[House Hearing, 117 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]



 
                    ENDING CHILD HUNGER: PRIORITIES
                  FOR CHILD NUTRITION REAUTHORIZATION

=======================================================================

                                HEARING

                               before the

                            SUBCOMMITTEE ON
                            CIVIL RIGHTS AND
                             HUMAN SERVICES

                                 of the

                    COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION AND LABOR
                     U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                    ONE HUNDRED SEVENTEENTH CONGRESS

                             FIRST SESSION

                               __________

             HEARING HELD IN WASHINGTON, DC, JUNE 10, 2021

                               __________

                           Serial No. 117-18

                               __________
                               
                               

      Printed for the use of the Committee on Education and Labor
      

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          Available via: edlabor.house.gov or www.govinfo.gov

                               __________
                               
             U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE 
44-801PDF            WASHINGTON : 2022                               
                               
                               
                               

                    COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION AND LABOR

             ROBERT C. ``BOBBY'' SCOTT, Virginia, Chairman

RAUL M. GRIJALVA, Arizona            VIRGINIA FOXX, North Carolina,
JOE COURTNEY, Connecticut              Ranking Member
GREGORIO KILILI CAMACHO SABLAN,      JOE WILSON, South Carolina
  Northern Mariana Islands           GLENN THOMPSON, Pennsylvania
FREDERICA S. WILSON, Florida         TIM WALBERG, Michigan
SUZANNE BONAMICI, Oregon             GLENN GROTHMAN, Wisconsin
MARK TAKANO, California              ELISE M. STEFANIK, New York
ALMA S. ADAMS, North Carolina        RICK W. ALLEN, Georgia
MARK DeSAULNIER, California          JIM BANKS, Indiana
DONALD NORCROSS, New Jersey          JAMES COMER, Kentucky
PRAMILA JAYAPAL, Washington          RUSS FULCHER, Idaho
JOSEPH D. MORELLE, New York          FRED KELLER, Pennsylvania
SUSAN WILD, Pennsylvania             GREGORY F. MURPHY, North Carolina
LUCY McBATH, Georgia                 MARIANNETTE MILLER-MEEKS, Iowa
JAHANA HAYES, Connecticut            BURGESS OWENS, Utah
ANDY LEVIN, Michigan                 BOB GOOD, Virginia
ILHAN OMAR, Minnesota                LISA C. McCLAIN, Michigan
HALEY M. STEVENS, Michigan           DIANA HARSHBARGER, Tennessee
TERESA LEGER FERNANDEZ, New Mexico   MARY E. MILLER, Illinois
MONDAIRE JONES, New York             VICTORIA SPARTZ, Indiana
KATHY E. MANNING, North Carolina     SCOTT FITZGERALD, Wisconsin
FRANK J. MRVAN, Indiana              MADISON CAWTHORN, North Carolina
JAMAAL BOWMAN, New York, Vice-Chair  MICHELLE STEEL, California
MARK POCAN, Wisconsin                JULIA LETLOW, Louisiana
JOAQUIN CASTRO, Texas                Vacancy
MIKIE SHERRILL, New Jersey
JOHN A. YARMUTH, Kentucky
ADRIANO ESPAILLAT, New York
KWEISI MFUME, Maryland

                   Veronique Pluviose, Staff Director
                  Cyrus Artz, Minority Staff Director
                                 ------                                

            SUBCOMMITTEE ON CIVIL RIGHTS AND HUMAN SERVICES

                  SUZANNE BONAMICI, Oregon, Chairwoman

ALMA S. ADAMS, North Carolina        RUSS FULCHER, Idaho, Ranking 
JAHANA HAYES, Connecticut                Member
TERESA LEGER FERNANDEZ, New Mexico   GLENN THOMPSON, Pennsylvania
FRANK J. MRVAN, Indiana              LISA C. McCLAIN, Michigan
JAMAAL BOWMAN, New York              VICTORIA SPARTZ, Indiana
KWEISI MFUME, Maryland               SCOTT FITZGERALD, Wisconsin
ROBERT C. ``BOBBY'' SCOTT, Virginia  VIRGINIA FOXX, North Carolina (ex 
  (ex officio)                           officio)
  
                            C O N T E N T S

                              ----------                              
                                                                   Page

Hearing held on June 10, 2021....................................     1

Statement of Members:
    Bonamici, Hon. Suzanne, Chairwoman, Subcommittee on Civil 
      Rights 
      and Human Services.........................................     1
        Prepared statement of....................................     4
    Fitzgerald, Hon. Scott, Member, Subcommittee on Civil Rights 
      and Human Services.........................................     5
        Prepared statement of....................................     7

Statement of Witness:
    Colicchio, Tom, Chef and Owner, Crafted Hospitality..........    32
        Prepared statement of....................................    35
    Cooper, Crystal, Executive Director, Nutrition Support 
      Services, Chicago Public Schools...........................    20
        Prepared statement of....................................    23
    Lipps, Brandon, Principal, Caprock Strategies................    24
        Prepared statement of....................................    27
    Wilson, Michael, Director, Maryland Hunger Solutions.........     8
        Prepared statement of....................................    11

Additional Submissions:
    Chairwoman Bonamici
        ``Impact Of The Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act On Obesity 
          Trends'', Health Affairs, July 2020....................    58
        ``Reducing Sodium Intake in Children: A Public Health 
          Investment'', The Journal of Clinical Hypertension, 
          September 2015.........................................    66
        Chicago Public Schools Menu, K-12 Lunch, June 2021.......    72
        ``Nutrition Standards and School Meals'', Fact Sheet, 
          American Heart Association, February 2021..............    74
        ``Reducing Sodium in the Diets of American Children'', 
          Fact Sheet, American Heart Association, April 2020.....    78
        ``Rollback of Nutrition Standards Not Supported By 
          Evidence'', Health Affairs, March 2019.................    80
    Ranking Member Foxx
        CBO preliminary estimate for ``Universal free rate for 
          all school lunch and breakfast meals''.................    87
    Questions submitted for the record by:
        Chairwoman Bonamici 



    Responses to questions submitted for the record by:
        Mr. Wilson...............................................    89
        Ms. Cooper...............................................    93


                    ENDING CHILD HUNGER: PRIORITIES

                  FOR CHILD NUTRITION REAUTHORIZATION

                              ----------                              


                        Thursday, June 10, 2021

                  House of Representatives,
   Subcommittee on Civil Rights and Human Services,
                          Committee on Education and Labor,
                                                    Washington, DC.
    The Subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 12:01 p.m., 
via Zoom, Hon. Suzanne Bonamici (Chairwoman of the 
Subcommittee) presiding.
    Present: Representatives Bonamici, Adams, Hayes, Leger 
Fernandez, Mrvan, Scott (ex officio), Fitzgerald, and Foxx (ex 
officio).
    Staff present: Ilana Brunner, General Counsel; Alison Hard, 
Professional Staff; Rasheedah Hasan, Chief Clerk; Sheila 
Havenner, Director of Information Technology; Eli Hovland, 
Policy Associate; Carrie Hughes, Director of Health and Human 
Services; Ariel Jona, Policy Associate; Andre Lindsay, Policy 
Associate; Mariah Mowbray, Clerk/Special Assistant to the Staff 
Director; Kayla Pennebecker, Staff Assistant; Veronique 
Pluviose, Staff Director; Banyon Vassar, Deputy Director of 
Information Technology; Joshua Weisz, Communications Director; 
Cyrus Artz, Minority Staff Director; Amy Raaf Jones, Minority 
Director of Education and Human Resources Policy; Dean Johnson, 
Minority Legislative Assistant; Hannah Matesic, Minority 
Director of Operations; and Mandy Schaumburg, Minority Chief 
Counsel and Deputy Director of Education Policy.
    Chairwoman Bonamici. The Subcommittee on Human Rights and 
Human Services will come to order. Welcome everyone. I note 
that a quorum is present. I note for the Subcommittee that Ms. 
Omar of Minnesota is permitted to participate in today's 
hearing with the understanding that her questions will come 
only after all Members of the Subcommittee on Civil Rights and 
Human Services on both sides of the aisle who are present have 
had an opportunity to question the witnesses.
    The Subcommittee is meeting today to hear testimony on 
``Ending Child Hunger: Priorities for Child Nutrition 
Reauthorization''. This is an entirely remote hearing. All 
microphones will be kept muted as a general rule to avoid 
unnecessary background noise.
    Members and witnesses will be responsible for unmuting 
themselves when they are recognized to speak or when they wish 
to seek recognition. I also ask that Members please identify 
themselves before they speak. Members should keep their cameras 
on while in the proceeding.
    Members shall be considered present in the proceeding when 
they are visible on camera, and they shall be considered not 
present when they are not visible on camera. The only exception 
to this is if they are experiencing technical difficulty and 
inform the Committee staff of such difficulty.
    If any Member experiences technical difficulty during the 
hearing you should stay connected on the platform, make sure 
you are muted, and use your phone to immediately call the 
Committee's IT director whose number was provided in advance. 
Should the Chair experience technical difficulty or need to 
step away to vote on the floor, that won't happen today, Ms. 
Adams, or another majority Member is hereby authorized to 
assume the gavel in the Chair's absence.
    This is an entirely remote hearing, and as such the 
Committee's hearing room is officially closed. Members who 
choose to sit with their individual devices in the hearing room 
must wear headphones to avoid feedback, echoes and distortion 
resulting from more than one person on the software platform 
sitting in the same room.
    Members are also expected to adhere to social distancing 
and safe health guidelines, including the use of masks, hand 
sanitizer and wiping down their areas both before and after 
their presence in the hearing room. To ensure that the 
Committee's five-minute rule is adhered to staff will be 
keeping track of time using the Committee's field timer.
    The field timer will appear in its own thumbnail picture 
and will be named 001_timer. There will be no one minute 
warning. The field timer will show a blinking light when time 
is up. Members and witnesses are asked to wrap up promptly when 
their time has expired.
    Although a roll call is not necessary to establish a quorum 
in official proceedings conducted remotely, or with remote 
participation, the Committee has made it a practice when there 
is an official proceeding with remote participation for the 
Clerk to call the roll to help make clear who is present at the 
start of the proceeding.
    Members should say their names before announcing they are 
present, and this helps the Clerk and also it helps those 
watching the platform on the livestream who may experience a 
few seconds delay. At this time I will ask the Clerk to call 
the roll.
    The Clerk. Chair Bonamici?
    Chair Bonamici. Chair Bonamici is present.
    The Clerk. Ms. Adams?
    [No response.]
    The Clerk. Mrs. Hayes?
    Mrs. Hayes. Mrs. Hayes is present.
    The Clerk. Ms. Leger Fernandez?
    [No response.]
    The Clerk. Mr. Mrvan?
    Mr. Mrvan. Mr. Mrvan is present.
    The Clerk. Mr. Bowman?
    [No response.]
    The Clerk. Mr. Mfume?
    [No response.]
    The Clerk. Chairman Scott?
    Chairman Scott. Chairman Scott is present.
    The Clerk. Ranking Member Fulcher?
    [No response.]
    The Clerk. Mr. Thompson?
    [No response.]
    The Clerk. Mrs. McClain?
    [No response.]
    The Clerk. Mrs. Spartz?
    [No response.]
    The Clerk. Mr. Fitzgerald?
    Mr. Fitzgerald. Here.
    The Clerk. Ranking Member Foxx?
    Ms. Foxx. Foxx is present.
    The Clerk. Chair Bonamici that concludes the roll call.
    Chairwoman Bonamici. Thank you very much. Pursuant to 
Committee Rule 8(c) opening statements are limited to the Chair 
and Ranking Member. This allows for us to hear from our 
witnesses sooner and provides all Members with adequate time to 
ask questions, and I recognize myself for an opening statement.
    Our hearing today is to examine legislative solutions to 
end child hunger and discuss how we can bolster proven 
strategies to feed hungry children. As elected leaders one of 
our most basic responsibilities is to make sure that children 
have enough to eat. Consistent access to nutritious food is a 
moral imperative, and an economic necessity.
    It is a good investment because it allows children to live 
healthier and more fulfilling lives, and it provides the next 
generation with a strong foundation to grow and thrive. Sadly, 
child hunger remains a national crisis, particularly in the 
aftermath of COVID19. Last July an estimated 14 million 
children were not getting enough to eat. The families who were 
already food insecure before the pandemic disproportionately 
families of color, feared even worse.
    In response this Committee took swift action to prevent 
millions of children from going hungry. We provided critical 
flexibility through bipartisan legislation to allow schools to 
offer free meals for all children, and have food delivered to 
families. We created the highly effective pandemic EBT program 
or PEBT which lifted at least 2.7 million children out of 
hunger in its early weeks of implementation.
    And we eliminated other barriers to getting healthy foods 
into the mouths and bellies of hungry children. Because of 
these provisions as well as the American Rescue Plan, reports 
of food shortages among households with children fell by 42 
percent from January through April.
    Although food insecurity has fallen, we know our work is 
far from over. Our bipartisan commitment to feeding hungry 
children must be ongoing and unwavering and must meet the needs 
in our schools and our communities. It should not matter if the 
economy is booming, or if we're fighting a once in a lifetime 
pandemic.
    In the United States of America no child should go hungry. 
Today we will focus on the steps we must take to make that 
aspiration a reality, specifically reauthorizing Federal child 
nutrition programs, which have not been updated in more than a 
decade, as well as passing the American Families Plan and 
American Jobs Plan which invest more than 40 billion dollars to 
provide nutritious meals for children in our communities.
    Through these legislative efforts we have an opportunity to 
learn from the pandemic and rethink our child nutrition 
programs to provide every child with the healthy food they need 
to succeed in school and throughout life. The American Families 
Plan would provide for more than 9 million additional children 
access to free meals and simplify and streamline program 
administration by expanding the popular and effective community 
eligibility provision or CEP.
    To best serve children school meals must also follow 
nutrition standards that are based on research and science. A 
2020 study shows the standards in our Healthy Hungry Free Kids 
Act correlate to a 47 percent lower rate of childhood obesity 
for low-income students.
    The improvements to nutrition standards have made school 
meals the best source of nutrition for many children, but we 
must make sure these standards are fully implemented. Both the 
American Families Plan and American Jobs Plan invest in 
incentivizing healthier school meals and updating school 
kitchens.
    Providing nutrition support after school and during the 
summer is also critical as students recover from a year of lost 
classroom time. For example, the American Families Plan makes 
permanent and nationwide the summer EBT program which already 
provides food assistance to some families during the summer.
    This program gave more than 70,000 children in Oregon 
access to meals when school was out. By reauthorizing school 
nutrition programs we can also strengthen the summer food 
service program, which serves meals at schools and other 
community spaces during the summer.
    During the pandemic Congress provided the Department of 
Agriculture with the authority to operate this program 
throughout the country. Now we have the chance to make these 
flexibilities permanent because we know hungry kids do not just 
reside in our poorest neighborhoods. Today we will examine 
these solutions and discuss how we can work together to provide 
all children with the nutritious food they need year-round.
    I look forward to hearing from our expert witnesses today 
and I now yield to the Ranking Member Mr. Fitzgerald for his 
opening statement.
    [The prepared statement of Chairwoman Bonamici follows:]

