[Congressional Record Volume 160, Number 56 (Monday, April 7, 2014)]
[Senate]
[Page S2191]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                     SCHOOL FOOD MODERNIZATION ACT

  Ms. HEITKAMP. Mr. President, our kids spend at least 7 hours a day at 
school working, learning, growing, and trying to build themselves into 
the people they want to grow up to become. It is our job to help them. 
That means giving them the education they deserve. It means giving them 
the support they need to keep working hard. And it means making sure 
they get healthy meals to keep them strong and to give them the fuel 
they need to focus in class.
  That is why Senator Susan Collins from Maine and I introduced the 
School Food Modernization Act, which would help schools provide 
healthier meals to students in North Dakota and throughout the country. 
This bill would continue ongoing efforts to provide healthy meals for 
our children during the school day and make sure schools have the 
resources they need to get the most nutritious food to students.
  Providing healthy meals is particularly important as childhood 
obesity rates in the U.S. have tripled over the last three decades. 
More than 23 million adolescents and children in our country--nearly 1 
in 3 young people nationwide--are obese or overweight. According to the 
American Heart Association, it is the No. 1 healthy concern among 
parents--more than drug abuse and smoking. Even in my State of North 
Dakota, which is consistently ranked as one of the healthiest States in 
the country, more than 1 in 8 adolescents are overweight or obese.
  Improving the nutritional quality of school meals can help fight the 
obesity epidemic, putting children on strong footing to prevent long-
term health concerns related to obesity, such as diabetes, heart 
disease, and stroke. In 2010, Congress passed the Healthy and Hunger 
Free Kids Act to improve the school nutrition standards. It made 
important improvements to nutrition standards in school meals, but was 
not perfect. Most importantly, it mandated school lunch requirements 
without offering real support to reach those standards.
  Senator Collins and I are working to improve these standards in order 
to provide greater flexibility to school meal planners to make sure 
they can provide students with the nutrition they need in workable 
fashion. We are also offering grant assistance to help schools get 
resources to comply with standards.
  Another way we can help provide more nutritious meals to students is 
by providing our schools with the necessary tools to prepare meals and 
store fresh produce. While nutritional standards for meals served in 
our schools have increased considerably, support for schools to 
implement these important changes has lagged behind.
  Many school kitchens were built decades ago and designed with little 
capacity beyond reheating and holding food for dining service. In fact, 
according to the Pew Charitable Trusts, 74 percent of school districts 
in North Dakota need at least one piece of kitchen equipment to better 
serve healthy meals. We can do better than that.
  The legislation we introduced would give schools greater access to 
the equipment they need to prepare healthy meals, reduce waste, and 
make resources stretch further.
  Specifically, our legislation would provide targeted grant assistance 
to school administrators and food service directors to upgrade kitchen 
infrastructure or purchase high-quality, durable kitchen equipment such 
as commercial ovens, steamers, and stoves. Additionally, our 
legislation would establish a loan assistance program within USDA to 
help schools acquire new equipment to prepare and serve healthier, more 
nutritious meals to students. School administrators and other eligible 
borrowers would be able to obtain Federal guarantees for 90 percent of 
the loan value needed to construct, remodel, or expand their kitchens, 
dining, or food storage infrastructure. Finally, our legislation would 
strengthen training and provide technical assistance to aid school food 
service personnel in meeting the updated nutrition guidelines. Not 
every school food service employee is equipped with the expertise to 
comply with healthier meal and food preparation standards. Our bill 
authorizes USDA to provide support on a competitive basis to highly 
qualified third-party trainers to develop and administer training and 
technical assistance.
  USDA has a long history of providing support for schools to upgrade 
meal preparation equipment; however, this support has been sporadic and 
unreliable for long-term planning. And in recent years, the demand for 
support has been great with requests for assistance far outpacing 
availability.
  As the Senate agriculture committee begins to consider 
reauthorization of the school nutrition program, I look forward to 
working with my colleagues on improving school meal offerings and 
providing schools with the tools needed to give our children the 
nutritional fuel necessary to learn and grow.
  As the daughter of a school cook, I understand the work that goes 
into preparing many healthy meals each day for kids, and this bill 
would help make limited resources stretch as far as possible to provide 
support to communities that need it in North Dakota and throughout the 
U.S. That just makes sense for our students, parents, teachers, and 
school cooks.

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