[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 149 (2003), Part 18]
[House]
[Pages 24859-24860]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                        HUNGER CRISIS IN AMERICA

  (Ms. HOOLEY of Oregon asked and was given permission to address the 
House for 1 minute and to revise and extend her remarks.)
  Ms. HOOLEY of Oregon. Mr. Speaker, when Americans think about hunger, 
we usually think about mass starvation in faraway countries. But hunger 
too often lurks in our own back yards.
  In the United States, over 33 million people live in households where 
people have to skip meals or eat less to make ends meet. In many homes 
in my State of Oregon, an estimated 720,000 people ate meals from 
emergency food boxes at least once last year.
  Children comprise nearly 40 percent of those receiving emergency 
food, yet this administration is considering making changes to the 
verification process for the free and reduced-price school meals that 
could eliminate more eligible low-income children.
  Today, four of my Oregon colleagues and I sent a letter to Secretary 
of Agriculture Ann Veneman asking her to reconsider making such costly 
changes

[[Page 24860]]

to the system until we better understand the potential consequences of 
these changes.
  It is my hope that the administration will continue to work to remedy 
the hunger crisis in our Nation without using costly and ineffective 
measures that will impede our children's access to nutritious and low-
cost school meals that they need to grow and learn. I am committed to 
finding a solution to the problem, and I ask my colleagues to come 
together and find effective solutions and show that hunger does indeed 
have a cure.

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