 Statement of Hon. Suzanne Bonamici, Chairwoman, Subcommittee on Civil 
                       Rights and Human Services

    Our hearing today is to examine legislative solutions to end child 
hunger and discuss how we can bolster proven strategies to feed hungry 
children.
    As elected leaders, one of our most basic responsibilities is to 
make sure that children have enough to eat. Consistent access to 
nutritious food is a moral imperative and an economic necessity. It is 
a good investment because it allows children to live healthier and more 
fulfilling lives, and it provides the next generation with a strong 
foundation to grow and thrive.
    Sadly, child hunger remains a national crisis, particularly in the 
aftermath of COVID-19. Last July, an estimated 14 million children were 
not getting enough to eat. The families who were already food insecure 
before the pandemic--disproportionally families of color--fared even 
worse.
    In response, this Committee took swift action to prevent millions 
of children from going hungry.
    We provided critical flexibility through bipartisan legislation to 
allow schools to offer free meals for all children and have food 
delivered to families. We created the highly effective Pandemic EBT 
program, or P-EBT, which lifted at least 2.7 million children out of 
hunger in its early weeks of implementation. And we eliminated other 
barriers to getting healthy food into the mouths and bellies of hungry 
children.
    Because of these provisions, as well as the American Rescue Plan, 
reports of food shortages among households with children fell by 42 
percent from January through April.
    Although food insecurity has fallen, we know our work is far from 
over. Our bipartisan commitment to feeding hungry children must be 
ongoing and unwavering, and must meet the needs in our schools and our 
communities. It should not matter if the economy is booming or if we're 
fighting a once-in-a-lifetime pandemic. In the United States of 
America, no child should go hungry.
    Today, we will focus on the steps we must take to make that 
aspiration a reality, specifically: reauthorizing Federal child 
nutrition programs, which have not been updated in more than a decade, 
as well as passing the American Families Plan and American Jobs Plan, 
which invest more than $40 billion to provide nutritious meals for 
children in our communities.
    Through these legislative efforts, we have an opportunity to learn 
from the pandemic and rethink our child nutrition programs to provide 
every child with the healthy food they need to succeed in school and 
then throughout life.
    The American Families Plan would provide more than 9 million 
additional children with access to free school meals and simplify and 
streamline program administration by expanding the popular and 
effective Community Eligibility Provision, or C-E-P.
    To best serve children, school meals must also follow nutrition 
standards that are based on research and science. A 2020 study shows 
the standards in the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act correlate to a 47 
percent lower rate of childhood obesity for low-income students. The 
improvements to nutrition standards have made school meals the best 
source of nutrition for children, but we must make sure these standards 
are fully implemented. Both the American Families Plan and American 
Jobs Plan invest in incentivizing healthier school meals and updating 
school kitchens.
    Providing nutrition support after school and during the summer is 
also critical as students recover from a year of lost classroom time. 
For example, the American Families Plan makes permanent and nationwide 
the Summer EBT program, which already provides food assistance to some 
families during the summer. This program gave more than 70,000 children 
in Oregon access to meals when school was out.
    By reauthorizing child nutrition programs, we can also strengthen 
the Summer Food Service Program, which serves meals at schools and 
other community spaces during the summer. During the pandemic, Congress 
provided the Department of Agriculture with the authority to operate 
this program throughout the country. Now, we have the chance to make 
these flexibilities permanent because we know hungry kids do not just 
reside in our poorest neighborhoods.
    Today, we will examine these solutions and discuss how we can work 
together to provide all children with the nutritious food they need 
year-round.
    I look forward to hearing from our expert witnesses today, and I 
now yield to the Ranking Member, Mr. Fitzgerald, for his opening 
statement.
                                 ______
                                 
    Mr. Fitzgerald. Thank you, Chairwoman, Bonamici, and thank 
you for calling this hearing on child nutrition. The past year 
has shown us that school is not only a place where children go 
to learn, when students switched to virtual learning overnight, 
we witnessed the real active role hunger could play in schools 
as well.
    The harsh reality is many children depend on in-person 
learning for a reliable meal every day. As we begin discussions 
on the reauthorization of the child nutrition laws, I'd like to 
keep that in perspective. Hunger is a verb, and it can affect 
the entire trajectory of a child's life.
    Children experiencing hunger perform worse academically. 46 
percent of students from low-income families say that hunger 
negatively impacts their academic performance and studies 
substantiate that claim. Families dealing with hunger are more 
likely to have a child with lower math scores or repeat a 
grade.
    And while studies and data are important in constructing 
good policy, it does not take a scientist to know that children 
thrive when they have access to nutritious meals. We also know 
that schools are more than just places to learn. The pandemic 
and related school closures highlighted the important roles 
schools play in helping all children, particularly those from 
low-income families.
    They establish a routine and escape any stressors that 
await them at home. That is why when school closures threaten 
children's access to healthy meals during the academic year, 
the Federal Government worked in a bipartisan manner to ensure 
that school aged children continue to receive this vital 
resource. This was the right decision in an emergency, and it 
was encouraging to see everyone work together in this time of 
need.
    But as the pandemic winds down and school now reopen, we 
too must shift our attention away from heavy handed Federal 
intervention and toward supporting local school districts as 
they work to administer, and in many cases, essentially restart 
their school meal programs.
    Any reauthorization of the child nutrition laws must 
involve local school officials and private partners because 
they know best what their students need and are positioned to 
deliver healthy meals in an effective manner.
    That means establishing rules that are easy for schools to 
follow and allowing them to serve meals that students will eat. 
It also means addressing the current standards in place and 
making the needed reforms so that kids will in fact eat their 
healthy meals. Though some of these reasonable reforms we can 
work with our partners to create, also we must make sure that 
school lunches are not wasted.
    For example, we can help more children get the benefits of 
milk if we apply a little common sense and allow schools to 
serve low-fat flavored milk with their meal or ensure that 
sodium limits don't prohibit serving cheese at lunch, spoken 
from the Congressman from Wisconsin.
    Similarly, we must refrain from creating new duplicative 
programs, and instead focus on improving existing programs to 
better serve students most in need, especially those in rural 
communities. I hope we can all work together and make some good 
changes to programs like the summer food service program, farm 
to school, and other existing programs to address the gaps in 
service that exist before we just layer on a new set of 
programs.
    I am hopeful that as we keep these priorities in mind 
providing healthy meals that students will eat, allowing 
wholesome foods like cheese to remain on student's plates, and 
reforming existing programs to address gaps in coverage, that 
we can arrive at a bipartisan solution that puts students, not 
politics, at the forefront.
    Thank you to all the witnesses for taking time out of their 
day to discuss this important issue, and I look forward to 
hearing from you all and I would yield back.
    [The prepared statement of Mr. Fitzgerald follows:]

   Statement of Hon. Scott Fitzgerald, Member, Subcommittee on Civil 
                       Rights and Human Services

    Thank you Chairwoman Bonamici. And thank you for calling this 
hearing on child nutrition.
    The past year has shown the real, active role hunger can play in a 
child's life. We've witnessed real hunger, the one where a child is 
forced to go without a meal because the cupboards are empty. And we've 
watched as our children hungered for in-person learning, and the Nation 
hungered for cures, information, and a vaccine.
    As we begin discussions on the reauthorization of the child 
nutrition laws, I'd like to keep that in perspective--hunger is a verb, 
and it can affect the entire trajectory of a child's life.
    Children experiencing hunger perform worse academically. Forty 6 
percent of students from low-income families say that hunger negatively 
impacts their academic performance, and studies substantiate that 
claim. Families dealing with hunger are more likely to have a child 
with lower math scores or repeat a grade.
    And while studies and data are important in constructing good 
policy, it does not take a scientist to know that children thrive when 
they have access to nutritious meals. We also know that schools are 
more than just places to learn. The pandemic and related school 
closures highlighted the important roles schools play in helping all 
children, particularly those from low-income families, establish a 
routine and escape any stressors that await them at home.
    That is why, when school closures threatened children's access to 
healthy meals during the academic year, the Federal Government worked 
in a bipartisan manner to ensure that school-aged children continued to 
receive this vital resource. This was the right decision in an 
emergency, and it was encouraging to see everyone work together in this 
time of need.
    But as the pandemic winds down and schools reopen, we too must 
shift our attention away from heavy-handed Federal intervention and 
toward supporting local school districts as they work to administer 
and, in many cases, essentially restart their school meal programs.
    Any reauthorization of the child nutrition laws must involve local 
school officials and private partners, who know best what their 
students need and are positioned to deliver healthy meals in an 
effective manner. That means establishing rules that are easy for 
schools to follow and allowing them to serve meals that students will 
eat. It also means addressing the current standards in place and making 
the needed reforms so kids will in fact eat their healthy meals. 
Through some of these reasonable reforms, we can work with our partners 
to create good food that will not go to waste. For example, we can help 
more children get the benefits of milk if we apply a little common 
sense and allow schools to serve low-fat flavored milk with their meal 
or ensure the sodium limits don't prohibit serving cheese at lunch.
    Similarly, we must refrain from creating new, duplicative programs 
and instead focus on improving existing programs to better serve 
students most in need, especially those in rural communities. I hope we 
can all work together and make some good changes to programs like the 
Summer Food Service Program, Farm to School, and other existing 
programs to address the gaps in service that exist before we just layer 
on new programs.
    I am hopeful that as we keep these priorities in mind--providing 
healthy meals that students will eat, allowing wholesome foods like 
cheese to remain on students' plates, and reforming existing programs 
to address gaps in coverage--that we can arrive at a bipartisan 
solution that puts students, not politics, at the forefront.
    Thank you to our witnesses for taking time out of your day to 
discuss this important issue, I look forward to hearing from you all.
    I yield back.
                                 ______
                                 
