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Chairwoman Stabenow Secures Permanent Funding to Feed Children During the Summer Months

Legislation Also Includes Assistance for Victims of SNAP Fraud

WASHINGTON – U.S. Senator Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.), Chairwoman of the U.S. Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry, has secured permanent funding for a comprehensive approach to summer meals for children. This is accomplished by establishing a nationwide summer EBT program and more flexible meal delivery options. This is an important victory for children and families because it is the first permanent investment Congress has made in child nutrition in over 10 years. These actions will benefit 29 million children. She also secured assistance to protect families who are victims of SNAP fraud. 

“We know too often children who are able to get healthy meals in school go hungry during the summer. This investment is a critical step to ending childhood hunger. I want to thank Ranking Member John Boozman and House Education and Labor Chairman Bobby Scott for their partnership on this important effort. Our work is far from over, and I remain committed to passing a comprehensive child nutrition reauthorization, and also protecting the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program as we begin work on the 2023 Farm Bill,” said Chairwoman Stabenow.

The Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2023, includes:

Permanent Funding to Help Children Receive Meals During the Summer:

Provides families $40/ month per eligible child through a permanent EBT program to buy groceries to supplement traditional summer meals programs. The bill also establishes flexibility for alternative meal delivery for rural areas such as grab and go, mobile delivery, backpack programs, or shipping meals. The legislation will make it easier for states to operate P-EBT for summer 2023.  This will allow 29 million children to have healthier food.

Protecting Families Whose Nutrition EBT Are Stolen:

States are seeing alarming increases in cases of SNAP EBT being stolen from households through no fault of their own. These households are victims of skimming, where thieves use electronic devices to steal a household’s EBT. This legislation gives USDA and states the authority to reissue nutrition EBT to victims of this fraud and to increase security measures to protect families from losing their SNAP EBT due to fraud technology. This will also help to gather more data on these types and occurrences of SNAP fraud so that the U.S. Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry can further investigate and respond to this issue in the 2023 Farm Bill.

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