Posted May 30, 2014
At
the House Appropriations Committee, Republicans moved forward with the plan to
offer school districts a one-year waiver to opt out of improved nutrition
standards, promoted by Michelle Obama, according to an article on Politico by
David Rogers available here. The New York Times
also published an article available here, Washington Post here, and NPR here. A previous blog
post on school lunch program is available here.
The
action was a result of the panel approving $142.5 billion farm and food safety
budget for the coming year, including $20.9 billion in new discretionary
appropriations for the operations of the Agriculture Department and Food and
Drug Administration.
In
2012, the Obama administration announced new rules to add more fruits and green
vegetables to school breakfasts and lunches and reduce the amount of salt and
fat in school lunches 31 million children participate in each day, according to
NY Times.
Some
school districts in Wisconsin, New York, and Illinois have complained
that the healthy school lunch standards are too challenging, and they require
more time to limit calories and fat and incorporate more vegetables, and some
lawmakers agree, according to NPR.
“Everyone supports healthy meals for
children,” Representative Aderholt, Republican of Alabama and chairman of the
House of appropriations agriculture subcommittee, said. “But the bottom line is
that schools are finding it’s too much, too quick,” according to NY Times.
Representative Sam Farr of
California sponsored an amendment that would remove the waiver from the budget
bill, but it was defeated 29-to-22 after a lengthy two-hour debate.
“This waiver gives schools an out,
saying you don’t have to do healthy school meals if it’s hard,” Rep. Farr said.
The School Nutrition Association
(SNA), which represents school food administrators and is supported by food
service manufacturers, supports the waiver. They estimated that about a million
fewer students participated in the school lunch program last year, partially
due to new federal requirements, according to NPR.
“A temporary waiver would ease the
burden on school meal programs, preventing more schools from dropping out of
the National School Lunch Program altogether,” SNA President Leah Schmidt wrote
in a release supporting
the waiver.
“Forcing students to take a food
they don't want on their tray has led to increased program costs, plate waste,
and a decline in student participation,” the SNA said in a statement.
The new rules were a major component
of Michelle Obama’s “Let’s Move!”
campaign to reduce the number of obese children through exercise and better
nutrition. On Thursday, Mrs. Obama wrote an Op-Ed article
in The New York Times about “attempts in Congress to undo so much of what we’ve
accomplished on behalf of our children.”
Tom Vilsack, Secretary of
Agriculture, said in a conference call with reporters on Wednesday, the claims
that nutrition rules led to decline in schools participating in lunch and
breakfast programs were misleading, and that the rules had no effect on food
waste, which has been an issue since 2007, before the nutrition standards were
introduced.
The rules are the first changes in
15 years to the $11 billion school lunch program.
SNA has been asking Congress to
provide more flexibility under the school food standards to help increase
student consumption of healthy choices available while limiting waste. To read
SNA’s requests, click here.
For more information on school lunch
and nutrition programs, please visit the National Agricultural Law Center’s
website here.
