Democrats grill USDA over school meal impact of proposed SNAP rule
House Democrats on Wednesday angrily questioned why the Agriculture Department took months to acknowledge that hundreds of thousands of schoolchildren would no longer be automatically eligible for free meals under a proposed rule aimed at cracking down on food stamp eligibility standards.
The USDA posted an analysis late Tuesday that showed as many as 982,000 children would no longer be directly certified for free school meals based on their family's participation in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program if the proposed rule were to take effect. That's roughly twice what USDA officials had informally told congressional staff when they rolled out the proposed rule in July.
The impact on school meals was not included in USDA's own regulatory impact analysis that was released as part of the proposal.
During a Wednesday hearing on the topic, several Democrats grilled Brandon Lipps, the deputy undersecretary of the Food, Nutrition, and Consumer Services, about why USDA had not been more forthcoming about the impact to students.
"After waiting months for this analysis, we now have learned that this rule will be even worse for students and families than we originally understood," said Rep. Suzanne Bonamici (D-Ore.), chairwoman of the House Education and Labor Civil Rights and Human Services Subcommittee.
Bonamici told Lipps, who appeared before the panel, that the timeline "makes it appear USDA was trying to thwart oversight."
In its analysis, USDA said about 45 percent of the 982,000 children who could lose automatic eligibility, or 445,000, would still be eligible for free meals, and 51 percent, or 497,000, would still be eligible for reduced price meals. In both cases, households would likely need to fill out additional paperwork.
Just 4 percent of school children, or 40,000, who would lose automatic eligibility would no longer qualify for free or reduced price meals, according to the department's analysis.
Before Tuesday, USDA had for months declined to confirm the estimates that had been informally conveyed to Congress over the summer. House Education and Labor Chairman Bobby Scott (D-Va.) repeatedly asked USDA to provide its internal estimates.
Lipps denied that the department had slow-walked congressional requests for more information.
“We provided this analysis as soon as it was available and ready," he said.
After posting the additional analysis on Tuesday, USDA said it would reopen the comment period for its proposed rule to rein in broad-based categorical eligibility. The public will have an additional 14 days to comment on the proposal. Several Democrats said they thought the extension was inadequate.
