Keep your nutrition calls coming!! Conferees approve nutrition title funding, though no decision are final yet!!

Senate/House conferees approved $10.365 billion in new ten-year funding for the nutrition title of the Farm Bill (H.R. 2419) in a late night meeting May 1st. Conferees left open the issue of privatization of eligibility determination processes and eight non-nutrition title issues. Budget scoring due from the Congressional Budget Office may require revisiting some decisions. Another short-term extension of current farm program law (H.R. 2954) gives lawmakers until May 16th to get a reauthorization passed and signed.

Call your Members of Congress (Senators and Representatives) to thank them for the nutrition title increase and also to urge them to finish the job by passing the strongest possible nutrition title of the Farm Bill. 

Of particular importance are PA Representatives Todd Platts (19^th Dist), Paul Kanjorski (11^th Dist), and Tim Holden (17^th Dist) who are all Farm Bill Conferees!  If your member of Congress is not a conferee, please call and urge them to relay the message of a strong nutrition title to leadership.

Use the toll-free number (1-800-826-9624) made available by AARP to connect to the U.S. Capitol switchboard.  Share the toll-free number with your allies.

The $10.365 billion in new ten-year funding for the nutrition title provides (among other provisions):

• $7.845 billion for Food Stamp Program improvements, including:
  • The first increase in the minimum benefit in 30 years (to $14 and then indexed)
  • An increase of the standard deduction for households of 3 or fewer (to $144 and then indexed) the standard deduction for households of three or fewer
  • The removal of the cap for the dependent care deduction
  • An index to asset limits and exclusion of retirement and education savings accounts from them.
• $1.256 billion to increase and index commodity purchases for TEFAP