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Action Alert Archive
ACTION
ALERT Date:
March 8, 2004
Subject: ALERT: Child Nutrition Bill Headed
to the House Floor
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The
following update was added 4/13/2004:
Date: Thursday, April 8, 2004 1:35 PM
Subject: Update on Child Nutrition Reauthorization
FYI. Thanks for your help! - Patti
On the evening of March 24, 2004,
the House of Representatives approved, by an overwhelming
bipartisan majority (419-5), The Child Nutrition Improvement
and Integrity Act (HR 3873). This bill will expand
the availability of nutritious meals to more children
in school, in programs outside school hours, and in
child care.
The bill makes vital improvements
in the nutrition programs, such as:
1) expanding successful paperwork reduction pilots
in the Summer Food Program that have already resulted
in more low-income children receiving nutritious meals
during the summer months (includes non-profits);
2) extending eligibility for snacks and meals to children
in homeless and domestic violence shelters from children
age 12 to children up to the age of 18;
3) making it possible for more low-income children
from military families to receive free and reduced
price school meals;
4) allowing for-profit child care centers that serve
significant numbers of low-income children to participate
in the Child and Adult Care Food Program;
5) providing migrant children with automatic eligibility
for free school meals;
6) creating new ways to improve the nutrition environment
in schools; and
7) making the application process for school meals
easier for many low-income families.
In addition to the provisions
in the House passed bill, we'd like to see the Senate
Agriculture Committee include the following:
1) An extension of the "Lugar" Summer Food
Service Program pilots nationwide and an extension
of eligibility to all sponsors;
2) A pilot program in selected states that would expand
Child and Adult Care Food Program (CACFP) eligibility
to family child care homes in rural areas where 40%
(rather than 50%) of the children are low-income;
and
3) An expansion of the supper pilots to additional
states.
For a section by section analyses
of the House bill go to:
http://www.frac.org/pdf/HR3873analysis.pdf
For further information contact:
Kay Bengston, Director for Domestic Public Policy,
Lutheran Office for Governmental Affairs/ELCA, E-mail:
kay_bengston@elca.org
, Phone: 202/626-7942
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On the morning of
March 4th, the House Education and Workforce Subcommittee
on Education Reform marked up (deliberated) and reported out
(passed) HR 3873, "The Child Nutrition Improvement and
Integrity Act."
The legislation, sponsored by Rep. Michael Castle (R-DE),
is expected to be passed by the full committee next week and
brought to the House Floor for a vote soon after.
Differences over a few remaining provisions
need to be worked out (hopefully prior to the full committee
mark up scheduled for next week) in order for this to be a
bipartisan bill. Committee staff and advocates are working towards that goal.
The positive changes made by the bill
are modest -- less than we hoped -- but there are several
of them. Except for one or two items, all changes are in the right direction.
There may be an opportunity to get a consensus on more
improvements by the time the full committee marks up the bill.
ACTION:
Full Committee mark-up is scheduled for Wednesday, March 10th.
Urge your Members on the House Education and Workforce
Committee (http://www.frac.org/html/federal_food_programs/cnreauthor/edandworkforce.PDF)
to support efforts under discussion to:
- Extend the Lugar Summer Food Pilots (for all types of
sponsors) to additional (possibly all) states;
- Add protections to the verification process that would
protect eligible children from dropping off the program
without adding additional paperwork burdens on schools and
other stakeholders.
Senator Bayh: (202) 224-5623; 1-800-289-0356
e-mail through the web: http://bayh.senate.gov/index1.html
463 Russell Senate Office Building, Washington DC 20510
Senator Lugar: (202) 224-4814; 1-888-280-6279
e-mail:
senator_lugar@lugar.senate.gov
306 Hart Senate Office Building, Washington DC 20510-1401
Rep. Stephen Buyer (4th District) (202)
225-5037
2443 Rayburn House Office Building, Washington, DC 20515-1405
e-mail through the web: www.house.gov/buyer/contact.htm
House of Representatives: www.house.org
to find your representative if you don't live in the Lafayette-West
Lafayette area.
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