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Child Nutrition and WIC Legislation in the 108th and 109th Congresses

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File Size : 32,54 MB

Release : 2006

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Child nutrition programs (e.g., school meal programs, summer food service, child care food programs) and the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (the WIC Program) are subject to periodic comprehensive reviews, when appropriations and other authorities expire and have to be reauthorized. They were up for reauthorization review in the 108th Congress, and the only substantial child nutrition-WIC legislation in the 108th Congress, and so far in the 109th Congress, has been the 2004 reauthorization law -- the Child Nutrition and WIC Reauthorization Act of 2004, P.L. 108-265, enacted June 30, 2004. The 2004 law extended virtually all expiring authorities through FY2009 and contained important, but incremental, changes in child nutrition programs and the WIC program; the Congressional Budget Office estimated that it will generate net new spending totaling about $230 million through FY2009. Its major feature was a set of amendments aimed at improving the integrity and administration of the school meal programs. Significant changes were made in procedures relating to the way children's eligibility for free and reduced-price school meals is certified and verified, and new initiatives to upgrade schools' administration of their meal programs were put in place. However, minimal revisions were made to the school meal programs themselves -- for example, expansion of eligibility for homeless, runaway, and migrant children, loosened rules for certain higher school breakfast subsidies -- and a major proposal to phase in higher income eligibility limits for free school meals was limited to an authorization for a pilot project. Relatively minor amendments also affected the Summer Food Service and Child and Adult Care Food programs -- for example, making permanent and expanding coverage of "Lugar" rules facilitating participation by summer program sponsors and making permanent and nationally applicable a rule loosening Child and Adult Care Food program eligibility rules for for-profit child care centers. Another area of concern addressed by the reauthorization law was nutrition, health, and nutrition education. Here, the biggest initiative was a requirement that all schools participating in school meal programs establish locally designed "wellness policies" to set nutrition, physical activity, and other goals and strategies for meeting them. Coupled with it were (1) authorizations for new nutrition education efforts, (2) an expansion of the program offering free fresh fruit and vegetables in selected schools, and (3) significant changes in food safety rules. Finally, a large number of revisions were made to the law governing the WIC program. The most important among them were amendments aimed at strengthening rules that help contain food costs incurred by the program; these included provisions placing substantial limits on vendors receiving the majority of their revenue from WIC vouchers (so-called "WIC-only" stores). This report will be updated as events and legislation warrant.





Child Nutrition and WIC Legislation in the 106th and 107th Congresses

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File Size : 43,58 MB

Release : 2002

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Child nutrition programs and the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (the WIC program) are governed by: the Richard B. Russell National School Lunch Act, the Child Nutrition Act, and Section 32 of the Act of August 24, 1935. Reauthorization of appropriations and comprehensive review of the these programs was last done in the 1998 William F. Goodling Child Nutrition Reauthorization Act (P.L. 105-336), and the next reauthorization and major review is scheduled for 2003. However, a number of significant changes to child nutrition and WIC law have been enacted since 1998. In the 106th Congress, seven laws included provisions affecting child nutrition and WIC programs: P.L. 106-65, P.L. 106-170, P.L. 106-224, P.L. 106-398, P.L. 106-472, and P.L. 106-554. The most important of these ? P.L. 106-224 and P.L. 106-554 ? increased commodity support for school lunch programs, incorporated amendments aimed at improving the integrity and management of the Child and Adult Care Food Program (CACFP), expanded/established demonstrations affecting for-profit child care centers in the CACFP and outside-of-school programs, and created a pilot to increase participation in the Summer Food Service program. In the 107th Congress, a number of legislative issues arose: CACFP eligibility of for-profit child care centers, rules for day care homes in the CACFP, CACFP afterschool initiatives, commodity support for schools (the level of support and expansion of the presence of fruits and vegetables in school nutrition programs), the purchase of locally produced foods for school meal programs, rules governing the offering of foods in competition with school meals ("competitive foods"), a paperwork reduction initiative for school meal programs, military families' eligibility for free/reducedprice school meals and WIC assistance, expansion of the Summer Food Service program, School Breakfast program expansion and a "before-school" proposal, and a nutrition and physical activity initiative. A number of these areas were addressed in enacted legislation: P.L. 107-76 (the FY2002 Agriculture Department appropriations measure) and P.L. 107-171 (the 2002 "farm bill;" the Farm Security and Rural Investment Act). In addition: S. 2801 (the Senate Appropriations Committee version of the FY2003 Agriculture Department appropriations measure) touched on several legislative issues, as did S. 940/H.R. 1990; S. 1179 and S. 1246 dealt with commodity support, although the provisions of S. 1246 were overtaken by P.L. 107171; H.R. 3997 affected rules for locally produced foods (in Puerto Rico) and was incorporated in P.L. 107-171; S. 745 and H.R. 2129 proposed changes in "competitive food" rules; S. 1246 dealt with a paperwork reduction issue, which was separately resolved in P.L. 107-76; H.R. 3082, H.R. 3216, and S. 1973 all dealt with the eligibility of military families, which was separately resolved in P.L. 107-171; S. 2660 included provisions to expand summer programs (also in S. 2801); H.R. 4192 proposed a new "before-school" initiative affecting the School Breakfast program; and S. 2821 incorporated nutrition and physical activity initiatives relating to school nutrition programs.