[Congressional Bills 111th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[S. 2805 Introduced in Senate (IS)]

111th CONGRESS
  1st Session
                                S. 2805

To amend the Food and Nutrition Act of 2008 to increase the amount made 
  available to purchase commodities for the emergency food assistance 
                      program in fiscal year 2010.


_______________________________________________________________________


                   IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES

                           November 19, 2009

  Mr. Specter introduced the following bill; which was read twice and 
   referred to the Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry

_______________________________________________________________________

                                 A BILL


 
To amend the Food and Nutrition Act of 2008 to increase the amount made 
  available to purchase commodities for the emergency food assistance 
                      program in fiscal year 2010.

    Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the 
United States of America in Congress assembled,

SECTION 1. FINDINGS.

    Congress finds that--
            (1) more than 1 in 7 households in the United States 
        struggled to find enough to eat during 2008;
            (2) poverty is the primary cause of food insecurity and 
        hunger in the United States;
            (3) the annual report of the Economic Research Service of 
        the Department of Agriculture on household food security in the 
        United States found that in 2008, 17,000,000 households were 
        food insecure, an increase from 13,000,000 households in 2007;
            (4) the term ``low food security'' means people being 
        unable to consistently get enough to eat and the term ``very 
        low food security'' means people being hungry at various times 
        over the year and being unable to eat because of lack of money 
        to purchase food;
            (5) the 17,000,000 food insecure households in the United 
        States are home to 49,000,000 Americans, of whom--
                    (A) 17,000,000 are children, among whom nearly 
                500,000 in the developmentally critical years under the 
                age of 6 are going hungry; and
                    (B) 12,000,000 adults and 5,200,000 children 
                reported experiencing severe hunger, possibly going 
                days without eating;
            (6) good nutrition is necessary for learning and academic 
        achievement; and
            (7) Black and Hispanic households experienced food 
        insecurity at far higher rates (25.7 percent in the case of 
        Black households and 26.9 percent in the case of Hispanic 
        households) than the national average.

SEC. 2. AVAILABILITY OF COMMODITIES FOR THE EMERGENCY FOOD ASSISTANCE 
              PROGRAM.

    Section 27(a)(2) of the Food and Nutrition Act of 2009 (7 U.S.C. 
2036(a)(2)) is amended--
            (1) in subparagraph (B), by striking ``and'' at the end;
            (2) by redesignating subparagraph (C) as subparagraph (E);
            (3) in subparagraph (E) (as so redesignated)--
                    (A) by striking ``each of fiscal years 2010 through 
                2012'' and inserting ``fiscal year 2012''; and
                    (B) by striking ``subparagraph (B)'' and inserting 
                ``subparagraph (D)''; and
            (4) by inserting after subparagraph (B) the following:
                    ``(C) for fiscal year 2010, $500,000,000;
                    ``(D) for fiscal year 2011, $250,000,000, as 
                adjusted in accordance with subparagraph (E); and''.
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