    Chairman Bonamici. Thank you very much Ranking Member. 
Without objection all other Members who wish to insert written 
statements into the record may do so by submitting them to the 
Committee Clerk electronically in Microsoft Word format by 5 
p.m. on June 24, 2021.
    I will now introduce the witnesses. First Michael J. 
Wilson, he joined Maryland Hunger Solutions in June 2013 as 
Director. Mr. Wilson is a core advisor in the Maryland 
Partnership to End Childhood Hunger. He previously served on 
the Board of the Food Research and Action Center, or FRAC.
    Next, we have Crystal Cooper who is the Executive Director 
of Nutrition Support Services for Chicago Public Schools which 
serves 330,000 students at 660 schools. Ms. Cooper also serves 
as the treasurer for the Urban School Food Alliance.
    Brandon Lipps is with us. He's the Co-Founder and Principal 
of Caprock Strategies, a strategic consulting firm specializing 
in food, agriculture, and anti-poverty programs. Prior to 
launching Caprock Strategies he served in the role of 
Undersecretary for Food Nutrition and Consumer Services at the 
U.S. Department of Agriculture.
    Next Tom Colicchio is the Chef and Owner of Crafted 
Hospitality which includes restaurants in New York, Los 
Angeles, and Las Vegas, and he serves on the boards of Children 
of Bellevue, the Independent Restaurant Coalition, City Harvest 
and Wholesome Wave.
    Chef Colicchio is also the head judge and executive 
producer of the Emmy award winning Brave TV hit series Top Chef 
which we were happy to welcome to Portland. Mr. Colicchio 
executively produced a 2013 documentary, A Place at the Table, 
about the underlying causes of hunger in the United States.
    We appreciate all the witnesses for participating today and 
look forward to your testimony. Let me remind the witnesses 
that we have read your written statements, and they will appear 
in full in the hearing record. Pursuant to Committee Rule 8(d) 
and Committee practice, each of you is asked to limit your oral 
presentation to a five-minute summary of your written 
statement.
    Before you begin your testimony, please remember to unmute 
your microphone. And during your testimony staff will be 
keeping track of time and a light will blink when time is up. 
Please be attentive to the time and wrap up when your time is 
over and remute your microphone.
    If any of you do experience technical difficulty during 
your testimony or later in the hearing, please stay connected 
if you can on the platform, make sure you're muted, and use 
your phone to call the Committee's IT director whose number was 
provided to you in advance.
    We will let all the witnesses make their presentations 
before we move to Member questions. When answering a question 
please remember to unmute your microphone. The witnesses are 
aware of their responsibility to provide accurate information 
to the Subcommittee, and therefore we will proceed with your 
testimony. I first recognize Mr. Wilson for five minutes.

    STATEMENT OF MICHAEL WILSON, DIRECTOR, MARYLAND HUNGER 
                           SOLUTIONS

    Mr. Wilson. Good afternoon. Good morning Members of the 
Committee. My name is Michael J. Wilson. I'm the Director of 
Maryland Hunger Solutions and I'm also representing the Food 
Research and Action Center. Thank you Chair Bonamici, Ranking 
Member Fitzgerald, Ranking Member Foxx, and Chairman Scott for 
allowing me the privilege of being able to be with you today.
    As millions of children and families recover from the 
health, educational, and economic impact of the pandemic 
there's never been a more important time to make significant 
investments in the child nutrition programs.
    The upcoming child nutrition reauthorization process and 
economic recovery legislation present the opportunity for the 
Committee to make much needed improvements to the child 
nutrition programs to reduce childhood hunger, decrease 
childhood overweight and obesity, improve child nutrition and 
wellness, enhance child development and school readiness, and 
support academic achievement.
    We need to expand program access and participation, ensure 
nutrition quality, and simplify program administration and 
operation. As the Committee that oversees the child nutrition 
programs and education, you have a historic opportunity to make 
a significant investment and improvements to the child 
nutrition programs in a way that would allow them to better 
combat hunger and improve health while supporting academic 
achievement and educational outcomes.
    My testimony will focus on investments in the child 
nutrition programs. I want to ensure that you know that we 
believe that the most important step that the Committee and 
Congress can take to support health and education is to allow 
all schools to offer school meals to all children at no charge, 
which is what we are doing right now.
    My testimony provides detailed information on why this is a 
critical component of a 21st Century education system. Millions 
of children currently are eligible for free and reduced priced 
meals, who are certified don't participate because of 
administrative hurdles, conflicting government bureaucracies, 
stigma, and many other barriers.
    There are incremental steps that can be taken to improve 
our systems, but the most efficient and effective way is 
providing healthy school meals for all. Let me tell you about a 
little bit from my perspective here in Maryland, which I think 
is emblematic around the country.
    No. 1, school breakfast is a game changer. We know that 
often schools make sure kids have a healthy breakfast when they 
are testing, but we need to make sure that those kids have a 
healthy breakfast every day. We use a program here in Maryland 
which many of my colleagues around the country are jealous of 
called Maryland Meals for Achievement.
    We're not completely funding it, but it makes sure that 
low-income kids can get breakfast in the classroom, which is a 
critical component of how we succeed.
    No. 2, school meal debts damage children in many ways, and 
I want to be very specific that children are moving through 
school, graduating from school with school meal debts that they 
buildup because they are charged, and they can't pay for those 
school meals.
    I'm going to give you a specific example. There was a girl, 
a second grader in Baltimore County just outside of Baltimore 
City, and her mom was wondering why is my daughter constipated? 
Why is she so hungry when I pick her up at the end of the day 
at school? Why is this happening? Only to find out that her 
daughter had been getting a lunch when she goes to school, and 
having the lunch thrown away and be given a cheese sandwich.
    The daughter should not have had that happen to her because 
her mom was on SNAP. She was eligible for free meals, but the 
lack of communication between the school, the school system and 
the parent made the daughter have to suffer. There's no way you 
can ever say you're sorry to that 7 year old girl who now has 
to live with this all of her life. There's no way of making 
this up, and it's another reason why we need to have school 
meals for all, so that we aren't damaging young children this 
way.
    Third, community eligibility is a win/win for schools and 
students. It's been great for us in urban Baltimore, it's been 
great in suburban Howard County, which is one of the wealthiest 
counties in the country, $84,000.00 of household income where 
even they are using community eligibility.
    And in Somerset County in Eastern Shore where the 
superintendent has said it is the best decision he ever made as 
an educator. Children learn in school. They don't just learn 
reading writing and arithmetic. They learn about history, 
computers, and our government. They need to learn from all the 
work that we are doing and that you are doing is that they are 
a most valued resource and that they are our future.
    We should invest in them on making sure they get free 
school meals for all students. Thank you, Madam Chair.
    [The prepared statement of Mr. Wilson follows:]

                  Prepared Statement of Michael Wilson                
                  
                  
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]



    Chairwoman Bonamici. Thank you for your testimony. Next, 
we'll hear from Ms. Cooper. Ms. Cooper you're recognized for 
five minutes for your testimony, welcome.

  STATEMENT OF CRYSTAL COOPER, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, NUTRITION 
            SUPPORT SERVICES, CHICAGO PUBLIC SCHOOLS

    Ms. Cooper. Good afternoon, Chair Bonamici, Ranking Member 
Fitzgerald, Chairman Scott, Ranking Member Foxx, and Members of 
the Subcommittee on Civil Rights and Human Services. Thank you 
for the opportunity to discuss Ending Child Hunger: Priorities 
for Child Nutrition Reauthorization.
    I am Crystal Cooper, Executive Director of Nutritious 
Support Services at Chicago Public Schools. I've had the honor 
of working with some of the best nutrition professions in 
Chicago for over 7 years. The lunchroom staff at CPS serves 
over 60 million meals to over 300,000 students annually.
    CPS is a 100 percent community eligibility provision 
district receiving the maximum free reimbursement rate for all 
meals. CPS participates in all child nutrition programs 
available, such as the National School Lunch Program, the 
School Breakfast Program, Child and Adult Care Food Program, 
the Fresh Fruit and Vegetable Program, the Department of 
Defense Fresh Fruit and Vegetable Program, and the Summer Food 
Service Program.
    We are committed to serving our students the freshest and 
healthiest meals during the school day and during after school 
and Saturday activities. During the pandemic, we have been 
grateful for the waivers received, specifically the non-
congregate feeding waiver, and the waiver allowing districts to 
run the Summer Food Service Program.
    We have served over 45 million meals with these waivers and 
started meal deliveries to homes of students and families that 
are most impacted by COVID-19 and could not get to a food 
distribution site. We are a founding Member of the Urban School 
Food Alliance, that comprises 15 school districts.
    Through monthly membership calls, we share recipes, ideas 
about farm-to-school programs and best practices regarding 
procurement, meal distribution, meal kits, summer feeding, and 
food trucks to ensure we are all providing healthy and 
nutritious meals to students.
    At Chicago Public Schools we ensure all menu items meet the 
Target 2 standards for sodium reduction, and all that all 
grains are 100 percent whole grain rich, composed of 50 percent 
or more whole grains. We did not and do not intend to use the 
waivers for flexibility on these standards.
    We have maintained our commitment to serving fresh local 
food from the Midwest, including frozen-local produce once per 
week, and local no-antibiotic chicken twice per month. We are 
targeting removing ingredients of concern from food, which 
include added sugars and items that students cannot pronounce. 
We believe that educating students about food and food choices 
is key to the success of child nutrition programs.
    If menu items are not favorable with students, we work with 
local chefs to develop new recipes and hold student focus 
groups and menu tastings to determine items to replace. As an 
African-American woman, a graduate of Chicago public schools, 
and a recipient of the school breakfast and lunch program, I 
see my role as being an advocate for my younger self.
    This means ensuring students do not grow up believing it is 
normal to have high blood pressure, diabetes, or to suffer from 
obesity. As a school nutrition professional, if I can introduce 
the students to items that are colorful, fresh, crunchy, and 
flavorful, and have them as repeat customers, I'm going to 
fight for that daily.
    It is my responsibility to remove the hunger barrier and 
make sure students receive the nutrition they need to function 
at their best and focus on academics. This also means ensuring 
that students are not denied a healthy school breakfast or 
lunch due to stigma or financial concerns. It means maintaining 
a high bar for nutrition standards.
    As a Committee you could have a profound effect on these 
efforts. I urge you to reject the idea of rolling back 
nutrition standards and help improve student health and shake 
their life-long preferences. At CPS we have had no problem with 
finding many items and recipes that our students enjoy.
    I also urge you to support healthy school meals for all to 
ensure every student has access to free nutritious meals, and 
to also ensure nutrition professionals focus on the best 
interests of their students rather than processing paperwork, 
determining which students are eligible for meal assistance and 
collecting debt.
    But the impact of high nutrition standards and healthy 
school meals for all will be minimized if our students are not 
guaranteed sufficient time to eat their food. Our principals 
are often put in a position of squeezing in 20 minute lunch 
periods leaving students maybe 10 minutes to eat their meals, 
after accounting for the time they waited in line.
    The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends students get 
at least 20 minutes to eat lunch, and I urge the Committee to 
consider policies that support sufficient lunch time to allow 
students time to eat their food.
    I would like to end by thanking you for this time today. As 
I advocate for all students of Chicago public schools and the 
hard-working dedicated staff who show up daily to ensure our 
children receive balanced, nutritious meals, thank you.
    [The prepared statement of Ms. Cooper follows:]

                  Prepared Statement of Crystal Cooper
                  
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]




    Chairwoman Bonamici. Thank you so much Ms. Cooper. Next, 
I'll recognize Mr. Lipps. Mr. Lipps you have five minutes for 
your testimony. I think you need to unmute there Mr. Lipps.

