[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 69 (Thursday, May 16, 1996)]
[Senate]
[Pages S5207-S5208]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                 AMENDING THE NATIONAL SCHOOL LUNCH ACT

  Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate 
proceed to the immediate consideration of H.R. 2066, just received from 
the House.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will state the bill by title.
  The assistant legislative clerk read as follows:

       A bill (H.R. 2066) to amend the National School Lunch Act 
     to provide greater flexibility to schools to meet the dietary 
     guidelines for Americans under the school lunch and school 
     breakfast programs.

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection to the immediate 
consideration of the bill?
  There being no objection, the Senate proceeded to consider the bill.
  Mr. LUGAR. Mr. President, the bill before us today amends the 
National School Lunch Act to provide greater flexibility to school food 
service authorities to meet the USDA dietary guidelines for Americans. 
It is a positive step in providing healthy meals for our Nation's 
school children.
  As I have stated on numerous occasions, the National School Lunch and 
Breakfast Programs work. School food service authorities have worked 
for nearly 50 years feeding millions of children each school day 
healthy meals. In recent years they have worked even harder to reduce 
the fat and sodium in the meals. I support these changes made by school 
food authorities to improve the nutritional profile of school meals; 
and I believe it is important to provide them adequate flexibility to 
serve meals that meet the USDA dietary guidelines for Americans and the 
recommended dietary allowances.
  The purpose of the bill, which is similar to one introduced by the 
distinguished Senator from Mississippi, Senator Cochran, is not to 
delete or postpone the implementation of the dietary guidelines as 
contained in the Healthy Meals for Healthy Americans Act of 1994. It 
is, however, to provide needed flexibility and clarity to meet these 
requirements in a cost efficient manner. Guidelines issued by the 
Department of Agriculture to assist schools in meeting nutrition 
requirements should reflect the intent of the bill and should not 
require intensive paperwork or sophisticated nutrient analysis of meals 
prior to food service.
  The U.S. Department of Agriculture recently issued a policy statement 
revising the instructions for crediting grains and breads in the 
National School Lunch Program. The policy statement is complicated and 
potentially costly to schools. While I support the philosophy of the 
Department to assist schools in meeting the dietary guidelines, I 
question the need for such an explicit policy statement. It is my hope 
that this legislation, along with assistance from the Department of 
Agriculture, will help school food service authorities serve meals that 
meet the nutritional requirements and children will eat.
  This legislation has strong support from the Indiana School Food 
Service Association and the American School Food Service Association. 
It is also supported by the Clinton administration.
  I urge Senators to support the bill.
  Mr. COCHRAN. Mr. President, today the Senate is considering H.R. 
2066, a bill that is virtually the same as S.

[[Page S5208]]

1613, which I introduced in the Senate earlier this year.
  The purpose of this legislation is to amend the National School Lunch 
Act to provide greater flexibility to schools to meet the dietary 
guidelines for Americans contained in Public Law 103-448, the Healthy 
Meals for Healthy Americans Act of 1994. This bill does not postpone or 
reduce in any way the statutory requirement that schools have to meet 
these dietary guidelines.
  The National School Lunch Program currently operates in over 92,000 
schools and serves approximately 26 million children each day. In my 
State of Mississippi approximately 7 out of 10 children participate in 
the School Lunch Program.
  The Secretary should take measures to ensure accountability, but 
should ensure those measures do not reduce the flexibility in this 
bill. It is not the intent of this bill for the Secretary to require 
school food authorities to provide detailed information about recipes, 
menus, nutrients, or nutrient analyses in order to receive approval to 
use a menu-planning method other than the three prescribed by USDA. 
Limitations on staff time and resources could make it extremely 
difficult for many school food authorities to provide such information. 
Schools that desire to use the 1994-95 food-based meal policies are 
entitled to do so under this legislation without preapproval. This 
legislation will also allow schools to consider local and regional 
preferences when preparing meals.
  This bill has received wide support from school representatives at 
both the local and national level and from the administration. Earlier 
this week the other body passed this bill by unanimous consent. I urge 
my colleagues to support this legislation.
  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, I rise in support of H.R. 2066, which 
is identical to S. 1613, a bill which I cosponsored. The purpose of 
this legislation is to provide commonsense flexibility to schools in 
meeting the statutory requirement of serving meals that meet the 
dietary guidelines for Americans under the school lunch and breakfast 
programs.
  The dietary guidelines for Americans were first issued jointly by the 
Department of Agriculture and the Department of Health and Human 
Services in 1980, and have been revised several times since to reflect 
developments in scientific opinion. They present reasonable suggestions 
for how healthy Americans should eat to help them stay healthy. 
Congress has required that the school lunch and breakfast programs meet 
standards outlined in the dietary guidelines beginning with the 1996-97 
school year.
  Local school food service personnel have been working hard to improve 
the nutritional quality of school meals so that the dietary guidelines 
would be met. Good progress has been underway in virtually all schools, 
and many schools have met the dietary guidelines for a number of years 
using the existing food-based meal pattern. Unfortunately, recent 
regulatory efforts by the Department of Agriculture seem to have been 
undertaken with such good-intentioned zeal that local school food 
service personnel found themselves being micromanaged from Washington. 
Mr. President, there are relatively few things that work out well when 
mandated in detail from Washington and then implemented without 
reasonable discretion across the country. In school lunches and 
breakfasts, that is a recipe for disaster.
  This legislation makes crystal clear that the regulations, policies, 
and guidelines in effect in 1994-95 school year are to be available to 
schools as one of the reasonable means of meeting the dietary 
guidelines. This legislation reaches beyond the regulations to the 
informal policy guidance documents. For example, the Department of 
Agriculture has issued a new policy regarding bread serving sizes that 
could have been issued under the 1994-95 food plan regulations, but was 
not. This new policy specifies, among other things, various sizes for 
muffins that must be served to meet the new policy. The sizes depend on 
the ingredients, and in some cases, the size of muffins would have to 
double. This legislation provides that the previous bread policy is 
available to schools in serving a food-based menu plan. This 
legislation is not to be construed as permitting new mandates or 
overly-clever interpretations in informal policy statements with the 
effect of defeating flexibility for local schools. This is just the 
sort of micromanagement from Washington our schools do not need.
  Mr. President, I know and appreciate the work of school food service 
personnel. They work day in and day out to provide the best possible 
meals for the children of their school. Often, they are preparing meals 
for their own children. The Department of Agriculture should not again 
lose sight of that commitment by local school personnel. Instead of 
detailed mandates that prove to be unworkable, USDA should strive to 
work with the local food service personnel who feed our children each 
school day.
  Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the bill be 
deemed read the third time, passed, the motion to reconsider be laid 
upon the table, and any statements relating to the bill appear at the 
appropriate place in the Record.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  The bill (H.R. 2066) was deemed read the third time, and passed.

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