Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2007

AGRICULTURE, RURAL DEVELOPMENT, FOOD AND DRUG ADMINISTRATION, AND RELATED AGENCIES APPROPRIATIONS ACT, 2007 -- (House of Representatives - May 23, 2006)

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Mr. GUTKNECHT. Mr. Chairman, I rise today to support the FY 2007 Agriculture Appropriations bill. I am especially pleased with the funding levels prescribed for the Domestic Food Assistance programs such as the Commodity Supplemental Food Program CSFP) and the Women, Infants and Children (WIC) nutritional programs.

This year, the President proposed eliminating CSFP as part of his plan to streamline government services. Participants in this program were supposed to move to either the Food Stamps program or the WIC program. I disagreed with this proposal, and that is why I am pleased that my colleagues on the House Agriculture Appropriations Subcommittee chose to ignore the elimination proposal and instead increased funding for this program by $11 million above last year's level.

Under the House-passed bill, CSFP will get $118.3 million in fiscal 2007. It is my understanding and hope that the Senate will include a similar amount in its appropriations bill and that future conferees will protect this valuable program from elimination.

More than 2,000 seniors in my district depend on this important supplemental food program, which provides them a box of food staples once a month to seniors who are at or below 130 percent of the poverty level. Pregnant, breast feeding and postpartum women, infants and children up to age six also are eligible for CSFP if they are at or below 185 percent of federal poverty guidelines. For young children, the program is used as a bridge between their eligibility for WIC and their eligibility for free school lunches, which generally happens around age 6.

There is no doubt that CSFP works. In Minnesota, about 15,000 participants--85 percent of them seniors--receive a box of food at the beginning of each month. The box is about the size of a banana box and weighs about 60 pounds. Each box contains about $55 worth of pantry staples such as canned vegetables, fruit and meat, as well as evaporated milk, juice, rice and pasta. The foods are nutritionally balanced and approved by the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Minnesota receives about $3.2 million each year to purchase these foods and deliver them to four food banks throughout the state. Volunteers then deliver the boxes to centralized distribution sites and in some cases to the front doors of home-bound seniors.

In Southeastern Minnesota, the Channel One Food Distribution Center in Rochester, delivers CSFP food packages to 1,750 participants in a 13 county area. The average income for a senior receiving CSFP assistance in this area is a meager $8,846 a year or $737 a month. That's why CSFP is so vital for our nation's low-income seniors, particularly those in rural America.

Seniors like Harriet Salisbury from Ceylon, Minnesota; Elsa Suter of Fairmont, Minnesota, and Edward Levy of Brownsdale, Minnesota, need these vital food packages. When the Administration proposed eliminating CSFP, these seniors took pen and paper in hand and let me know exactly what they thought about that proposal. They told me CSFP was their ``lifeline,'' and some even begged me to save this vital program from elimination.

Today, I am here to tell these seniors and thousands more across our nation that I know how important CSFP is to them, and that I will fight to save this vital program from elimination.

In conclusion, I want to thank Chairman BONILLA for his continued support for CSFP.

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