   STATEMENT OF BRANDON LIPPS, PRINCIPAL, CAPROCK STRATEGIES

    Mr. Lipps. Sorry about that. Thank you, Chairwoman 
Bonamici, Representative Fitzgerald, and Members of the 
Committee for the opportunity to discuss the lessons learned 
from my time leading the food and nutrition service at the U.S. 
Department of Agriculture.
    I am Brandon Lipps, Principal at Caprock Strategies where I 
work to connect stakeholders across sectors to solve big 
problems so that regular people can thrive. At USDA I committed 
early on to hearing directly from the families that we served 
and those that serve them.
    These partners confirmed that real change happens when we 
meet families where they are and empower them to take the next 
step, a concept that we call moving families forward. As you 
consider child nutrition reauthorization, I implore you to 
remember the vast diversity of our country, and the resources 
available to each child nutrition professional.
    There really is no one size fits all approach. The Healthy 
Hunger Free Kids Act significantly increased consumption of 
fruits, vegetables, and whole grains, and decreased overall 
calories and sodium in our school meals. This is an exciting 
accomplishment that we should all celebrate. But overly 
restrictive regulations made many school meals less palatable, 
so kids are less likely to reach for nutrient dense options 
like milk.
    Even considering significant increases in automatic 
enrollment, school lunch participation has declined by more 
than two million students per day. Those who serve our children 
are deeply committed to serving nutritionally rich meals that 
keep kids healthy. They also need to be able to serve nutrient 
dense meals that children will eat.
    While at USDA I visited dozens of schools, some served by 
trained chefs, over and over I saw children trading toys for 
food that other kids brought from home, and some dumping their 
lunch trays in the trash bin mostly full. My site visits 
confirmed what USDA's research shows, over 30 percent of school 
food is still wasted.
    One quarter of Vitamins A, C, D, calcium, and potassium are 
dumped in the trash. USDA's current regulations are based on 
the best available science of the perfect meal, but the science 
is worthless if the children don't eat the food.
    Congress should maintain and celebrate the important 
nutritional advancement schools have made, but policy must also 
be informed by local nutrition professionals who know their 
children, and are asking for minimal flexibilities in the 
dairy, sodium, and whole grain categories so they can prepare 
tasty and nutritious meals.
    Similarly, child nutrition providers consistently ask for 
simpler program regulations so they can spend more time with 
the children they serve. Many providers serve meals through 
multiple programs that require redundant applications in 
reporting. Please consider streamlining and simplifying these 
program requirements while maintaining program integrity.
    As we enter the summer months it's the perfect time to 
consider options for summer food service. Congress should 
authorize a full toolbox of summer food service options that 
empower local providers to choose the option that best serves 
their own communities. Only about 15 percent of eligible low-
income children access the summer food service program, in part 
because so many lack transportation to reach a congregate 
feeding site.
    The pandemic provided an opportunity to test several 
solutions on a large scale, and a number of options have proven 
very valuable, including Pandemic EBT and bus routes. One such 
example is a public private partnership between the USDA, the 
Baylor Collaborative on Hunger and Poverty, McLane Global and 
PepsiCo's Food for Good that quickly delivered almost 40 
million nutritious meals to verified low-income children in 43 
states when children were furloughed from school.
    Options like Meals to You ensure that the summer program 
does its job of meeting families where they are, delivering 
USDA approved nutrition to the doorsteps of rural and other 
hard to reach children. Policymakers must allow schools to meet 
our children's needs and teach nutrition in ways that empower 
kids to make healthy choices.
    On one of my local visits to a school farm a bright young 
student told me that her farm-to-school program inspired her to 
aim for college majoring in biology. Later that same day I saw 
students in the lunch line select and then eat fruits and leafy 
greens vegetables, change always happens in community.
    For these kids change happened in their community garden. 
Investing in hands-on learning improves nutrition in ways that 
complicated regulations never will. In closing, I want to thank 
the Committee for your engagement on this important issue, and 
as you advance, I urge you to consider how programs can change 
kids? lives and community and be a tool of empowerment to move 
families forward. Thank you.
    [The prepared statement of Mr. Lipps follows:]

                  Prepared Statement of Brandon Lipps
                  
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]


    Chairwoman Bonamici. Thank you, Mr. Lipps, and now we will 
hear from Chef Colicchio. Chef Colicchio you are recognized for 
five minutes for your testimony.

STATEMENT OF TOM COLICCHIO, CHEF AND OWNER, CRAFTED HOSPITALITY

    Mr. Colicchio. Thank you. Chairman Scott and Ranking Member 
Foxx, Chairwoman Bonamici and Ranking Member Fitzgerald, 
Members of the House Education and Labor Committee, you know I 
was here 12 years ago to testify in front of this very 
Committee then Chaired by Representative George Miller in 
support of what became the Healthy Hunger Free Kids Act, a law 
that addressed the rising epidemic of childhood obesity in 
America by approving nutritional school meals.
    The law reduced sugar and sodium, added fresh produce and 
whole grains, while also removing vending machines peddling 
sugary soft drinks from school lunchrooms. At the time the 
bill's opponents criticized the bill is a dangerous overreach, 
painting it as the work of the 90 Street bureaucracy.
    Well for the record, I date back to the days when kids 
walked home for lunch, and where my nanny, my grandmother 
Ester, always a hot meal waiting for me and my brothers, and I 
only wish that all American school children could have that 
same experience.
    In the years since President Obama signed the Healthy 
Hunger Free Kids Act into law, and despite the fact that 
obesity rates began to drop, certain Members of Congress have 
chipped away at the standards that the law created. They've 
added sugars back in, gotten rid of the mandate for whole 
grains, citing concerns about food waste.
    Well much has changed in the past 12 years, but much 
remains the same. A healthy diet is still out of reach for many 
Americans, meaning that their children's health is linked to 
the quality of food they receive in school. So I'm here today 
to urge you to find the funds and the political will to do 
right by these kids.
    As millions of children and their families recover from the 
impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, there has never been a more 
important time to make significant investments in the childhood 
nutrition programs. My mother, Beverly Colicchio, was a school 
lunch lady. She worked for decades as a cafeteria supervisor in 
Elizabeth, New Jersey, where about 70 percent of the students 
qualified for free, or reduced-price breakfast and lunch.
    And often the meals that she served to those kids were the 
only food they got all day, and it was upsetting to her that 
the cheapest food contracted out to the lowest bidder was 
usually what was on the menu. The food that may have met the 
nutritional guidelines on paper, without being truly healthy.
    And her experience feeding these kids stayed with me for a 
lifetime, and impacts everything that I do. And so when COVID-
19 shut down our economy, I immediately thought of the 30 
million public school children, like the ones in my mother's 
lunchroom, where were they going to eat now that these schools 
were shut down.
    Well thanks to the hard work of the advocates and some of 
the Members on this call, in New York and nationally, 
regulations were eased, and temporary provisions were made to 
allow for programs like the Pandemic EBT which was a lifeline 
for families who could not access school breakfast and lunch 
while school was still shuttered.
    Now was not the time to roll back this critical support. 
Now I'm glad that the administration would like to make the 
summer EBT program permanent, and hope this Committee will 
support legislation H.R. 3519, the Stop Child Hunger Act of 
2021 that would provide families an EBT card whenever schools 
are shuttered, and also Chairman Bonamici's Access to Healthy 
Food for Young Children Act, which provides funding for meals 
at extended daycares and after school settings.
    We can continue to make life easier, not harder for 
families to recover from this year's profound disruption by 
expanding direct certification and community eligibility 
provisions to eliminate redundant paperwork for schools and 
families.
    Now if I were a Member of Congress, I would introduce in my 
mother's honor, the Beverly Colicchio's Food Nutrition Act for 
All, which would make school free meals for all public-school 
children across the country, eliminating the belabored three 
tier eligibility system that siphons critical funds from the 
plate to the administrative costs.
    This leaves kids vulnerable to shaming. The days of pulling 
a kid out of a hot food line in front of his peer to hand him 
or her a cold cheese sandwich would be over. I would also 
mandate that a percentage of all foods in the school nutrition 
system be supplied by local farms providing markets for farmers 
growing fruits and vegetables.
    It would allow for a regional system of food hubs where 
just healthy food would be processed, frozen and shipped for 
use in the school system creating a wealth of new jobs. I would 
go back to scratch cooking providing hundreds of thousands of 
good paying union jobs and taking the contracts back from the 
no bid corporate players who low ball their way into school 
budgets which trays of no cook, dehydrated processed, unhealthy 
food that doesn't require cooking skills or even a kitchen to 
prepare.
    I'd also use our lunchrooms as a living classroom, to teach 
nutrition to kids at an early age. You know we teach our kids 
math and literacy from their youngest days, igniting their 
curiosity and allowing these skills to build and grow over a 
lifetime, and we should be doing the same with health, 
nutrition and cooking too.
    There could be no better investment, no better stimulus to 
our economy than millions of thriving children that will 
translate into vast savings in healthcare costs down the line 
and help millions of kids grow and develop as they should into 
a population of robust productive adults fit to lead, fit to 
serve our country, and to help us compete in the global 
economy. Thank you for the opportunity to testify in front of 
this Committee. I welcome your questions. Thank you.
    [The prepared statement of Mr. Colicchio follows:]

                  Prepared Statement of Tom Colicchio
                  
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]


