H.R. ``Improving Child Nutrition and Education Act of

Floor Speech

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Mr. HINOJOSA. Mr. Speaker, Chairman Kline and Ranking Member Scott, I regret that I could not be present for the Education and Workforce Committee's full committee markup of H.R. 5003 on May 18th, 2016 due to the death of my nephew, a beloved minister who worked tirelessly to provide services to many struggling families across the Rio Grande Valley of South Texas.

As a senior member of the Education and Workforce Committee and a longtime champion of federal child nutrition programs, I believe that Congress must reauthorize federal child nutrition programs through a strong bipartisan reauthorization bill. Signed into law by President Harry S. Truman in 1946, the Richard B. Russell National School Lunch Act created the National School Lunch Program (NSLP) ``as a measure of national security, to safeguard the health and well-being of the Nation's children.'' Serving 7.1 million students annually in 1946, the program has grown to over 30 million students per day in 2015.

For many students in congressional districts like mine, having access to nutritious meals is extremely important. Today, approximately 15 million children live in households facing food insecurity and receive a majority of their calories for the day at school. The Community Eligibility provision in current law provides free, nutritious meals to 8.5 million low-income children in 18,000 higher-poverty schools and eliminates the burdensome application requirements for districts, schools, and families. Under this provision, high-poverty school districts are able to offer universal school meals to all students without the addition of complex paperwork for families, as long as the school district demonstrates that 40 percent of their students already qualify for other federally certified free meals programs, such as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP).

Had I been present at the full committee markup, I would have joined my House Democratic colleagues in expressing concerns and opposing H.R. 5003, the ``Improving Child Nutrition and Education Act of 2016.'' This highly partisan bill contains harmful provisions that would make it more difficult for low-income schools to feed their students. We must keep in mind that nutrition programs for children and families impact our nation's economy, national security, and classrooms. Our most vulnerable children and families deserve more from the federal government, which I have always believed has a responsibility to help those most in need.

To be sure, H.R. 5003 is a misguided piece of legislation that would weaken the nutrition safety net for our nation's students and families. I am deeply concerned that this bill significantly alters the Community Eligibility Provision (CEP), lacks meaningful investments for the Summer Electronic Benefit Transfer program, adds barriers to the school meals verification process, and rolls back important evidenced-based criteria to school nutrition standards.

By passing the Republican proposed 2016 CNR legislation, the CEP threshold would be raised to 60 percent and cause too many vulnerable students, including up to nearly 47,000 students in my district, to potentially lose access to free school meals. These districts do not have the framework, funding or capacity to deal with the considerable amount of administrative work that comes with increasing the CEP.

For these reasons, I will continue to urge my colleagues to oppose H.R. 5003 in its current form and instead work to ensure that children and families have access to robust federal nutrition programs. My Democratic colleagues and I strongly believe that Congress must work to address food insecurity and hunger in America by making it easier for more needy children to access federal child nutrition programs. Our nation's most vulnerable children deserve nothing less.

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