Date: 2008-05-14
Speaker: GEORGE MILLER (democrat)
Chamber: H
State: California

Mr. Speaker. I rise in support of the Conference Report on H.R. 2419. the Food and Energy Security Act of 2007. With the U.S. economy faltering and food prices rising. this conference agreement takes critical steps to reduce hunger. ensure that healthy foods are included in federal nutrition programs. and meet the nutritional needs of many lowincome Americans. To help lowincome families hit especially hard by high food prices. this legislation invests more than $7.8 billion in the food stamp program. now rehamed the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. This commitment will slow the erosion of food stamp benefits caused by increasing food prices. provide food assistance to recipients without requiring them to spend down their education savings accounts and retirement plan assets. and increase food assistance to households with high child care expenses. The bill also invests $1 25 billion in commodity purchasesfor food banks. which will strengthen emergency food assistance programs efforts to serve needy families. Our nation is facing a growing child obesity epidemican issue that demands strong efforts to improve. the quality and nutritional value of foods offered through school meal programs. H.R. 2419 includes important provisions that will expand childrens access to healthy foods during the school day. and that will help inform our efforts to reauthorize the nations child nutrition programs next year. I am also pleased that this report increases the volume of fresh fruits and vegetables available through federallysupported domestic nutrition programs. and. as part of that. invests more than one billion dollars in expanding the fruit and vegetable snack program. Thanks to this significant investment. the snack program. targeted primarily to low- income children and to schools that disproportionately serve lowincome families. will now provide thousands of students in every state with greater access to healthy foods. This bill also supports local food systems and farmtoschool programs by encouraging child rutritior programs to use a geographic preference when purchasing foodsallowing schools and other programs to select more nutritious agricultural products such as fresh fruits and vegetables. dairy products. eggs and meat. In addition. it will require the U.S. Department of Agriculture to conduct a national survey of the foods purchased by the school lunch programs. Science and research overwhelmingly tell us that providing our chUdren with healthy. nutritious foods from the earliest years on is one of the best things we can do to help our children succeed. I am very pleased that all of the child nutrition provisions throughout this bill retain a focus on providing healthier foods and nutritional benefits as supported by scientific research. When we last reauthorized the child nutrition programs in 2004. we required children in lowincome households receiving food stamps to be automatically enrolled for free meals at school through a process known as "direct certification." This simplification reduces work for school administrators. eliminates a duplicative application process for lowincome families. and improves the accuracy of the school meal enrollment process. We had hoped that school districts. states. and the USDA would do everything in their power to make sure that every eligible lowincome child would benefit from this simplification. Unfortunately. the evidence to date indicates that the implementation of this provision has been inconsistent.