[Congressional Record Volume 168, Number 57 (Thursday, March 31, 2022)]
[Senate]
[Pages S1912-S1913]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

      By Ms. STABENOW (for herself, Ms. Murkowski, Mr. Heinrich, Ms. 
        Collins, Mr. Manchin, Ms. Sinema, Mrs. Gillibrand, Mr. Casey, 
        Mr. Van Hollen, Ms. Smith, Mr. Brown, Ms. Baldwin, Mr. Booker, 
        Mr. Lujan, Ms. Klobuchar, Mr. Durbin, Mr. Warnock, Mr. Markey, 
        Ms. Hirono, Ms. Duckworth, Mr. Sanders, Mr. Reed, Mr. Leahy, 
        Mr. Wyden, Mrs. Shaheen, Ms. Hassan, Mr. Bennet, Mr. Merkley, 
        Ms. Warren, Mr. Padilla, Mr. Warner, Mrs. Murray, Mr. Cardin, 
        Mr. Coons, Ms. Cortez Masto, Mr. Carper, Mr. Schatz, Mr. 
        Peters, Mr. King, Mrs. Feinstein, Ms. Rosen, Mr. Menendez, Mr. 
        Kaine, Mr. Blumenthal, Mr. Murphy, Mr. Hickenlooper, Mr. 
        Whitehouse, Mr. Kelly, Mr. Ossoff, Mr. Tester, Mr. Schumer, and 
        Ms. Cantwell):
  S. 3979. A bill to amend the Families First Coronavirus Response Act 
to extend child nutrition waiver authority; to the Committee on 
Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry.
  Ms. STABENOW. Mr. President, as the pandemic began, Congress, on a 
bipartisan basis, made sure our schools and our summer meal programs 
had easy-to-use flexibilities so they could continue to feed hungry 
children who were no longer physically in school or no longer able to 
go to a meal site in the summer because of COVID.
  All across America now, because of a lot of hard work on a lot of 
people's part, our kids are now back in school, which is great. But 90 
percent of our schools are still struggling to provide children healthy 
food as a result of higher food prices, less available staff, and more 
supply chain delays and shortages that we know about all the time. In 
fact, part of that relates to this bill which was just passed on 
shipping. This is part of the supply chain breakdown that has affected 
the ability for our schools to be able to get what they need for our 
children.
  We have 90 percent--all this in red, across the country--of the 
States saying: We need these flexibilities that have been in place from 
the very beginning of COVID. We extended the flexibilities before, and 
they need them to continue to be able to feed children in our country. 
School cafeterias, summer meal providers--everybody is working as hard 
as they can to get back to normal, but they need time to transition so 
our children aren't hurt in the process. The USDA, school 
administrators, local mayors, even school food suppliers themselves 
have said they need these flexibilities to continue for another year.
  Back in January, the Agricultural Secretary, Secretary Vilsack, 
called on Congress to once again extend what we call the nutrition 
waivers so that schools and meal providers had the flexibility they 
need to feed hungry children who may have their only meal at school or 
their only breakfast or their only lunch at school or, in the summer, 
through the feeding programs.
  We have been working in good faith, as we always do, across the aisle 
to make this extension happens. We were working on having that happen 
as part of the omnibus. It was a real shock to me and to many of the 
Senators who care deeply about our children when Republican Leader 
McConnell refused to agree to extending the school nutrition 
flexibilities as part of the omnibus bill that we just passed, that we 
know was critically important to pass. We don't want the government to 
shut down. We had essential, critical resources for Ukraine and so many 
other issues. But our kids were left behind in this one, and it is not 
right. We need to fix it.
  We are in a critical transition period right now, but we are not out 
of the pandemic yet. Without having these flexibilities extended, 
without this support, up to 30 million children who get their food, 
their only healthy meals at school will see their breakfast and lunch 
disrupted, and that makes absolutely no sense. Millions of kids will 
show up at their summer meal program this July and could very well see 
a ``closed'' sign.
  That is why, today, Senator Lisa Murkowski and I are introducing the 
Support Kids Not Red Tape Act, along with Senator Collins and all 50 
Members of our Democratic caucus.
  Let me stress that this is a temporary extension with a clear end 
date and a lot of procedures put in place to safely get schools and 
summer meal programs back to normal operations. We want to give them 
time to transition.
  I am so grateful for our colleagues' support--52 colleagues. We only 
need eight more. We only need eight more Republicans to join us to get 
this done right away, just like we did the shipping bill.
  Our schools need time. Our kids need time right now rather than 
having this abruptly end June 30, which is not very far away. So let's 
be clear. To abruptly pull the lunch tray away from hungry kids at the 
end of June is just plain wrong.
  Since the pandemic started in March 2020, food insecurity for 
families and their children has jumped by nearly two-thirds. We all 
know the stories. We have all seen the lines. People across the country 
are engaging to support each other. One in five kids comes to school 
hungry, and school and summer programs may be the only meal that they 
get. During the pandemic, it was even worse. Now, because of all the 
challenges continuing, we are not out of the woods on this yet in terms 
of feeding our children.
  How have these flexibilities helped our children be able to get 
healthy meals? One example is in Rapid City, SD, where the local school 
district has partnered with Meals on Wheels in the summer to deliver 
meals to where the kids are. It makes sense. This has been a lifesaver 
for hungry children in their rural communities who had no way to get to 
the one school meal site that was miles and miles away.
  In Arkansas, the food insecurity rate among children skyrocketed to 
over 32 percent during the pandemic, 32 percent of the children being 
food insecure, not being able to have a healthy meal.
  Fayetteville and Bentonville schools' summer meals programs have 
provided weekly meal pack pickups with a week's worth of breakfast and 
lunch. So rather than a parent who is working trying to figure out, how 
do I get my child to a place to get a healthy breakfast, and by the 
way, I may have to take them back again for a healthy lunch--by the 
way, in the rural community, there is not a lot of public 
transportation. It certainly affects everyone in urban areas, suburban 
areas, and rural areas, but the distances in rural communities are an 
extra burden oftentimes. So they put together the capacity to do a 
week's worth. Those were the flexibilities we gave them that we want to 
continue.
  In Edgecombe County, NC, resourceful schools found a way to get meals 
to 100 kids during the summer by using

