Leaders from the Senate Agriculture Committee are almost finished with legislation that would reauthorize the Child Nutrition Act, Agri-pulse.com has learned.
“We're nearly at the finish line,” Committee Chairman Pat Roberts, R-Kan., said Wednesday at a news conference.
Negotiations are being coordinated between Roberts, Chairman of the House Education and Workforce Committee John Kline (R-Minn.), and House Agriculture Chairman Mike Conaway (R-Texas).
Although the senators are tight-lipped about the content of the reauthorization bill, the new legislation will “certainly expand” summer feeding programs, reports Agri-pulse.com.
According to Roberts, two things about the bill are certain at this point: “Number One, it's going to be bipartisan, and it is. Number Two, it's going to have to be budget neutral. That's just the way it is.”
Senator Debbie Stabenow (D-MI) was also at the news conference and told Agri-pulse.com that she knows schools need more flexibility and funding to meet the higher nutritional standards. “We do know that change requires some additional resources,” she said.
Her comment, and Roberts’ statement on budget neutrality, suggest that schools may not get the increase in meal reimbursements they had sought through through groups like the School Nutrition Association.
Since the nutritional standards were updated in 2010, numerous news reports have found that schools across the country are struggling to meet the cost of complying.
In 2015 alone, schools have to absorb $1.2 billion in added costs because of the nutrition standards, according to the USDA. Though the department contends that 97 percent of schools are successfully meeting the mandates—and recently awarded $8 million in funding for schools struggling to make healthy meals—a recent School Nutrition Association study found that nearly 70 percent of school lunch programs have been financially hurt. Only 3 percent of participating programs enjoyed the financial benefits of increased participation, according to the SNA.
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Recently, the School Nutrition Association sent a letter to key members of Congress, in partnership with the School Superintendents Association, asking them to reauthorize and adjust the Child Nutrition Act.
In addition to the increased reimbursement, key requests included permitting 50 percent whole-grain-rich products and easing the mandates for reduced sodium.
The School Nutrition Association strongly supports offering students a wide variety of fruits and vegetables, and encourage students to take them, SNA Spokeswoman Diane Pratt-Heavner recently told FSD. She added, however, that good food is wasted when students are forced to take items they don’t want to.
"Those resources would be better spent investing in further menu improvements, nutrition education initiatives and other efforts to promote consumption of healthy options.”
Disagreeing with the SNA is a group of celebrity chefs who want lawmakers to freeze Child Nutrition Act rules. About 50 celebrity chefs lobbied Capitol Hill on Tuesday about the Act, which is up for reauthorization in December.
In a letter published Tuesday on TheHill.com, “Top Chef” judge Tom Colicchio noted that although the changes haven’t been easy, now is not the time to “revert back to junk food and high-calorie meals,” and added that including whole grains and at least a half-cup of fruit of vegetables in every meal is “real progress.”
“The standards are there, they’re working and we should keep them in place,” Colicchio told the website Washington’s Top News.