    Chairwoman Bonamici. Thank you for your testimony. Under 
Committee Rule 9(a) we will now question the witnesses under 
the five-minute rule. So I'll be recognizing Subcommittee 
Members in seniority order, again to ensure the Members five-
minute rule is adhere to staff will be keeping track of time 
and the timer will show the blinking light when time is 
expired. Please be attentive to the time, wrap up when your 
time is over and remute your microphone.
    Please note that after the first round of questions is 
completed, the majority and minority have agreed to a second 
round of questions for the Chair and Ranking Member, or the 
Ranking Member's designee. As Chair I now recognize myself for 
five minutes.
    I'm going to start addressing a tough issue. In an 
interview with Committee staff a mother talked about how during 
the COVID-19 pandemic she had fought for her school district to 
bring in emergency summer food service site to her 
neighborhood, which is home to primarily black children.
    Just days after the site opened the school district 
abruptly stopped distributing fresh meals and switched to the 
Trump administration's Meals to You Program, which I know Mr. 
Lipps you mentioned. She then waited weeks for the first box to 
arrive, and when the boxes started coming, she received low-
quality or even spoiled food.
    So I'm going to ask you Mr. Lipps where did the 
administration, the Trump administration's implementation of 
the Meals to You Program go wrong, and how can we make sure 
that no parent in the country with hungry kids ever has to 
wonder when assistance will arrive and whether it will be 
edible when it does?
    Mr. Lipps. Thanks for that question, Chairwoman Bonamici. 
I'm not aware of that situation. It was not brought to my 
attention at the time. It sounds like maybe the school made a 
premature decision to stop their local service, or maybe they 
didn't have the volunteers willing to get out during the 
pandemic. I know that was a problem at a lot of places, and 
that's why we were very proud in this partnership to be able to 
deliver those 40 million meals to 270,000 kids across 43 
states.
    Mostly in rural areas where kids were never served with 
summer sets to begin with, and really that's what I was talking 
about today is There's a suite of options, and schools need to 
be making the right decision about which program needs to be 
serving their children in the best manner.
    For those kids who can get to a congregate site, you're 
never going to hear me argue that that shouldn't happen. At 
most congregate sites they're providing some type of fellowship 
among kids, some type of education. I implore those things. For 
rural kids in areas like I grew up in, the 85 percent of kids 
in this country who have never been served by summer, I think 
that the Committee needs to continue to look at wonderful 
options that can serve them.
    And certainly in any program mistakes happen and hopefully 
they're quickly remedied. This must be a rare problem, it never 
came to my attention while I was there, but I appreciate it.
    Chairwoman Bonamici. I don't want to cut you off, but I 
want to get to another question. Thank you for your 
acknowledgement that there was an issue there.
    Mr. Lipps. Sure.
    Chairwoman Bonamici. Mr. Wilson in the Healthy Hungry Free 
Kids Act Congress established the community eligibility program 
to allow high poverty schools to serve free school meals to all 
children, and unfortunately, we know that about 30 percent of 
eligible schools have not adopted CEP, and that the low 
reimbursement is a barrier for many schools.
    So President Biden's American Families Plan calls for 
increasing the multiplier for school reimbursement rates. So 
will you please discuss how increasing that CEP multiplier will 
help increase access to free school meals, and how does 
expanded access reduce stigmatization and improve student's 
health?
    Mr. Wilson. Yes. So thank you very much for that question. 
In Maryland we know that community eligibility has been a real, 
real win. I think one of the things that we hope to be able to 
move forward on this is that by changing those calculators to 
better capture kids who are actually experiencing poverty.
    We have never in the history of this country done a perfect 
measure of poverty, but we're much better today than we were 
before. And so using the direct certification methods of 
community eligibility, using folks kids who are using SNAP, 
TANF we can add Medicaid that will mean so much. If we can deal 
with these numbers in a realistic way, we're going to have a 
much better, much more accurate picture of poverty, and that's 
going to help kids in rural schools, in suburban schools, and 
in urban schools. We're going to capture all of those kids who 
are in poverty.
    Chairwoman Bonamici. And Mr. Wilson can you talk a little 
bit about how the multiplier works, and what a difference it 
would make to increase it?
    Mr. Wilson. Oh absolutely. We've seen schools that were 
almost eligible for CEP and school officials, and food 
nutrition directors have a hard time making the decision to use 
it because those programs have to run in a virtually a revenue 
neutral method. They can't lose money. And so they are often 
dealt with the Hobson's choice of do I lose money, or do I feed 
these kids?
    And as Ms. Cooper said, they all want to feed the kids. If 
we can give them the tools, the accurate tools to be able to 
feed those kids and to utilize community eligibility we're 
going to make a much bigger impact in their lives right now.
    Chairwoman Bonamici. Thank you. And more time is spent 
feeding hungry children and less time spent on administrative 
paperwork.
    Mr. Wilson. Oh absolutely. I mean in every place in 
Maryland where we've done it, they've been relieved to not have 
to do paperwork and chase down kids and parents to just get 
forms, to get the free and reduced meal application forms.
    Chairwoman Bonamici. Thank you. And we've heard some 
criticism today about the 2012 nutrition standards. And I 
request unanimous consent to enter into the hearing record a 
study by researchers at Harvard that found that the prevalence 
of obesity among children in poverty would have been 47 percent 
higher in 2018 if those updated standards had not been enacted. 
And I yield back the balance of my time which has expired, and 
I now recognize the Ranking Member, Ranking Member Fitzgerald 
for five minutes for the purpose of questions.
    Mr. Fitzgerald. Thank you, Madam Chair. Mr. Lipps, as a 
Representative like I said earlier of Wisconsin, America's 
dairy land I can tell you that unrealistic limits on sodium 
have impacted entire meals and many of the components of those 
meals. That can lead to students losing access to obviously one 
of the important food groups.
    Was one of the reasons that Secretary Purdue pursued 
updating the regulations, was that related to the sodium 
standards, and then what about the regulations for milk and 
whole grains, and finally what were the Secretary's reasons for 
updating the regulations related to these if you can recall?
    Mr. Lipps. Sure, Representative Fitzgerald. Secretary 
Purdue put his intent to update those even prior to my arrival 
at USDA and he always said that that was based on his input on 
the ground from local school providers about what kids would 
eat.
    And certainly you hear from folks in the cheese industry 
about the difficulties in making a cheese that's properly 
preserved and that's edible, and that works in the various 
different products. And we know there's challenges in that, and 
I know that manufacturers across the board are working on 
products that will move along the spectrum to meet all these 
requirements.
    And I'm a firm believer that over time they will get there, 
but we heard time and again that they're not there, and it's 
important, particularly when you look at the dairy category, 
and the dietary guidelines, which was affirmed and the most 
recent dietary guidelines it is a nutrient dense food that 
children across this country eat in various different forms at 
their local level, and it's extremely important that they're 
consuming the dairy items put on their tray and not putting 
them in the trash, so they're not part of those 25 percent of 
nutrients that end up in the trash can.
    And that was really the motivation behind that. As you know 
Congress over time, since the inception of the Healthy Hunger 
Free Kids Act has provided flexibilities on sodium, whole 
grains and dairy in different respects, and schools have not 
fully implemented those across the board at this time.
    Mr. Fitzgerald. Very good, very good thank you. And then 
can you also comment on the challenges in trying to meet the 
meal pattern standards?
    Mr. Lipps. Sure, Ranking Member Fitzgerald, and a lot of 
that is very similar to this. The meal patterns are relatively 
complicated and certainly if you look at the different 
resources across schools some are very well resourced to be 
able to deal with that. Some are not, and they ended up having 
menus that are rotated over and over and over and not giving 
the kids a lot of choice.
    There's a wonderful team at food and nutrition service on 
child nutrition who help with these, but as you look at making 
these stricter over time it makes that an ever more complicated 
requirement, and in often cases kids are served foods that are 
not familiar to them, folks in the lunchroom don't have time to 
talk to them about that and help them along as some of my 
colleagues at the table today have talked about.
    So it just becomes very complicated for those folks who are 
trying to do their best for the children they serve every day.
    Mr. Fitzgerald. Thank you very much. I yield back thank 
you.
    Mr. Lipps. Sure thank you.
    Chairwoman Bonamici. Thank you, Ranking Member Fitzgerald. 
And next I recognize Dr. Adams, Representative Adams, you're 
recognized for five minutes for your questions.
    Ms. Adams. Thank you, Chairwoman Bonamici and Ranking 
Member Fulcher, for hosting today's hearing. Thank you to the 
witnesses for your testimony. Prior to the pandemic food 
insecurity was a pressing problem for our Nation. During the 
pandemic food insecurity has been exacerbated and children 
across America continue to suffer.
    Today's witnesses have shed further light on the 
devastating consequences that children experience when they 
cannot access nutritious meals. The Healthy Hunger Free Act set 
a process for evidence based Federal standards for food served 
throughout the school day.
    The University of Washington's study revealed that since 
the healthier standard have been in place the nutritional 
quality of the foods chosen by students increased by 29 
percent. A Harvard study showed that children are now eating 16 
percent more vegetables and 23 percent more fruits at lunch, so 
Chef Colicchio what strategies can schools use to incorporate 
fruits, vegetables, whole grains, and ingredients with less 
sodium and sugar into appealing meals for children and 
adolescents?
    Mr. Colicchio. Sure. One of the schools here in New York 
they do a great job doing just that. They actually encourage 
chefs to get involved to help out with recipes. You know I find 
that I have a 10 year old, and a 12 year old and my 10 year old 
is pretty picky.
    I also garden, and when I take him out to the garden, and 
he sees what's growing he's more apt to try new things. And so 
I think it starts with the education. I think it starts with 
again and part of using the school, the lunchroom as an 
educational tool. Teach people about nutrition. Teach children 
where their food comes from, how it's grown, the role that 
farmers play, the role that dairy farmers play. How you make 
cheese.
    All these things are really important. I think once kids 
understand this, they're more apt to try different things. We 
also know that young pallets need to try something at least 12 
times before they actually find it palatable. Again, I struggle 
with my 10 year old who would prefer to only eat chicken 
nuggets and that's just about it, or pizza, pizza with no 
tomato on it, which I don't know if it qualifies for pizza in a 
school lunchroom.
    But you know he's difficult, but I find education is the 
key.
    Ms. Adams. OK great thank you. Many schools began virtual 
learning during the pandemic and several schools continue to do 
so. As a result children who normally rely on school provided 
meals have faced food insecurity, and the ensuing negative 
impacts that food insecurity brings physically and 
psychologically.
    So, Ms. Cooper can you please describe in detail the 
obstacles that children have faced during the pandemic to 
obtain nutritious meals?
    Ms. Cooper. Thank you, Representative Adams. So when you 
think about the school day generally students come to a brick-
and-mortar building, and they are going through a service line 
and they're getting meals. The challenges they face now during 
the pandemic was actually physically getting to the site if 
they didn't have transportation.
    So what we tried to do, what we did actually do was we kept 
a lot of our sites open because a lot of our schools in Chicago 
are neighborhood schools, so we have schools that are across 
the street from homes. So we wanted to make sure that access 
was available, that if you went north or south you could find a 
school site that actually served as a food distribution site, 
so those students would not have to worry about this.
    We also worked really closely with other city agencies to 
make sure that all access points to food are available and that 
when parents or guardians come to schools, they have other 
resources. We have flyers where we say here, you could go 
through this actual food bank or pantry. And then we make sure 
that we really market our hours, and we work with our local 
aldermans to make sure everyone in the city knows that Chicago 
schools are opened Monday through Friday, 9 to 1 come and get 
in multiple meals for multiple days.
    Also if you can't get out, we do meal deliveries. So we 
have a website that allows families to make sure that they can 
sign up for that.
    Ms. Adams. Thank you, ma'am. Let me just try to get one 
more question in here. I appreciate it. Mr. Wilson you 
mentioned a few recommendations regarding streamlining for this 
process. How will technology help the efficiency of nutrition 
programs both during the school year and in the summer?
    Mr. Wilson. So let me try to do this in 20 seconds because 
I know you don't have much time.
    Ms. Adams. Right.
    Mr. Wilson. Let's use more modern technology to find out 
which kids are actually experiencing poverty. Let's not do 
paper free reduced meal application forms, let's see who's on 
SNAP, let's see who's on Medicaid, let's see who's homeless, 
let's see all of those, and I want to recognize your SNAP bill 
which as a way to help us grow accurately the SNAP population 
of people who are actually eligible.
    Ms. Adams. Great. Thank you very much and Madam Chair I'm 
going to yield back.
    Chairwoman Bonamici. Thank you so much. Next on my list I 
have Representative Spartz. I do not see her on the platform, 
so I'll go to the Ranking Member of the Full Committee Doctor 
Foxx you're recognized for five minutes for your questions.
    Ms. Foxx. Good morning, Representative Bonamici. I know 
it's morning where you are.
    Chairwoman Bonamici. It's afternoon.
    Ms. Foxx. OK good to see you. Mr. Lipps there have been 
calls for free meals for all students. Do you know how much 
that would add to the cost of the program?
    Mr. Lipps. Ranking Member Foxx I'm sorry I don't know. I 