[[Page S1913]]

the schoolbus. The schoolbus wasn't being used, so they put the food on 
a schoolbus and went out to the neighborhoods, out to the kids.
  As a result of these flexibilities, twice as many kids got summer 
meals during the pandemic, which is something we also need to learn 
from. Just as we have learned the importance of high-speed internet 
after the pandemic, and we have addressed that, which is great, we have 
now learned that we need to rethink some of these things here, in terms 
of the flexibilities for our schools and how we deliver summer meals, 
how we address schools during the school year.
  So it goes to show you what a big difference it makes for hungry kids 
when we don't make them or their families or their meal providers jump 
through all kinds of hoops to get something as basic as a healthy meal.
  In schools across Kentucky, from smalltown Madison County to 
metropolis Jefferson County, these flexibilities have kept kids from 
getting caught in the redtape and going hungry if their struggling 
parent just missed one piece of paper on a form.
  It has been a relief to school food service directors in small towns 
who are already working with half the staff, twice the stress of 
putting together healthy meals with all the food and supply chain 
shortages we have talked about.
  Right now, school food service directors in Utah are placing orders 
for next year, knowing that many of the items they need are currently 
not available and the ones they can find have doubled in price.
  The flexibilities and increased funding to deal with these costs--the 
things we have given them to deal with this--have made it possible to 
make substitutions when basic items like ground beef are not available 
or fruit is not available, to be able to put together something healthy 
in a different way.
  Losing these flexibilities will cut their budgets by 40 percent and 
force meal providers to make pretty dire choices on which children to 
feed and how schools are going to pay for it.
  Without our bill to support kids and cut redtape, all of these 
desperately needed flexibilities are going to go away at the end of 
June. They are just going to go away--all the support for schools, all 
the support for children, all the new creative things that have been 
able to be done to help children get healthy meals, done.
  School meals, summer programs will have to scale back. Some will have 
to stop feeding kids altogether. Children will once again go hungry 
because of paperwork and bureaucracy outside of their control. I mean, 
you think about this: Are we on the side of bureaucracy or are we on 
the side of kids?
  This legislation is on the side of kids. My colleagues supporting 
this bill and sponsoring this are on the side of kids, not redtape.
  The unnecessary stress is going to be felt by families in every part 
of our country, from small towns to big cities, to suburban areas. So 
our bill gives us a clear, easy path forward to make sure children and 
to make sure schools have the time and the support they need to get 
back on their feet as we recover from the pandemic and to be able to 
plan for how this phases out. Schools across the country are telling us 
that these flexibilities are critical to continuing--absolutely 
critical.
  So it is time for us to listen to them and to do the right thing for 
our children. I urge my colleagues to pass the Support Kids Not Red 
Tape Act as soon as possible.

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