American Food for American Schools Act of 2021

Floor Speech

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Mr. GARAMENDI. Madam Speaker, today I reintroduce the ``American Food for American Schools Act,'' which I have sponsored since the 114th Congress. I want to thank Representatives Kaptur (D-OH), Fortenberry (R-NE), Ryan (D-OH), LaMalfa (R-CA), Carbajal (D-CA), Young (R-AK), and Kilmer (D-WA) for their support as original cosponsors.

Our ``American Food for American Schools Act'' would strengthen enforcement of the existing ``Buy American'' requirements under the U.S. Department of Agriculture's (USDA) school breakfast, special milk, and national school lunch programs. This will ensure that school districts use federal taxpayer dollars to purchase domestically sourced food products for all in-school meals and afterschool snacks. Our bipartisan bill would also increase public transparency by allowing parents to know from where the food served to their children in school comes.

Even in California's Central Valley, which includes many of the most productive agricultural communities in the nation, school districts continue to misuse taxpayer dollars to buy imported foods, unnecessarily, without informing parents. In numerous cases, these same imported foods have been recalled due to safety concerns and outbreaks of food borne diseases. This is especially troubling as those same foods could have been sourced locally in the first place as required by federal law.

Under our bill, school districts would be required to obtain a written waiver from USDA to use federal taxpayer dollars to purchase foreign-sourced food products. Any such waivers would only be granted by USDA if the domestically produced food was cost prohibitive or simply unavailable. Our bill would also require that school districts notify parents of all foreign-sourced foods served to students, by posting any such waivers obtained from USDA on the school's website. This would increase public transparency and provide American farmers the opportunity to seek out school districts in need of affordable, domestically grown foods. Our nation's schoolchildren should be served nutritious, American-grown foods produced under the strictest food safety standards in the world, as required by federal law. That is exactly what our bill would accomplish.

In the 115th Congress, we included a ``Buy American'' enforcement provision for the Richard B. Russell National School Lunch Program in the Agriculture Improvement Act of 2018 (Public Law 115-334), commonly known as the 2018 Farm Bill. This was a first step in addressing this critical issue for American farmers and parents with school-age children. Now, Congress needs to finish the job by passing our ``American Food for American Schools Act'' into law.

Madam Speaker, I hope all members of the House will join us in cosponsoring the ``American Food for American Schools Act of 2021.'' I look forward to working with the Committee on Education and Labor to ensure that our bipartisan bill is included in any future Child Nutrition Reauthorization legislation.

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