was told when I was at USDA that those numbers are very large, 
but I was never given an accurate number on that. The current 
team might be able to.
    Ms. Foxx. Could we get that from you? We'll get that later 
and put it in the record.
    Mr. Lipps. Right.
    Ms. Foxx. Mr. Lipps we often focus on the big picture in 
these programs and fail to look at the pockets of students who 
may need help. That's especially true for students in rural 
communities. What are some unique challenges they face in the 
school meals and summer food programs, and what are some ways 
we can work to target better those programs to help those in 
need?
    Mr. Lipps. Thanks Ranking Member Foxx. I think if you 
listen to what the witnesses said today, there's a lot of 
commonality about what we've talked about. I think if you look 
at resources, certainly a lot of rural areas lack some of the 
resources that some of the larger school districts do.
    Certainly where I grew up in a high poverty area, we had 
110 kids from kindergarten to 12th grade. We had one and a half 
staff in our lunchroom, and that's obviously much different 
from some of the folks in these larger urban school districts, 
and it just varies on their resources.
    Also access to fresh and local, there are areas in this 
country where local is not an option for many types of produce, 
some not at all. And so as we talk about those things that are 
extremely important, we need to make sure that we have 
solutions that include all of them. And then as I talked about 
in my testimony Ranking Member Foxx, on the summer program, we 
have such low participation in that program.
    We talk a lot about feeding all these children during the 
school year, and then we send them home for 3 months. Many 
without transportation to a congregate site. Even in town 
that's often a problem, and there are a number of organizations 
across this country with suggestions on that, many that were 
tested in the summer.
    And I would just encourage you to look at all of those 
options to empower people on the local level to serve their 
kids in the best manner possible.
    Ms. Foxx. Well I have visited summer feeding programs in my 
district on more than one occasion and I'm very familiar with 
what you're talking about. Mr. Lipps to have a successful 
school meal program we need to ensure the program operates 
efficiently and effectively to provide meals to students in 
need.
    Do you have some recommendations of other reforms we can 
make in the upcoming reauthorization to improve the program 
that does not include creating new programs?
    Mr. Lipps. Sure Ranking Member Foxx, certainly reducing 
administrative burdens across the program, the wonderful team 
at FNS has created, an online meals application that's not been 
overwhelmingly adopted by schools, as one of the witnesses 
testified today. A lot of these schools are operating multiple 
programs.
    I think there's opportunities both in legislation and 
regulation to reduce the application reporting requirements on 
those if they're good providers, they're good providers. 
There's also a lot of work been done at looking at integrity 
from a risk-based approach instead of an all across the board 
approach that would reduce the amount of time that folks have 
to spend on paperwork on the integrity front.
    So I think there's a lot of options out there. They require 
some time and effort to get done, but I do believe they're 
worthwhile because we all know that these folks want to spend 
more time with the kids.
    Ms. Foxx. Great. One more question Mr. Lipps. You raised 
the issue of food of plate waste in your testimony. And we 
often hear other people talk about whether it is or is not 
happening. Can you please explain briefly what that is, how it 
can be tracked from what's being served on the plate, and why 
is it a concern we should all want to tackle?
    Mr. Lipps. Sure. Ranking Member Foxx it's one of the most 
important things that we talk about is plate waste. That's when 
food is put on the plate, the child sits down with it, doesn't 
eat it, and it ends up in the trashcan. Today's meals are 
designed to the perfect scientific meal, and if a third of that 
plate, 25 percent of a lot of the nutrients is going in the 
trash can, they're not consuming that perfect scientific meal.
    And there are a lot of issues that affect that. As the chef 
talked about it takes a lot of education and learning with 
those kids, and that takes time and effort on the local level. 
We need to make sure that we're empowering folks to do that. 
I've asked kids why they weren't eating their pear and they bit 
it on the table and said it's rock hard.
    We have to make sure that when we're working on fresh that 
we're doing it right. And when we're serving population that 
aren't familiar with new foods that we're serving those in 
manners that help kids adapt to those, instead of just setting 
them on the tray and expecting them to take them up.
    I visited a school where black beans were served. Nobody 
ate them at my table. I asked why, and they said they had never 
seen a black bean before, so there's a lot of factors that 
affect that, and it takes a lot of effort on the local level.
    Ms. Foxx. Well thank you very much. Madam Chair I bought a 
pear the other day at the grocery store. It looked beautiful 
and I got it home and left it a day or two and I cut it and it 
was so hard it didn't have much taste. I covered it up and by 
golly this morning it tasted great. So your example of a pear 
being hard and not being very appetizing, with me this week, so 
I understand exactly what you're saying. Thank you. I went 
over, but I'm a perfect example of that this week. Thank you, 
Madam Chair.
    Chairwoman Bonamici. Dr. Foxx thank you. I want to make a 
unanimous consent request. Ms. Cooper's district in Chicago is 
an excellent example of meeting nutrition standards. So I 
request unanimous consent to enter into the hearing record the 
Chicago Public Schools lunch menu that includes cheese on 
several days, and also meets the target too for sodium, without 
objection.
    Chairwoman Bonamici. And next for questions I recognize 
Representative Hayes, Representative Hayes you're recognized 
for five minutes for your questions.
    Ms. Hayes. Thank you, Chairwoman Bonamici. And thank you so 
much to all the witnesses for being here today. We have a 
tremendous opportunity in this Congress to take on child 
nutrition reauthorization. We can make sure that all children 
have access to reliable healthy meals in and out of school.
    To do that we must first recognize our shortcomings which 
helped to fuel this crisis. We have to acknowledge many of the 
cuts made to many of our most basic nutrition programs over the 
years leaving children vulnerable to hunger in the first place.
    Mr. Lipps during your time as Deputy Undersecretary, USDA 
proposed a rule, a USDA rule entitled ``Revision of Categorical 
Eligibility in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.'' 
An analysis conducted by USDA during your tenure found that and 
I quote, ``684,000 households with children would lose SNAP 
because of these proposed changes.''
    That same analysis found that potentially as many as 
982,000 children would no longer be directly certified for free 
school meals based on SNAP participation. Mr. Lipps, you came 
before this Committee in October 2019 to defend that rule 
citing the need to protect and enhance integrity.
    And from my recollection I remember you cited some 
anecdotal incidences of millionaires taking advantage of the 
SNAP program. So I was very happy to hear you say that you were 
concerned that 2 million less children were participating in 
the program, so my question today is just very simple. I'm 
happy to hear that you're concerned that 2 million less 
children are participating, but under the rule under your 
leadership, a million children would have been thrown off of 
SNAP.
    I want to make sure that we are not changing the narrative 
to make this a conversation just about healthy food choices or 
cheese and milk. This was about taking food away from hungry 
children. During this pandemic under two different 
administrations we have been able to expand pandemic EBT. I was 
happy to hear Mr. Wilson talk about my legislation to feed kids 
during school breaks and whenever they were out to help 
families have access.
    We did some tremendous work to close these hunger gaps and 
pockets of hunger throughout our country during this pandemic. 
Mr. Lipps has your position on this issue changed in the last 
year having seen what you've seen? And if you were still Deputy 
Undersecretary of FNS today, would your department finalize and 
implement this rule based on everything we've seen, everything 
we've heard, and everything that we've done?
    Mr. Lipps. Thank you, Congresswoman Hayes. Certainly that 
rule was about the agency following the eligibility guidelines 
that Congress sets in statute. And I think that's a terribly 
important conversation for all the reasons that you said. Child 
nutrition hasn't been reauthorized in 10 years, and I think 
it's a wonderful time to have that conversation.
    I think the Congress needs to be clear about what the 
eligibility requirements are, and the feds, the states, and the 
local providers need to make sure that those kids who are 
eligible are accessing these meals, and that's the concern 
about participation dropping in school meals, is we want to 
make sure that all kids want to participate in those meals.
    They are healthier than what most children are getting at 
home, and we want them participating in those. We also want to 
make sure that the program has integrity so that it doesn't get 
beat down from those who don't support these, but that all 
Americans can support school meals and the great provisions 
that they have that we get greater than 50 percent 
participation in the summer.
    So I support, it's been 10 years since Congress 
reauthorized these programs, I support the work in a bipartisan 
manner to be clear about what the eligibility guidelines are, 
and I'm sure that the agency will carry that out per your 
direction.
    Ms. Hayes. I think you hit the nail on the head. The 
wonderful thing about Congress is that we do have a unique 
opportunity right now to reauthorize something that has not 
been reauthorized in 10 years. The needs of our country have 
changed, we are more aware of many of these issues, and we have 
a unique opportunity to do something about it.
    And that does not include throwing children off of SNAP. It 
does not include making sure that families don't have what they 
need. So I'm happy to hear you say that. And Mr. Wilson I see 
your finger up, so you go ahead, you can have the remainder of 
my time.
    Mr. Wilson. All right. So when USDA withdrew the 
categorical eligibility regulation yesterday there were 
celebrations across the country. We are no longer going to 
threaten these families that they would lose their SNAP 
eligibility, and that their kids may not have access to free 
school meals.
    It was a victory that USDA pulled that back. You know I 
think there are many things we can do to try to deal with 
potential fraud, but let's be clear. You know nobody wants 
fraud less than those of us who are fighting to make sure that 
people who are eligible for these programs get the programs, 
and so I don't want to have to mix the fraud discussion in with 
actual eligibility and how we can make sure that kids who are 
certified and eligible get school meals.
    Ms. Hayes. It sounds like we're all on the same page, and 
I'm so happy to hear that because this is a conversation about 
making sure hungry kids are fed. Madam Chair thank you so much 
for this hearing today and with that I yield back.
    Chairwoman Bonamici. Thank you, Representative Hayes. I do 
not see Ms. Sparks or another republican, so next we'll go to 
Representative Leger Fernandez. You're recognized for five 
minutes for your questions.
    Ms. Leger Fernandez. Thank you, Madam Chair, Bonamici, and 
thank you everyone on here for the work to make sure our 
children have access to the nutrition they need. I enjoyed the 
conversation that this is about teaching our children food, 
healthy food and we should not be using excuses like frauds to 
prevent that. One of the things I'm very concerned about is the 
manner in which we used lunch shaming and unpaid meal debt to 
basically deprive children of the nutrition they need in 
school.
    In 2019 the School Nutrition Association reported that 75 
percent of school districts had unpaid meal debt, and prior to 
the COVID-19 pandemic there were regular news reports of lunch 
shaming practices, such as children having their meal thrown 
away, or bills pinned to their shirts.
    Deputy Undersecretary Stacy Dean made a commitment in an 
earlier hearing to review USDA policies around lunch shaming to 
strengthen protections and I am working on reintroducing the 
Anti Lunch Shaming Act which would prevent schools from 
singling out children because they're parents or guardians have 
not paid their school meal bills.
    I want to know and get input on how we in Congress can work 
to end the root causes behind unpaid meal debt that leads to 
lunch shaming policies. Ms. Cooper why is it important for 
Congress to address the issue of unpaid meal debt, and how 
would policies like increasing the 1.6 multiplier for the 
community eligibility provision which Chair Bonamici mentioned 
or eliminating the reduced-price meal category help solve this 
problem.
    Ms. Cooper. Thank you for that question. In Chicago as I 
said we are 100 percent CEP, so when we think about meal 
shaming and lunch debt it's absolutely something that we do not 
support, and I think the Committee can use this opportunity to 
really ban lunch shaming. It's something that it should do.
    And then what we really do is we work with our staff in the 
school buildings right. We work with the adults in the building 
to make sure that they understand our policies and how we are 
not using food as punishment right? Food is fuel for our 
students. They need to be fed during the school day. And we 
really want to make sure that the debt is not something that 
you have to chase.
    So we support you know increase for the multiplier to 
ensure school districts can get to this percentage so that they 
can become 100 percent CEP, and they don't have to worry about 
this. You want to take that off their plate, right? So, this is 
not something they have to worry about.
    We need to spend much more time focusing on access to 
students, finding menu items that they like, work with them 
throughout the day, work with our kitchen staff to make sure 
we're really using our energy on making the program better, 
more efficient, something the kids enjoy right.
    When they walk into the cafeteria, we want them to light 
up. We want this to be an exciting time for them. We want the 
dining experience to be exciting for them.
    Ms. Leger Fernandez. Thank you and I like the way you went 
into what the meals should be, so they get excited and that 
leads me to my next question about what culturally appropriate 
food and healthy food is. My district is nearly 20 percent 
Native American, and right now tribes have to meet the meal 
requirements set out by the USDA, but the culturally 
appropriate food doesn't always correspond with USDA food 
patterns.
    This puts stress on our communities who want to serve the 
more culturally appropriate, which is sometimes more expensive, 
or local grown options but are only reimbursed at the regular 
rate. Mr. Colicchio as a chef you undoubtedly understand the 
