximum regular benefit and they didn't use any language that distinguishes between households based on the the amount of their regular staff benefit or based on their income is static never refers to any of those characteristics so applying it so excluding people from receiving the benefit based on those characteristics essentially as it's adding an exception to the statute appropriated there are sort of makes sense in terms of its understanding of how this is supposed to work but would be you know seriously inadequate under your understanding of how it's supposed to work and so  a has been presented any evidence that that estimate was ever brought before congress say in the committee report and it hasn't presented any evidence that at that evidence was in fact ever brought to the attention of any member of congress and the case cases are clear that a communication to a congressional staff that never makes it to congress is not considered legislative history it's not something that could have had any influence on a congressional vote so it can't be used to interpret a statute why in the the provision of the appropriation refers to estimates is not just talking about estimates for these emergency allotments because that that that was also that al that appropriation was also for regular snap benefits so that's also under the statutory cap on monthly benefits for snap households in states where both federal and state disaster declarations had issues approach that scenario the same way it has when other disasters local and state economies to a sudden halt by temporarily providing every snap household with the full cost of the thrifty food plan for its household size without is forcing the standard thirty percent net income offset judge young it in those proceedings had asked flora a little bit more information in detail on the iterative process between u s d a and the congressional committee i do not recall whether any of those supplemental declarations made it into the record and as part of the summary judgment briefing i know they did damage it in as part of this appeal because obviously this appeal moved very quickly after judge that you might make as a servant in this case i'm not i say that because i'm familiar with it the judiciary is response to congressional requests cares actually you should come up with the estimates on a very very quick basis oh i and two of the family's st act just not to find that term and to answer that question i think we have to look to where congress has set out its determination of households in the statutory framework underlying the snap and needs and thus the maximum monthly allotment for every household in the contiguous forty eight dollars states and the district of columbia now is standing pronounce real world differences in cost availability and general cost of living income and when congress instructed the secretary to address temporary food needs that could be up to the full maximum monthly allotment for another it's up to the full cost of the thrifty food plan you reasonably understood congress has to be all of that underlying programatic framework and instead read section two thousand three hundred and two dollars as an across the board boozed in every step whole excuse me in every snap households benefits but when congress wants to enact a temporary across the board increase in snap benefits it does so by explicitly targeting the thrifty food plan and not that's what congress did in the recovery act in two thousand not which instructed us today to temporarily calculate monthly snap benefits for all households using one hundred and thirteen six percent of the thrifty food plan and earlier this year the house of representatives attempted to do the same in its rd covered nineteen relief bill the heroes act which would have temporarily increased the value of snap benefits for all snap households to one hundred and fifteen percent of the value of the thrifty tellingly congress did not do that in the family's st it didn't touch the thrifty food plan it didn't touch the maximum monthly allotment as judge gilliam noted in de maximum monthly allotment without appending a multiplier to the thrifty food plan as it always has in the past but if that's what congress had been aiming at there is a very straightforward way to do so they could have just moved not greater than language so th it immediately followed and modified emergency allotments rather than temporary food and other water the statute would direct the secretary to provide emergency allotments not greater than the a households participating in the supplemental nutrition assistance program and in that case there would be very little doubt that congress wanted to make the emergency allotments themselves equivalent to the maximum monthly allotment  statute instead it's heather households temporary food needs to the maximum monthly allotment while keeping fixed the statutory definition of the household standard presumed needs which is the cost of the thrifty food plan minus continue to contribute in the personal income share and just like here households affected by a disaster there were already receiving the full cost of the thrifty food plan before the disaster do not get a boost because and i would just point you to surrounding provisions i would point you on the other section twenty three o two which is entirely concerned with people who are rapidly losing income and are you know finding it difficult to report that sudden diminution in household resources to have a state agency and congress was specifically concerned with kindness was specifically concerned with people who were to the benefits that it provides under a different statute in a different type of disaster setting there's no basis for that because this statute never refers to those that those benefits are that g that courts typically presume an agency to be aware of and even if congress was aware of the disaster relief administrative practices under this different statute use different terms than the terms based turns entirely on this claim that this statute was soley intended to focus on people who had lost income but that's not the phrase the phrase is temporary food need not that something serious was happening it have profound and possibly unpredictable impacts on on folks needs for food that's why congress set up a statute allowing a process for those needs to be evaluated based on data submitted by the state's u s cities approach completely meets that out of the statute and instead tries to substitute a one size fits all approach based  only about loss income which is not supported by the statute you know finally just the counsel pointed to it said greater detail was admitted on the appropriations in the gilliam case the court there found no