BPC Task Force Co-Chairs Comment on USDA Proposed Rules

Over the past several years, the Bipartisan Policy Center’s Food and Nutrition Security Task Force, a group of 18 public and private sector leaders, identified legislative and policy opportunities to improve food and nutrition security in the United States. Under the direction of four co-chairs—former Agriculture Secretaries Dan Glickman and Ann Veneman, chef and founder of World Central Kitchen José Andrés, and FMI – The Food Industry Association President and CEO Leslie Sarasin—the task force produced a series of reports, including a 2022 policy brief, Strengthening the Child Nutrition Program, and a January 2023 report, Making Food and Nutrition Security a SNAP: Recommendations for the 2023 Farm Bill.

The child nutrition report recommended, among other things, that the Department of Agriculture (USDA):

• maintain and, if possible, strengthen nutrition standards for all foods and beverages provided through the child nutrition programs to better align them with the latest Dietary Guidelines for Americans (DGA) and the National Academies of Science, Engineering and Mathematics (NASEM) recommendations;
• modernize the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) program by relaxing physical-presence rules; and
• provide school meals to all students at no cost, also known as universal school meals, which may include incremental steps such as lowering the threshold for the community eligibility provision (CEP) and increasing the federal reimbursement multiplier.

In the farm bill report, the task force recommended that the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (food stamps) benefits should be allowed to be used to cover online shopping transaction, delivery, monthly membership, or other fees up to a certain limit, such as $10 per month per SNAP participant.

The USDA recently proposed a series of rules that would address some of the task force recommendations, including proposed rules to modernize the WIC program, lower the CEP for school lunches, and two rules to better align the DGA within the school lunch and WIC programs. In response, task force co-chairs Glickman and Veneman submitted letters to the Federal Register highlighting overall support for those rules.

WIC Modernization

The co-chairs noted their support for various USDA proposals related to the physical presence rules, as well as the use of WIC funds to cover some or all online shopping-related fees, given the similarities of the USDA proposal to a SNAP-related task force recommendation.

Lower CEP

The co-chairs wrote in support of the USDA proposed rule to lower the CEP from 40% to 25%, and encouraged the USDA to work with Congress to increase the federal reimbursement multiplier to make it more financially feasible for schools to provide free school lunches.

Align DGA/NASEM in Childhood Nutrition Programs

Not only did the co-chairs comment on the value of better aligning the DGA within the school nutrition programs, but they also noted specific support for establishing nutrition standards for added sugars and updating the school meal standards for sodium, whole grains, and milk, along with a multi-year phase in of the updated standards.

In February 2023, the co-chairs commented on the USDA’s proposed revisions to the WIC food packages and noted their support for three key policy proposals: permanently increasing the overall value of the WIC food package to deliver more nutritious foods to participants, aligning WIC food packages with recommendations from NASEM and the latest DGA, and permanently increasing the cash value benefit for fruits and vegetables.

The Bipartisan Policy Center will continue to provide comments and support efforts that increase access to healthy foods for all Americans.