importance of food as a part of culture. Would you elaborate on 
why it would be important that children like Native American 
children have access to foods that are culturally relevant?
    Mr. Colicchio. Sure Congresswoman thank you for the 
question. You know just a couple episodes ago we did a 
challenge with the first nation's food staff summit in 
Portland, and it was really amazing to work with the tribe you 
know creating just a beautiful meal out of foods that we were 
provided.
    Again this I think goes to if we had more scratch cooking 
in school, and the schools were actually staffed and there were 
chefs that were from the community, and they would understand 
what the community's needs are, and they could provide those 
recipes. Obviously, all falling within the guidelines, but 
that's why I think we need to go back to scratch cooking, and 
we can't rely on food being shipped in and you know processed 
foods being shipped in from some you know food company halfway 
across the country. This is exactly how you do this.
    Also again, if those farmlands on Native lands, or those 
farmers on Native lands were able to actually provide food into 
the school lunch program locally, also you can make sure that 
there would be culturally appropriate food. Also this is how 
you get the kids to eat more food.
    When they get culturally appropriate food, when they get 
food that they are familiar with they eat more, and so, these 
are all reasons why we should have more scratch food. Can I 
answer one question from before? I believe that the free for 
all program if it were implemented would cost 5 billion 
dollars.
    The CBO scored it, I believe Chairman Scott actually 
proposed this, and I believe the CBO scored it, it was 5 
billion dollars.
    Ms. Leger Fernandez. Thank you, Mr. Colicchio, and thank 
you Chair Bonamici for your leeway in allowing him to finish 
his answer. I yield back.
    Chairwoman Bonamici. And thank you Representative. I'm glad 
you brought up the lunch shaming issue. I was recently having a 
conversation with an adult here in Oregon who said her sister 
still remembers in elementary school running around the house 
trying to find pennies because she was supposed to bring money 
to school and the stress that that caused, a really important 
issue.
    I do not see Representative Spartz or another Member from 
the other side of the aisle, so I will next go to Mr. Mrvan. 
Mr. Mrvan you're recognized for five minutes for your 
questions.
    Mr. Mrvan. Chairwoman Bonamici I thank you very much. First 
and foremost I want to thank all the participants. I want to 
add that my wife is a registered dietician and about 20 years 
ago she worked for the Indiana Department of Education in the 
school lunch program. And so the vitality of education and 
health tied to food lunches are extremely important.
    Also, in my district Ms. Crystal Cooper I'm in northwest 
Indiana, the ham and dairy area, and so it's good to see a 
neighbor from Chicago land and the challenges that we face 
together. In my district we have rates of 90 to 95 percent free 
and reduced lunch program participation, and as a trustee who 
handled the emergency assistance, I've seen the impact of food 
disparity and how it affects the educational system, and how 
important this is to each and every family throughout my 
district in northwest Indiana.
    And with that according to the Centers for Disease Control 
and Prevention, U.S. diets are too high in added sugars and 
sodium, with 9 to 10 Americans aged 2 years and older consuming 
more than the recommended amount of sodium. Mr. Wilson, in your 
testimony you mentioned the targeted market for unhealthy foods 
to certain communities.
    Can you discuss how poor nutrition and diet related disease 
disproportionately impacts communities of color, and how 
schools can help counteract these unhealthy environments?
    Mr. Wilson. Yes. So this is a really complicated question, 
and it's got a complicated answer, but it's about how we live 
and work in a food system that includes advertisements targeted 
to children, targeted to certain communities.
    It has to do with the growth of the existence of food 
deserts and food swamps, so that kids have opportunities to get 
unhealthy food very easily, very readily, very cheaply, and 
don't have access to the healthy food and the healthy options 
either in a retail store, or in other places, which is why 
school meals matter so much.
    We know that if kids are in school 5 days a week getting 
school breakfast, getting school lunch, potentially getting 
after school snacks, we have an opportunity to help them eat 
healthy and to teach their pallets. I love what Tom Colicchio 
said about having to try something 12 times before you get to 
like it.
    We have to teach their pallets at a very early age about 
the different kind of opportunities that they can have, and not 
just give them salt and sugar.
    Mr. Mrvan. I thank you very much. Additionally, black, and 
Latino and other children of color have experienced 
disproportionate rates of food insecurity during the COVID-19 
pandemic. An analysis of summer meal sites during the COVID-19 
pandemic by research at Columbia, Harvard and the University of 
North Carolina showed that meal sites were consistently located 
in areas that were more convenient for white families.
    Mr. Wilson what can Congress do to ensure equitable access 
to nutritious meals for all children?
    Mr. Wilson. So once again it's a complicated question. 
Trying to bring equity to the food system. We're having a 
conversation of adding equity to the food system for the first 
time in decades, and you know, the great things that happened 
in the Healthy Hunger Free Kids Act of 2010 were helpful, but 
I'm hopeful that in 2021 as we move forward, we try to expand 
that access to equity.
    So I think there are all the things that we talked about in 
terms of summer meals are helpful, but we also have to 
recognize that pandemic EBT in rural areas, and suburban areas 
and in urban areas helps families be able to make choices and 
to spend their dollars and not depend only on the summer meal 
sites. We need to make sure that we have seamless summer 
options, and that we're providing these around the course of 
the year.
    One of the challenges in summer is that you know if 
depending on the free and reduced meal percentage in that 
community, they may not be able to provide free meals to kids 
under the current rules. We need to move to a you know school 
meals for all platform because that will eliminate that, and 
we'll have better options both for serving and for funding.
    And if I could just for 1 second touch on this question of 
meal debt. There are two losers in meal debt, and this affects 
urban schools more than others. The losers are school systems 
who have debts, 50,000, 100,000 or more. And we have kids who 
are being threatened to not be able to participate in school 
sports, or school activities, or even graduation because 
they've got a meal debt of $20.00 or $50.00 or $100.00.
    And that's a loser for schools and for students. We can't 
allow that to continue to happen.
    Mr. Mrvan. Chairwoman with that I yield back my time.
    Chairwoman Bonamici. Thank you very much Representative 
Mrvan. Now we're honored to have with us the Chairman of the 
Full Committee, Congressman Bobby Scott you're recognized for 
five minutes for your questions.
    Mr. Scott. Thank you. Thank you Madam Chair and I 
appreciate this hearing. Let me start with Mr. Wilson. And 
we've heard a lot about increasing summer programs and after 
school programs. Can you say a word about whether or not it's 
important to combine the summer and after school meals with 
educational programming?
    Mr. Wilson. Absolutely. I mean we already know that there 
is a summer learning gap that exists because kids are at school 
for 9 months, and then in the summer they're not. And yay for 
summer vacation, but when we have this summer learning gap, 
we've also learned there's a summer nutrition gap because kids 
who have access to you know free school meals during the school 
year all of a sudden don't have the access, and we've already 
talked about the lower percentage of participation in summer 
meals programs.
    So we need to both marry the programing that helps deal 
with the learning gap with the food that deals with the 
nutrition gap, and also provide additional opportunities. You 
know Summer EBT is a great program and can help provide 
opportunities for families to be able to supplement it with in 
addition to changing the formula so that people who are in a 
marginally almost poor school district can also have access to 
free school meals.
    Mr. Scott. Thank you. Mr. Lipps you had a list of very 
specific recommendations to increase summer nutrition. Can you 
remind us of that list? I think Summer EBT was part of it.
    Mr. Lipps. Sure Chairman Scott. I was talking about the 
importance of increasing because of the 15 percent uptake that 
we have in low-income children, but right now the only option 
in most instances is for kids to come to a congregate site. 
Most of them don't have transportation.
    During the pandemic we were able to test a number of ways, 
a number of different interventions including as you know now, 
nationwide PEBT, a number of food banks, other providers and 
some schools were running bus routes to deliver food and 
certainly the Meals to You Program that I talked about as well 
that was taking food directly to schools.
    So all of that with over 80,000 summer sites that were set 
up in the midst of the pandemic even with the difficulty 
sometimes getting volunteers. So there are a lot of options out 
there, and I think letting the locals determine what is best 
for them within proper bounds that Congress sets will greatly 
help the intervention in the summer.
    Mr. Scott. Thank you. Mrs. Cooper we've heard that you have 
to virtually sabotage the nutrition standards in order to get a 
tasty meal that children will eat. Is that true?
    Ms. Cooper. No that's not true. We have a very tasty, 
colorful, and fresh menu. We have a 28 day menu cycle, and the 
way that we develop our menu right, we don't just put beans on 
the menu, we work very closely with our registered dieticians. 
We actually work very closely with the students, and we do work 
with local chefs.
    So we make sure that the menu items are things that 
children want to eat. They are things that they need to eat. 
They are things that help them become you know our future 
right. So we want to make sure the students are eating right? 
You hear things about kids not eating the food and throwing it 
away.
    We sample items before we put new items on the plate. So we 
have a lot of tools that we use to make sure the menu is 
absolutely what the students want to eat.
    Mr. Scott. And when you do that the plate waste is reduced?
    Ms. Cooper. So yes. Our waste has not changed, so we were 
not always 100 percent CEP. We went to 100 percent CEP over the 
last few years. Our waste has not increased. We work very 
closely with our staff to look at inventory, to look at items 
and forecasts, we're not you know in kitchens making a bunch of 
food just to throw it away.
    Again, we want to the food to go into the kids' bellies, 
right? We want them to be nourished and fed throughout the day, 
so we do this for all of our meals, breakfast, lunch, after 
school meal, after school snacks. We work very hard to make 
sure that our students are actually consuming and enjoy the 
food.
    Mr. Scott. And let me get we heard that estimate of 5 
billion dollars a year to go to total universal. That needs to 
be updated because it was during the pandemic when a lot of 
schools were closed, so we need to update that number. But when 
you went to CEP and everyone was eating, who didn't need to get 
a school lunch?
    I mean it seems to me everybody needs a school lunch, so 
why shouldn't it be universal?
    Ms. Cooper. It should be universal. It should be healthy 
meals for all because all students throughout the day. We don't 
ask these questions about textbooks and math, and things like 
that. This is food. This is a basic necessity that we as adults 
have a moral responsibility to ensure that all students are 
offered and provided healthy meals.
    Mr. Scott. You mentioned school textbooks. We had to debate 
that in Virginia whether or not students would get free 
textbooks, and I think we've finally gotten there. It's just 
some things you don't think you have to debate that you 
actually do. Thank you, Madam Chair.
    Chairwoman Bonamici. Thank you, Chairman Scott. I do not 
see any non-Subcommittee Members of the full Committee here, so 
we will conclude the first round of questions and then pursuant 
to our agreement the Chair and Ranking Member or Ranking 
Member's designee only may pursue a second round of questions. 
And I recognize myself for five minutes.
    And as I begin, I want to note that with the discussion 
that we're having about universal meals and the cost. I hope we 
can consider not only the cost savings to the schools from not 
having to do all the administrative paperwork, but the cost 
saving that we have from having healthy students with fewer 
healthcare problems as they grow and learn.
    So I'm going to ask Chef Colicchio the farm-to-school 
program, I want to talk about this because I've seen wonderful 
examples and visited schools where students where you know pre-
pandemic choosing choices from a wonderful salad bar, all with 
ingredients produced by local farmers.
    They as you know provide grants to schools and early care 
and education sites, and they support local food procurement, 
excuse me, farmers, school gardens and nutrition. So it's a 
great program nutrition education as well, which I know we've 
talked about today.
    So studies have shown that when kids get involved with 
growing or preparing the food, the more likely they are to eat 
it. So you talked about this a bit Chef, but could you expand 
on you're a professional chef and a father. Why do you support 
the farm to school program? What can we do to strengthen it? 
And also what else can Congress and the Department of 
Agriculture do to support that food supply chain which is so 
important in providing healthy appetizing ingredients for 
school meals?
    Mr. Colicchio. Well obviously, the farm to school program 
enriches connections that communities have with fresh and 
healthy food that's supplied by local food producers. It helps 
changing purchasing habits in the school, and really provides 
that education around food as well.
    And this is why I think it's so important to take those 
local farmers and provide them with a market. I mean we have 
markets. We provide markets all around the world for you know 
corn farmers, soy farmers. We can take those farmers that are 
growing specialty crops, otherwise known as fruits and 
vegetables, and give them an opportunity to sell into the 
school lunch program, but really make it more robust.
    I also think we should bring those farmers into the school 
to teach those kids just about farming. But also there's so 
many people, not just farmers, I want to give a shout out to my 
friends at Pilot Light in Chicago who actually an organization 
started by chefs that go into schools and they teach people 
about food and food education. They're working with the schools 
to actually create recipes.
    And so it's a combination of farmers and chefs, people who 
actually are producing food, and producing wholesome food. You 
know there's a lot being talked about the food system. Our food 
system works exactly as it's designed to. If you have money it 
