[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 162 (2016), Part 5]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page 7129]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




   H.R. 5003, ``IMPROVING CHILD NUTRITION AND EDUCATION ACT OF 2016''

                                 ______
                                 

                          HON. RUBEN HINOJOSA

                                of texas

                    in the house of representatives

                         Tuesday, May 24, 2016

  Mr. HINOJOSA. Mr. Speaker, Chairman Kline and Ranking Member Scott, I 
regret that I could not be present for the Education and Workforce 
Committee's full committee markup of H.R. 5003 on May 18th, 2016 due to 
the death of my nephew, a beloved minister who worked tirelessly to 
provide services to many struggling families across the Rio Grande 
Valley of South Texas.
  As a senior member of the Education and Workforce Committee and a 
longtime champion of federal child nutrition programs, I believe that 
Congress must reauthorize federal child nutrition programs through a 
strong bipartisan reauthorization bill. Signed into law by President 
Harry S. Truman in 1946, the Richard B. Russell National School Lunch 
Act created the National School Lunch Program (NSLP) ``as a measure of 
national security, to safeguard the health and well-being of the 
Nation's children.'' Serving 7.1 million students annually in 1946, the 
program has grown to over 30 million students per day in 2015.
  For many students in congressional districts like mine, having access 
to nutritious meals is extremely important. Today, approximately 15 
million children live in households facing food insecurity and receive 
a majority of their calories for the day at school. The Community 
Eligibility provision in current law provides free, nutritious meals to 
8.5 million low-income children in 18,000 higher-poverty schools and 
eliminates the burdensome application requirements for districts, 
schools, and families. Under this provision, high-poverty school 
districts are able to offer universal school meals to all students 
without the addition of complex paperwork for families, as long as the 
school district demonstrates that 40 percent of their students already 
qualify for other federally certified free meals programs, such as the 
Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP).
  Had I been present at the full committee markup, I would have joined 
my House Democratic colleagues in expressing concerns and opposing H.R. 
5003, the ``Improving Child Nutrition and Education Act of 2016.'' This 
highly partisan bill contains harmful provisions that would make it 
more difficult for low-income schools to feed their students. We must 
keep in mind that nutrition programs for children and families impact 
our nation's economy, national security, and classrooms. Our most 
vulnerable children and families deserve more from the federal 
government, which I have always believed has a responsibility to help 
those most in need.
  To be sure, H.R. 5003 is a misguided piece of legislation that would 
weaken the nutrition safety net for our nation's students and families. 
I am deeply concerned that this bill significantly alters the Community 
Eligibility Provision (CEP), lacks meaningful investments for the 
Summer Electronic Benefit Transfer program, adds barriers to the school 
meals verification process, and rolls back important evidenced-based 
criteria to school nutrition standards.
  By passing the Republican proposed 2016 CNR legislation, the CEP 
threshold would be raised to 60 percent and cause too many vulnerable 
students, including up to nearly 47,000 students in my district, to 
potentially lose access to free school meals. These districts do not 
have the framework, funding or capacity to deal with the considerable 
amount of administrative work that comes with increasing the CEP.
  For these reasons, I will continue to urge my colleagues to oppose 
H.R. 5003 in its current form and instead work to ensure that children 
and families have access to robust federal nutrition programs. My 
Democratic colleagues and I strongly believe that Congress must work to 
address food insecurity and hunger in America by making it easier for 
more needy children to access federal child nutrition programs. Our 
nation's most vulnerable children deserve nothing less.

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