Child Nutrition Issues in the 105th Congress

Publication Date: June 1998

Publisher: Library of Congress. Congressional Research Service

Author(s):

Research Area: Health

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Abstract:

Reauthorization. Appropriations authority for several child nutrition programs will expire by the end of the 105th Congress, prompting congressional action in 1998. Expiring authorities include those for: the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (the WIC program), the Summer Food Service program, State Administrative Expense (SAE) assistance, the commodity distribution program, and a number of special-purpose projects. While other child nutrition programs (such as the School Lunch and Breakfast programs) are permanently authorized, significant changes in these programs also are being considered for inclusion in the reauthorization legislation.

Legislation. On June 4, 1998, the House Committee on Education and the Workforce ordered reported a substantially amended bipartisan version of H.R. 3874. This bill, now entitled the Child Nutrition and WIC Reauthorization Amendments of 1998, extends expiring program appropriations authorities through FY2003 and revises the National School Lunch Act and the Child Nutrition Act for net federal outlay savings estimated at approximately $70 million through FY2003. The major spending item in the bill expands the availability of federal subsidies for snacks served in after-school programs. The savings in the bill are derived from provisions (1) requiring that, when federal children nutrition subsidies are indexed for inflation each year, they all be rounded down to the nearest whole cent (not to the nearest quarter cent) and (2) reducing federal funds set aside for audits in the Child and Adult Care Food program. Additional amendments authorize a demonstration project providing free breakfasts for elementary school children without regard to family income, increase administrative flexibility for schools, states, and WIC agencies, make it easier for private nonprofit sponsors to operate the Summer Food Service program, change licensing and health/safety requirements on participating child nutrition providers, add a number of provisions to protect the integrity of the WIC program, and limit the degree to which WIC agencies can keep unused money and spend it in the following year. Most of the provisions in the Administration’s child nutrition reauthorization package (H.R. 3666/S.2166) are included in H.R. 3874 as ordered reported.

Eight other bills are before Congress: H.R. 3086, H.R. 3405, H.R. 3871, H.R. 3872, H.R. 3873, S. 1396, S.1556, and S.1581. Major provisions in these bills that are not contained in the bipartisan H.R. 3874 include those that would: mandate federal subsidies for free breakfasts to all elementary schoolchildren in participating schools (regardless of family income), restore money for start-up and expansion grants for breakfast and summer programs, and expand participation by for-profit child care providers in the Child and Adult Care Food program.

The House may take up H.R. 3874 during the week of June 22, 1998, and consideration of child nutrition legislation by the Senate Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry Committee also is expected the week of June 22.