works for you, and if you don't, you're left out.
    You know our country you know calories are cheap, nutrition 
is expensive. Anyone who goes and buys fresh produce will tell 
you it's expensive. And so programs like the double bucks 
program is so important because we can actually bend the cost 
of fruits and vegetables, make it more affordable for families 
that are struggling because actually when families can actually 
give the choice if they can afford it, they will make the 
better choices.
    But when you're struggling you feed your family the 
cheapest foods possible, they're not the most nutritious, but 
they're cheap. And that's the Faustian bargain that so many 
families have to contend with right now. And so again this is 
about education. This is about creating markets for farmers. 
This is about including farmers in the conversation.
    Chairwoman Bonamici. Thank you. It was really helpful, and 
you know this is the Education Committee, and we talk a lot 
about career and technical education, and I visited some high 
schools that have wonderful culinary programs, and again an 
opportunity for students to really learn not only healthy 
cooking and eating, but also get on a career path.
    Chef Colicchio again, thank you for talking about your 
mother who was a school cafeteria worker. How can we better 
support the school food service workers like your mom as we 
work on reauthorization on the child nutrition?
    Mr. Colicchio. Yes, my mom retired many years ago and it 
was interesting because I tried to get her to retire well 
before her time. She was complaining about her legs hurting and 
her knees hurting, and it was a conversation that we had that 
really kind of rung a bell for me.
    She said she wasn't ready to give it up yet because she 
knew that these were the only meals that these kids were 
getting. And so I think you know continuing education for the 
men and women who are working in our lunchroom, providing 
additional culinary training, so they can actually create more 
wholesome nutritious menus.
    Making sure they have fresh produce to work with. I mean 
that's the one thing that she said that she was concerned that 
when she leaves that you know the fruits and vegetables would 
disappear. Mr. Lipps when he testified, he talked about that 
pear. I agree 100 percent. This is why we need to have a better 
educated workers who are working in the lunchroom, so they know 
the difference between a rock-hard pear and a perfectly ripe 
pear.
    When you don't know the difference, you put out whatever 
you have, and so this is really about education, continuing 
education for those cafeteria workers.
    Chairwoman Bonamici. Thank you, Chef Colicchio. We have 
some great pears here in Oregon. They're especially good when 
they're ripe.
    Mr. Colicchio. You certainly do.
    Chairwoman Bonamici. So I yield back, and now I recognize 
the distinguished Ranking Member of the full Committee for five 
minutes for your questions.
    Ms. Foxx. Thank you, Chairman Bonamici. Mr. Lipps program 
integrity is critically important in all programs. The 
Inspector General at USDA and GAO found some challenges related 
to improper payments in the school meal program previously. Can 
you tell us what the agency did to address some of these 
issues, and what do you recommend the Biden administration do 
to continue the good work of the previous administration?
    Mr. Lipps. Thank you, Ranking Member Foxx. It is an issue 
that continually comes up in GAO and OIG reports, and it's a 
negative reflection on a program that we all agree is a 
wonderful program. One of the things we did is work on 
redefining what a payment error actually is, and a lot of those 
instances when they were putting a vegetable on a tray, but not 
the vegetable that they had planned to put on the tray, that 
becomes a payment error.
    And I don't think that's what any of us are thinking about 
when we're talking about payment integrity in the school meals 
program. And when we weed out those types of issues it allows 
us to focus on the actual issue so that our Federal regulators, 
our State regulators, and our local implementers are focused on 
the actual issue of delivering those meals.
    And there's an integrity team at the food and nutrition 
service that works constantly on that working with states to 
help make that happen. And I think has made a lot of progress 
on that in the past.
    Ms. Foxx. Great, thank you very much. There are also 
program integrity concerns relating to the summer food program 
waivers. Could you briefly tell us what those were and how they 
were addressed? Also tell us any lingering program integrity 
issues you believe need to be addressed.
    Mr. Lipps. Sure. The Office of Inspector General at USDA 
identified a number of concerns in the summer food service 
program under its current operations, and that ran from 
claiming and counting to whether food was kept at a correct 
temperature. There were a lot of concerns across the board on 
that.
    And the team worked and continues to work to address those 
across the board. Obviously, in a program as diffuse as summer, 
obviously I talked about during the pandemic there were 80,000 
sites set up. There are a lot of local officials involved in 
that. It's a difficult chain to follow but an important one.
    But also when you look at the temperature of foods, those 
are extremely critical matters. And so just a lot of focus. 
They talked about making sure that the folks running the 
programs have the education and resources they need to keep up 
with those type of issues. It's very important and we need to 
make sure that both in the policy of child nutrition and 
regulations that we're focused on giving the tools to those 
local individuals to be able to move forward in what they need 
on that front.
    One of the reasons I believe that when you talk about 
making sure we know which kids we're serving, and how many kids 
we're serving, one of the questions I got so many times, and 
thank you to all of the Members of Congress for the 
flexibilities that were so quickly given during the pandemic to 
make sure that children who were furloughed from school had 
access to food.
    But one of the questions I continue to get is how are we 
providing programs through so many options and we still have so 
many kids that are not getting fed. And sometimes we open up 
the spigots across all of these programs, and some of the folks 
forget to focus on those most in need and make sure that 
they're being taken care of.
    And so it's really about the types of individuals at the 
table with me today making sure that they are concerned about 
their local population and making sure that those most in need 
are getting taken care of, particularly with something basic as 
nutrition.
    Ms. Foxx. In your written testimony you talked about a 
visit to a school where the kids wouldn't eat the food despite 
it being prepared by a chef. Can you discuss why this visit 
stood out to you, and what it tells you about the need for 
flexibility in the regulations and importance of understanding 
the kids we're trying to feed?
    Mr. Lipps. Sure Ranking Member Foxx. I mentioned this a 
little bit earlier about the black beans, but I'll tell you 
that the meal was good. The chef did not fail in preparing a 
good meal. It was good. But he prepared black beans with 
tomatoes cut up in them, and the children told me that they had 
neither tried black beans before, nor were they familiar with 
what the tomatoes were cut up in there, and so it just looked 
like a foreign food to them that they were not interested in 
trying.
    And the staff that day didn't have the time and resources 
to help educate them on that, and it takes all of that to make 
that happen. It's obviously a big focus on education through 
things like farm to school that can change that.
    Ms. Foxx. Great thanks. Ms. Cooper, I understand your menus 
meet the setting target two requirements. Do those menus meet 
target three which is right around the corner without any 
flexibility?
    Ms. Cooper. So no, they don't meet target three right now.
    Ms. Foxx. OK. Well I was going to ask you would you submit 
your proposed menus that are target three compliant? We'd like 
to see what those are, so we can share them with other schools. 
If you get compliant with target three, we'd like to know that.
    Ms. Cooper. Yes, I will, we will do that thank you.
    Ms. Foxx. Thank you very much.
    Chairwoman Bonamici. Do you yield back?
    Ms. Foxx. Yes.
    Chairwoman Bonamici. Thank you, Ranking Member Foxx. So 
this concludes round two and I want to remind my colleagues 
that pursuant to Committee practice materials for submission to 
the hearing record must be submitted to the Committee Clerk 
within 14 days following the last day of the hearing, so by 
close of business on June 24, preferably in Microsoft Word 
format.
    The materials submitted must address the subject matter of 
the hearing. Only a Member of the Subcommittee or an invited 
witness may submit materials for inclusion in the hearing 
record. Documents are limited to 50 pages each, documents 
longer than 50 pages will be incorporated into the record via 
an internet link that you must provide to the Committee Clerk 
within the required timeframe, but please recognize that in the 
future that link may no longer work.
    And pursuant to House rules and regulations items for the 
record should be submitted to the Clerk electronically by 
emailing submissions to [email protected]. 
Again I want to thank the witnesses for their participation 
today. Members of the Subcommittee may have additional 
questions for you.
    We ask the witnesses to please respond to those questions 
in writing. The hearing record will remain open for 14 days to 
receive those responses. And I remind my colleagues that 
pursuant to Committee practice witness questions for the 
hearing record must be submitted to the Majority Committee 
Staff or Committee Clerk within 7 days.
    The questions submitted must address the subject matter of 
the hearing.
    Now I now recognize the distinguished Ranking Member for a 
closing statement.
    Ms. Foxx. Thank you again Chairwoman Bonamici. And thanks 
for the witnesses for joining us today. I think this hearing 
has helped us see that everyone wants to help provide healthy 
meals to students. That is certainly a good place to start for 
any reauthorization.
    But I also think we've learned that while we can be 
aspirational in our goals for the meals, we also have to be 
realistic. We have to think of all schools and areas, not just 
look at well-resourced or large schools that have the staff to 
address the complexity in the program.
    We also have to think about how we help schools get 
students ready to actually eat the healthy foods. Please let me 
be clear here. That doesn't mean no standards, it means having 
realistic standards to help us accomplish the intended goal.
    It's great to hear about pockets of success and scenarios 
where new meals work. I think we can certainly look at that, 
but we have to remember that we legislate for all schools which 
is a major problem from my perspective when we dictate from 
Washington D.C. and not just those with access to world class 
chefs.
    We also need to think about how we can inform the programs 
to work and find the success the chefs have found. One thing 
I'm disappointed in about the discussion from our hearings to 
date is the lack of conversation about parental engagement. 
Parents are a critical component in all of what we do for 
children, and we need to look at reforms that help them provide 
healthy food for their children, help them teach their children 
to choose healthier options.
    I think we also need to look at why so many students are 
walking away from the meals. It's increasing. And even where 
there are free meals, they're walking away from them. If we do 
work on the reauthorization of the school meal program this 
year, I hope there will be a robust conversation that reforms 
to the programs and help parents tackle healthy eating, and not 
just rely on the schools to do it all.
    Finally, we didn't talk a lot about it today, but I'll flag 
that any reauthorization must work on making the program easier 
to operate. That means from compliance with the regulations to 
monitoring costs. I go to every cafeteria I possibly can go 
into when I'm visiting schools throughout the district.
    And what I hear from the ``school lunch ladies,'' which is 
what most people still call them, it's not a pejorative. It's a 
loving term I think that they are very concerned about the 
paperwork and about how they desperately want the children to 
eat the meals they prepare, but how difficult it is to meet the 
requirements. We have to look at compliance, regulations, 
monitoring, accountability is critical, and we must look at how 
to ensure we're focusing the Federal and State efforts on this 
schools that need to improve, and not just looking at checking 
boxes.
    Thank you again Madam Chairwoman for the hearing, and I 
thank the witnesses for their time and information, and I yield 
back.
    Chairwoman Bonamici. Thank you, Ranking Member Foxx, and I 
now recognize myself for purposes of making a closing 
statement. I want to thank our witnesses again for taking the 
time to share their expertise with the Committee today. Your 
compelling testimony made clear that the pandemic has 
exacerbated a child hunger crisis that existed long before 
COVID-19.
    Across the country families are struggling to put enough 
food on the table, and children are growing up without the 
nutrition that's critical for their health and development. As 
we discussed, the Committee acted quickly to address this 
crisis in the wake of the pandemic.
    Our early investments in child nutrition programs prevented 
millions of children from going hungry. This is significant 
progress, but our responsibility to feed hungry children 
extends beyond COVID-19. As I said at the beginning of the 
hearing no child in this country should go hungry regardless of 
whether or not we're facing a devastating pandemic.
    And I want to note in response to the Ranking Member, we 
did actually talk about the administrative burden, and we 
addressed a couple of ways to address that with more community 
eligibility, or meals for all. That addresses, as you 
described, the paperwork and bureaucracy that the people 
working in food services are talking about.
    We must enact the American Jobs Plan, the American Families 
Plan and a comprehensive reauthorization of child nutrition 
programs. During this turning point in our recovery from the 
pandemic, these proposals would invest in nutrition programs in 
schools, in kitchens and communities, to help eradicate child 
hunger throughout the country.
    I look forward to working with my colleagues on both sides 
of the aisle to take these critical steps toward providing all 
children with the nutritious food they need to lead healthy and 
fulfilling lives. Thank you again to all of you for 
participating. If there is no further business without 
objection the Subcommittee stands adjourned.
    [Additional submissions by Chairwoman Bonamici follow:]
    
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    [Additional submission by Mrs. Foxx follow:]
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    [Questions submitted for the record and the responses by 
Mr. Wilson follow:]
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    [Questions submitted for the record and the responses by 
Ms. Cooper follow:]

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    [Whereupon, at 1:41 p.m., the Subcommittee adjourned.]