Providing for Consideration of S. 3307, Healthy, Hunger-free Kids Act of 2010

Floor Speech

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Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

H. Res. 1742 provides a closed rule for consideration of S. 3307, the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010. The rule provides 1 hour of debate equally divided and controlled by the chair and ranking minority member of the Committee on Education and Labor.

The rules waives all points of order against consideration of the bill except those arising under clause 9 of rule XXI. The rule provides that the bill shall be considered as read. The rule waives all points of order against provisions of the bill. Finally, the rule provides one motion to recommit the bill with or without instructions.

Mr. Speaker, before I begin, as many of my colleagues know, my colleague from Florida (Mr. Lincoln Diaz-Balart) has decided not to seek reelection and move on to other endeavors in his home State of Florida. I just want to publicly thank him for his friendship over the years, and also thank him for his great service not only to the people of Florida but to the people of this country. This may be the last rule that we handle together, so I wanted to take this opportunity simply to acknowledge his service and to thank him.

Mr. Speaker, we have the opportunity today to pass a very good bill that will improve the lives of our children. And I believe that we must seize that opportunity.

I want to thank Speaker Pelosi and Chairman Miller, Congresswoman DeLauro, Congresswoman McCarthy, and others who have worked so hard on this issue. And I want to say a special thank you to First Lady Michelle Obama. She has been an incredible champion for our children, particularly in the areas of nutrition and obesity.

She has challenged us to live up to one of our highest moral obligations--to make sure that the children of this Nation have the nutritious food they need to grow, to thrive, and to succeed.

Mr. Speaker, as many of my colleagues know, I chair both the House Hunger Caucus and the Congressional Hunger Center, and I've said many times that hunger is a political condition. We have the resources to end hunger, particularly childhood hunger, and what we need is the political will to make it happen.

President Obama has pledged to end childhood hunger in America by 2015. If we support that goal, then we must pass this bill. I hope that the Members of this House, all of us, Democrats and Republicans, can come together today to summon the political will necessary to move forward on this issue.

There is not a single community in America that is hunger free. Talk to any food bank. They will tell you that the demand has never been greater, and far too many of the people who need help are children.

The child nutrition bill that we will take up today gives us a chance to provide healthy meals to hundreds of thousands of children who need them. It's also important to remember that hunger and obesity are two sides of the same coin. The fact is that highly processed, empty calorie foods are less expensive than fresh, nutritious foods. That's why so many families are forced to make unhealthy choices. This bill increases the reimbursement to schools for meals by 6 cents a meal, 6 cents, and that's the first increase in 30 years.

Too often, the only nutritious food our kids get is in a school setting, and this bill also increases access to after-school programs. And the bill helps communities to establish farm-to-school networks, which are not just good for children, but they're also good for our local farmers.

Now, it's no secret, Mr. Speaker, that I've had concerns with how this bill is paid for, and I remind my colleagues that this bill is fully paid for. The cuts to the SNAP, or food stamp, program don't make a lot of sense to me. I don't believe we should be taking access to food away from some people in order to provide it for others. But we have been assured, repeatedly, by the President and the White House that they will work with us to restore these cuts, and I look forward to working with the administration and my colleagues to make sure that the White House lives up to that commitment. Quite frankly, if I did not believe that this commitment to restore SNAP funding was real, I would have had a hard time voting for the underlying legislation.

Mr. Speaker, this bill, this exact same piece of legislation, passed unanimously in the Senate. Every single Member in the Senate, including a Who's Who of the most conservative Republicans, voted for reauthorizing our child nutrition programs. Unfortunately, from what I heard in the Rules Committee last night, that probably won't happen today in the House.

Some of my friends on the other side of the aisle have no problem expanding wasteful weapons systems. They have no problem expanding tax cuts for millionaires and billionaires on Wall Street, but apparently, some of them have a problem with expanding access to nutritious food for our children.

They say it's an outrageous example of Big Government or that a high school basketball team would be prohibited from having a bake sale. Nonsense. Utter nonsense. As the president of the national PTA has said, ``The measure will effectively eliminate the constant presence of junk food in school while allowing reasonable practices like periodic PTA or other school group fundraisers, such as bake sales, and the sale of hot dogs and sodas at after-school sporting events.''

An extra few million for a hedge fund manager who doesn't need it? No problem, so my Republican friends say, but heaven forbid we spend another 6 cents to make sure our kids have a more healthy school lunch. Those may be their priorities, Mr. Speaker, but they're not mine, and they're not the priorities of the people in my district.

Some of my friends on the other side will say that they want no children in our country to go hungry. Fair enough. Here's their opportunity to put their vote where their rhetoric is. Here's their opportunity to demonstrate that their concern for the hungry in this country is more than just lip service.

Mr. Speaker, I understand the politics here. It's pretty simple. If the President's for it, my Republican friends are against it. But I would ask them and I would plead with them to check those politics at the door just this once. Please don't sacrifice an opportunity to improve the lives of millions of our children on the altar of partisan politics.

The need to act is clear. Our moral obligation is clear. Our children are getting sicker and sicker and sicker. If kids don't have enough nutritious food to eat they don't learn. We are wasting millions and millions of dollars on health care for diseases like diabetes and heart disease that are preventable with healthier diets.

Today, we could begin to turn that tide. Please join us in doing the right thing. I urge my colleagues to support this rule and the underlying bill.

I reserve the balance of my time.

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