Remarks by President Biden at the White House Conference on Hunger, Nutrition, and Health
SEPTEMBER 28, 2022
Location: Washington, D.C.

10:27 A.M. EDT
 
THE PRESIDENT:  Jimmieka, she — please, sit down.  Sit down.  (Laughter.)  She’s awful good, isn’t she?  She was really good.  Jimmieka, thank you for joining us and — for this historic Conference on Hunger, Nutrition, and Health.
 
Before I begin, though, I — speaking of health, you all have been reading and hearing about the hurricane and — Hurricane Ian and its impact it’s going to have on our fellow Americans down in Florida. 
 
Yesterday, I spoke with Governor DeSantis for some time — my team has been in constant contact with him from the very beginning — and the mayors of Tampa, St. Pete’s, and Clearwater.
 
And my message has been absolutely clear — is that we are on alert and in action.  We’ve approved every request Florida has made for temporary assistance, emergency assistance, long-term assistance that I’ve received. 
 
We discussed what we have done to prepare for the hurricane.  That includes dispatching hundreds of FEMA personnel and activating thousands of National Guard members.  I have also developed the search and rescue teams — and deployed them from multiple federal agencies.  And they’re already on the ground and ready to help as we speak.
 
FEMA pre-positioned millions of — literally millions of liters of water, millions of meals, and hundreds of generators.  We have scheduled everything we can possibly do. And we think, and so do the mayors and the governor, that — and we’ve had — put up shelters — they’re ready.
 
We’re not sure exactly where it’s going to hit, but we’ve — pretty — it’s getting pretty clear exactly where it’s going to hit.
 
I made it clear to the governor and the mayors that the federal government is ready to help in every single way possible. 
 
And I want to repeat what I said yesterday to the people of Florida: This storm is incredibly dangerous, to state the obvious.  It’s life threatening.  You should obey all warnings and directions from emergency officials.  Don’t take anything for granted.  Use their judgment, not yours.  Evacuate when ordered.  Be prepared.  The storm warnings are real.  The evacuation notices are real.  The danger is real. 
 
And when the storm passes, the federal government is going to be there to help you recover.  We’ll be there to help you clean up and rebuild, to help you get — Florida get moving again.  And we’ll be there at every step of the way.  That’s my absolute commitment to the people of the state of Florida.  (Applause.) 
 
And if you’ll forgive me, I want to add one more warning.  That’s a warning to the oil and gas industry executives: Do not — let me repeat — do not — do not use this as an excuse to raise gasoline prices or gouge the American people.  (Applause.) 
 
The price of oil has stayed relatively low.  It kept going down.  The price of gas should be going down as well.
 
My experts inform me that production of only about 190,000 barrels a day has been impacted by this storm thus far.  That’s less than 2 percent of the United States’ daily production impacted for a very short period of time.
 
This small, temporary storm impact on oil production provides no excuse — no excuse for price increases at the pump.  None.
 
If gas companies try to use this storm to raise prices at the pump, I will ask officials to look into whether price gouging is going on.  America is watching.  The industry should do the right thing.  As a matter of fact, they should move more quickly now to bring down the price at the pump because gasoline is down — the price of gasoline is down a great deal.  There’s too much of a delay between the price of barrel of ga- — of gas being pro- — oil and the price of gasoline at the pump.
 
Now to why we’re all here for this — on this historic day: The Secretary of Agriculture said everything, so I’m leaving.  (Laughter.)  You really did.  So I apologize to you for any repetition that may occur here. 
 
But all kidding aside, you know, it’s been over 50 years, to state the obvious — you all know it well — since President Nixon convened the original White House Conference on Hunger, Nutrition, and Health.
 
And the single — that single conference and the laws that inspired it — it inspired led a transformational change that has helped millions of Americans live healthier lives for generations. 
 
Since that time, advances in research and medicine have taught us so much more about nutrition and health.
 
And today, I’m convening this conference again because I believe we can use these advances to do even more to make America stronger and a healthier nation.  And so many of you know so much about this as well, and you’re committed.
 
And I want to thank all of you here, including bipartisan elected officials like Representative McGovern, Senator Braun, Senator Booker, Representative — Jackie, are you here?  Where’s Jackie?  I didn’t think she was — she wasn’t going to be here — to help make this a reality.  And thanks to Senator Stabenow, Representative DeLauro for their leadership. 
 
And here today we have advocates and activists — José Andrés — you’ve heard of him, haven’t you?  (Applause.)  La- — last time we hung out on the Ukrainian border in Poland.  And leaders of business, labor, agriculture, faith, and philanthropy and — to achieve ambitious goals that I know we can do if we work together — I really do know we can do this: End hunger in this country by the year 2030 and lower the toll — (applause) — lower the toll that diet-related diseases takes on for too many Americans.
 
This goal is within our reach.  Just look at how far we’ve come on child poverty.
 
Thirty years ago, as was referenced, 1 in 4 children lived below the poverty line.  Today, 1 in 20 live below the poverty line.  So I know we can take — tackle hunger as well.  And I’ve released a national strategy to meet that bold goal.  The strategy that — has three key — three key principles.
 
First, help more Americans — I’ll say this again — help more Americans access the food that will keep their families nourished and healthy.  A lot of food deserts out there.
 
Second, give folks the option and information they need to make healthy dietary choices.
 
Thirdly, help more Americans be physically active.  People want to be; lots of times of times there’s no places to go to be active from where they live.
 
The good news is that we’ve already been laying a strong foundation for this work.
 
Soon after I came to office, I signed what was called the American Rescue Plan into law.  It helped put food on the table and keep a roof over the heads of millions of American families.  It helped our economy create nearly 10 million new jobs — most jobs created in that timeframe in American history.  We kept a pri- — a key price of — of the — a piece of the American Rescue Plan is the expanded Childcare Tax Credit.  (Applause.)