U.S. Rep. Bill Pascrell, Jr. (D-NJ-8) today voted with the House majority in favor of legislation that would dedicate $4.5 billion during the next 10 years to fighting childhood obesity and hunger. The fully-funded, bipartisan legislation, which passed with a 264-157 vote, has now been referred to President Barack Obama for his signature. 

“We simply could not miss this opportunity to support the well-being of our nation’s children,” said Pascrell, a member of the House Ways and Means Committee and a former educator. “Expanding programs such as those that provide school lunch and breakfast is the right thing to do for our children and it’s a solid investment in our future. Healthy children are more able to succeed in school and grow into become healthy, successful adults who are able to contribute to their families and communities.”

The Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act, S. 3307, contains the most significant improvements to child nutrition programs in more than 30 years -- providing $4.5 billion in new spending over the next 10 years.  The bill is fully paid for.  The Senate passed this bipartisan bill by unanimous consent on August 5.

In New Jersey, 705,558 children participated in the National School Lunch Program in 2009, with 376,871 coming from low-income households. The legislation would provide $6,817,000 to New Jersey to improve school lunches.

The legislation’s two major goals are reducing childhood hunger and reducing childhood obesity. Among the bill’s provisions are:

• A 6 cent per meal increase in the federal reimbursement rate for school lunches – the first reimbursement rate increase in more than 30 years – to improve the nutritional quality of school meals. An additional 6 cents per meal will help schools meet new meal standards to provide children with healthier school meals.

• A reduction in the availability of high-calorie junk foods and sugary beverages in vending machines on school campuses through science-based nutrition standards for all foods sold during the school day to be developed by the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

• Promotion of nutrition and wellness in child care settings by establishing nutrition requirements for the Child and Adult Care Food Program (CACFP), which includes providing meals to young children in preschool settings, such as child care centers and home-based child care, as well as to children participating in after-school programs. It also includes providing guidance and technical assistance to support healthy child care settings.

• Helping communities establish farm-to-school programs, creating school gardens and using more local foods in school cafeterias in order to connect more children to healthy produce from local farms.
 
• Increasing the number of eligible children enrolled in school meals programs by using Medicaid data to directly certify children who meet income requirements without requiring household applications.  This provision is estimated to connect about 115,000 new students to the school meal programs.

• Expanding the after-school supper program for at-risk children nationwide, by allowing the Child and Adult Care Food Program (CACFP) providers in all 50 states and the District of Columbia to be reimbursed for providing a meal to at-risk children after school.  This provision is estimated to provide an additional 21 million meals to at-risk children annually.

• Using census data instead of paper applications to determine school-wide income eligibility to enhance universal meal access for eligible children in high poverty communities.

• Increasing efficiency and modernizes the WIC program by transitioning from paper food vouchers to an electronic benefit program.

• Providing for greater information sharing between WIC and CACFP providers in order to reduce administrative burdens for CACFP providers.

The bill’s cost of $4.5 billion over 10 years is fully paid for.

This Senate-passed bill is partially paid for by $2.2 billion in future cuts to temporary enhanced benefits provided to SNAP (food stamp) participants through the Recovery Act. 
An additional $1 billion is saved over 10 years by extending a provision that allows the Secretary of Agriculture Supports schools’ food service budgets by preventing unrelated expenses from being charged to school food service accounts. Another $1.3 billion would be saved over 10 years by restructuring the nutrition education component of SNAP (the food stamp program) into a new grant program.  The new grant program would distribute federal funds by formula to states and eliminate the requirement for states to provide matching funds.

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