WASHINGTON—The House Education and Labor Committee passed the Improving Nutrition for America’s Children Act, H.R. 5504, with a bipartisan vote of 32-13.
The bill includes sweeping reforms to increase access and remove barriers to child nutrition programs, improve the quality of the meals served and implement new school food safety guidelines. The bill would increase the reimbursement rate for schools, and require schools to set standards for foods served outside the cafeteria, including vending machines.
“If we allow our children’s health to suffer, if we allow more children to go hungry by not taking swift action with this legislation, we fail our children, their families and the future of this country,” said U.S. Rep. George Miller (D-CA), chair of the House Education and Labor Committee and original co-sponsor of this legislation. “This legislation gives us a real opportunity to make dramatic reforms to help prevent hunger, to improve children’s health and increase access to healthy meals. The health and academic success of an entire generation of children is at stake.”
In addition to other amendments offered by committee Members, the committee voted on a managers amendment, offered by Miller, that would bolster the legislation and help achieve President Obama’s goal of enhancing and improving the federal child nutrition programs. The amendment would expand the national afterschool meals program so more children in afterschool programs can have an additional snack or meal. Among other provisions, it would improve nutrition education and make further enhancements to food safety and food quality.
The managers amendment also strengthens the science-based foundation that ensures the WIC program best meets the nutrition needs of participants by enhancing the Secretary of Agriculture’s existing authority to conduct scientific reviews and ensures that the review considers the modern food environment, including innovations in the marketplace that may enhance WIC foods to better meet nutritional needs.
